〖TOEFL 2009上半年-Dark_Tournament听力组 Grace.TT的听力备考日志帖

grace.TTUID: 2534695

4.12(一)
地球科学类
Listen to a talk given by a professor of Meteorology.
First of all ,let’s look at why the temperature tend to be higher in city than in the rural area.This happens because alomost 50 percent of urban areas can comprise hard services(surfaces) like paved street, parking lot,buildings and roof tops.As the result,any amount of rainfall is quickly repelled by this service（surfaces） and carried away by storm drains and gutters. Especially water just doesn’t have chance stand around until envaperate(evaporate) and during the process of evaporation that hit(heat) is removed from the air.So in cities where there is less evaperation,temperatures will be higher.
And of course there are also be issue of added heat coming from building heating system from industry,cars even human body.Even in(we being in) the city itself ,temperatures can vary significantly. For example,in winter ,streets get a lot of use will be 2 or 3 degrees warmer than less travel streets. In place were(where) car seat(sits) for a while like a stoplight can be in another 3 degrees warmer.On the other hand, low spots in the city will(where) cold air collect will be much colder than higher places.Rain and snowfall are also affected by organization(urbanization). Cities tend to get last snowfall(get quiet less snowfall) than the surrounding countryside because of warmer temperature in the city. but rainfall in the city can be find(5) to 10 percent higher. That happens because of 2 factors.First the warmer city temperatures .And second,the large number of dust particles in the earth(urban) air.If the(It seems ) dust particles are important requirement for c s(condensation).the water vapor in the atmosphere is able to change to liquor(liquid) by cli(planning) to dust particles suspending(ed) in the air.So where there is the higher number of dust particles, condensation take place more easily.That’s why fogs and clouds are usually more frequent around the city.Once condensation takes place,rainfall is not far behind.In the London area for example, thunderstorms can produce 30 percent more rainfall than the surrounding countryside.Some urban climatologists go so far as they argue that they can see a
pattern increasing the rainfall during the workweek.They believe rainfall amounts are small around the weekend because the dust particle generated by cars and factories are reduced.

Listen to a talk in a geology class.
I often hear my friends say that the days pass much more quickly than they used to. But geologically speaking just the opposite is true.In fact,a complete day which not(now) lasts 24 hours actually used to be much shorter only about 18.
How to(do) we know that?Because of a number of finally strata rocks like these. Rocks form(形态) belong ancient shorelines almost billions years ago.The tiny lines of these samples show us layers of light and dark formed by dust blown over the shoreline from landsite. Alternating was the mud and sand deposited by the waves.So the space between one dark stratum and the next represent the time between one monthly high tide in the next.And the varying in fitness of layer show us the cycle(circle) of the season as well.Together the data indicate that there were fewer months for year way back then.That means that the Moon was moving more slowly than as it revolved around the Earth.
So what caused the Moon do speed up so much over last billion years?It must be the tides.Think about it.As the gravity of Moon pulls on the oceans to form the tides, all that water is also pulling on the Moon and with each rotation it makes the Moon move a tiny bit faster. At the same time, like the break(brakes) on the wheel of bicycle,the drag caused by the Moon’s gravity makes the Earth turn just a tiny bit slower.And so after a billion years or so,one rotation meaning one day takes a lot longer than it once did.
strata地层
high tide高潮 涨潮时期

grace.TTUID: 2534695

Listen to part of lecture in a geology class.
Most of you are probably familiar with the flow of lava that can result from a volcanic eruption.Lava actually being mixture of magma and convince to be produce underground.And many people think this eruption refers only to an explosion,but in geology an eruption is any release of magma.This can and often does common the form of the explosion but sometimes the magma just blow out the mountain of the volcano.
In any event,let take a look at now some other hazard caused by volcanic events.P is the word used to describe the fragmentary rocks that were rejected during the volcanic eruption.A P fall is the combination of rock fragments and fluid fire lava that built in the air.This project tile can be just tiny pieces of ash or they can be rock fragments that are typically the size of baseball or volleyball Although some can be so enormous they weigh many tons, the most dangerous of all volcanic events is what we call a P flow.
In this explosion there are tremendous released pressure and this result in avalanche of super heated mixture of gas and rocks.This glowing avalanche as it called can reach temperature of 1000 degree centigrade and can travel as far as 600 kilometers in an hour.It can literally destroy everything as it passed.And that’s what happen when Mount Pelee erupt on Martinique island in 1902.Within minutes after the volcano erupted,the town of Saint Pierre was completely wiped out.
lava火山岩－－石头
magma岩浆－－液体
Saint Pierre皮尔：美国南达科他州的首府

grace.TTUID: 2534695

4.26－－艺术史
Listen to a part of talk in an Art history class.
To study paintings by old masters,experts often make use of modern technology.Today let's talk about one example of that--X rays.These days X ray equipment is no longer found just in hospitals and dentist's offices.Now it's also widely used in the study of works of art and it led to some exciting discoveries.For instance,an art historian in Ohio discovered that the two famous paintings now held in different museums were originally part of a same painting,probably sewed apart by some greedy art dealer.X-rays shows several hidden figures that had been split between the two canvases.In another famous painting,a portrait of a young boy,an X ray revealed the artist had once painted a small white dog where now only rocks and grass can be seen .In this case,the technology gives us an insight into how an artist thinking developed in（and） changed during the process of painting a picture.Perhaps the most important question in art historian may have to address is whether a particular work was actually painted by a certain master artist or perhaps by a less well known apprentice or imitator.They hide in brush dropper back in X rays revealed may lead to a definite answer to this question but not always.Let me tell you now about two respected experts and how each use X rays of one famous Dutch portait to support radically different conclusions about it.