关注微信公众号TD北美留学进化论 与20W+出国党一同奋斗

TPO74 听力文本

C1
Listen to a conversation between a student and a university administrator.

Hi, I have some questions about the dormitory fire inspections. I made an
appointment to see you. My name's Marcia Travers. Oh, yeah, you're my ten
thirty. Right? So fire inspections are going on. Now. You can check the
university web page to see when your dorm will be inspected. Oh, well, mine
was already done. Oh, right. I have your Information right here, should have
looked at it more carefully. Marsha Travers, single room. Well, I haven't gotten
the report yet, but I wanted to explain about my extension cord. I know it's a
violation, but it was just temporary. I mean, I was planning to move the
furniture around this weekend, so the fridge would be closer to the electrical
outlet. And then I was gonna get rid of the extension cord. Um, uh, extension
cords are against the rules, too.

The inspector must have missed it. So in fact, you have another violation. Oh,
me, and my big mouth. No, I'm glad you mentioned it. This is for your safety.
And everybody else's, too. There are no shortcuts to the fire codes here. The
real problem is the refrigerator. The other problems are important, too, like the
electric kettle, but the most urgent one is the fridge. Right? I just heard that
kettles are a violation, so mine spending the rest of the semester tucked away
in my suitcase. But the refrigerator, I just bought it.

Well, if you'd read the student handbook, you'd have seen that the regulations
are very clear. Students can only bring in models smaller than 5 cubic feet.
And your fridge is twice that size. It must take up half the room. Um, do you
have a copy of the handbook? I don't think I ever got one. I'll give you one
before you leave. Thanks. Um. But I bought this refrigerator from another
student, and she'd been using it for years. Well, at least 2 years. Well, then
she didn't live in a standard dormitory. She lived in Harper Hall. Well, Harper
Hall is different. All the units there are suites, apartments, really with small
kitchens. Residents supply their own appliances like microwaves and fridges.
Oh, so the dorm rules about appliances don't apply there. No, not at Harper
Hall. Oh, boy. And I was so pleased with my purchase.

So what do I do now? Well, you have 2 weeks to dispose of the fridge. You
can store it or sell it, but it can't stay in your room. I can't believe this, and I
had to rope in all my friends to help me get it up to the third floor. You have no
idea. Well, how you got it up there without anyone stopping you? I don't know.
This is a first warning, though. So there's no fine. And if you can't find a buyer

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who’d pick it up. And if you decide to hold on to it, we’ll help you move it
downstairs to the storage area.

1. What do the speakers mainly discuss?

A. Reasons the student needs to remove her refrigerator

B. How dormitory appliance regulations have changed

C. How to resolve the student's fire code violations

D. Fire code violations that an inspector missed

2. Why is the student surprised that her refrigerator does not meet dormitory
regulations? Click on 2 answers.

A. She bought it from another student.

B. The inspector did not include it in the inspection report.

C. She has not read the student handbook

D. The building staff helped her move it to the third floor.

3. How is Harper Hall different from other student housing facilities?

A. Residents must bring their own refrigerators.

B. Residents do not have to comply with certain appliance regulations

C. Students who live there have to sign a two-year contract

D. Students there can use storage areas in the basement

4. What happened to the student's electric kettle?

A. The fire inspector removed it.

B. The student replaced it with a different model

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C. The student put it in a safe place

D. The student sold it to someone in another dormitory.

5. Why does the student say this:

A. To complain about a policy that has changed

B. To contradict what the man just said

C. To give the man information that he needs

D. To remind the man of something he had said earlier

答案：C(AC)BCB

L1
Listen to part of a lecture in a biology.
Class biologists study complex animal behaviors to find out why these
behaviors evolved, how they function, how they're transferred to the next
generation and so forth. The courting behavior of the bowerbird is studied for
all these reasons. A bowerbird is about the size of a pigeon and found mostly
in Australia's rainforest, which is a small but ecologically diverse area in
northeastern Australia. Bower refers to the male birds’ nest or structure. Now,
most birds, including female bowerbirds, build nests to raise chicks, but male
bowerbirds build elaborate structures to help them attract mates.

Take a look at this bowerbird decorating the outside of his structure. As you
see, construction takes place on the forest floor, not in a tree, and apparently
the female bowerbirds like blue decorations. The male decorates the bower
with feathers, flowers, pebbles, and shells. We found bowers decorated with
bright blue clothes pins probably snatched from someone's backyard.
Bowerbirds are also known to steal ornaments from other bowerbirds. When
the bower is ready, a female bird may come over to it and watch the male
perform for her. He'll dance, sing, or rather chirp often quite energetically.

Okay? So there are 17 different kinds of bowerbirds all classified by the type
of bower they build. And there are three major types of Bower. First is the Mat
Bower. Mat bowers are the least elaborate and the easiest to build. They're

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basically thick pads made from sticks and leaves surrounded by ornaments.
With Mat Bowers, there's no real shelter for the female. So when the males
are doing their performance, they keep their bellies close to the ground,
signaling they will not attempt to mate unless invited to do so. And in this way,
they don't frighten or overwhelm the female.

Next is the maple bower. And maple bowers are built around a small tree, a
sapling. But they sometimes have two towers of twigs with a little covered
bridge between them. Maple bowers often have a moss lawn, which is kept
neat and fresh.

Now, the most elaborate bower is the avenue Bower, like the one you saw on
the slide. First, the bird constructs an avenue, which is like a tent out of twigs,
and then it places ornaments all around it. The female can actually go into this
bower to watch the males performance. And we believe that Bowers,
generally and especially Avenue Bowers provide protection for the female
protection against unwanted mating. Perhaps or so, she won't feel threatened
during the courting dance. Oh, oh, and the male may even paint the inside
walls of his bower. He paints with saliva, saliva mixed with chewed-up
blueberries along with charcoal. So let's consider the factors that drive male
Bowerbirds to create these structures.

One biologist Gerald Borgia has been studying Bowerbirds for more than 20
years. Borgia found, well, first recall that many bird species select their mates
based on the attractiveness of their feathers or plumage peacocks, a prime
example. Well, one biologist hypothesized that the bowerbirds that built the
most elaborate Bowers had the least colorful plumage, but Borgia has
disproved that hypothesis. He found no significant relationship between dull
feathers and fancy Bowers. Georgia has found differences in the Bowers
based on where they're located. The fanciest ones tend to be in valleys as
opposed to hill tops. He thinks this has something to do with the available
light. Hill tops are often cloud covered, so females can't see the bowers very
well in the valleys, though there's more sunshine. In another study, they found
that 75% of females returned to the same mate year after year and visit no
other bower.

So you have to wonder why the males would go to such trouble every year,
you know, uh it, especially since there's no guarantee, especially for young
males that any female will choose them. But who knows? Maybe one of you
will shed some light on this one day. Borgia’s also very interested in finding
out whether bowerbirds’ behaviors are learned from their elders, or whether
these behaviors are encoded in their genes at birth. Well, like painting, do they
learn to paint by watching another male bird? Or do they just know how to do

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it? To figure this out, Borgia is raising some male Bowerbirds in captivity.
Some with older birds to learn from and some without.

1. What is the lecture mainly about?

A. The functions of different types of bird nests

B. The influence of habitat on bird behavior

C. The courting behavior of a species of bird

D. A biologist who studies bowerbirds

2. Besides building a bower, what does a male bowerbird do to attract a

mate? Click on 2 answers.

A. Decorates his bower with colorful objects

B. Paints his feathers with chewed blueberries

C. Takes over another male's bower

D. Moves around and vocalizes enthusiastically

3. What does the professor imply about female bowerbirds?

A. They visit numerous bowers before selecting a mate.

B. They might be intimidated by aggressive courting dances.

C. They do not mate with the same male every season.

D. They compete with other females for the most attractive males.

4. How does the professor organize her discussion of the different types of
bowers?

A. By their location in the rain forest

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B. By the types of ornaments in the bower

C. From the most common to the least common

D. From the simplest to the most complex

5. According to the professor, what hypothesis did Borgia prove to be

wrong?

A. The most elaborate bowers are built in valleys

B. Bowerbirds steal ornaments from other bowerbirds.

C. Many females show a preference for the color blue

D. Fancy bowers are built to compensate for plain feathers

6. What is the professor's opinion about the effort that bowerbirds put into
building bowers? Click on 2 answers.

A. It is an excellent example of a learned behavior

B. Its purpose should be researched more in the future

C. It may be a waste of bowerbirds’ time and energy

D. It demonstrates bowerbirds unusually high intelligence

答案：C(AC)BDD(BC)

L2
Listen to part of a lecture in an environmental engineering class.

Okay, we've talked about renewable energy as an alternative way of

generating electricity, alternative to what? To nonrenewable energy, such as
coal or petroleum or natural gas. Something that will eventually run out of,
because we're consuming it at a faster rate than it's being regenerated. Okay,
so what's our primary source of renewable energy? Can the sun? Yes. But it's

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not so easy to use it to generate electricity because uh, it doesn't work at

night. Okay? And it doesn't work very well in places where it's cloudy a lot of
the time. That's right. And the sun's energy is not that easy to capture. We're
trying to use giant panels called solar cells to capture the sun's rays and
convert them into electricity. And we've had some success. But, well, let's
just say that the idea of using the sun, as the principal source of energy in the
United States is, well, as someone once said, it's kind of like the sun itself big
and bright, but further away than it seems.

Okay, now let's talk about the ocean as another source of renewable energy.
The ocean has 2 kinds of mechanical energy that we can use, the tides, and
the waves. In order to use tides, to generate electricity, the difference
between high and low tide has to be at least 5 meters or about 16 feet.
They're only about 40 places on the planet with that kind of tidal range. And
there's actually only one really big tidal energy power station in the world
that's in France. Yes, Susan. So do they build a dam like they do it on some
rivers? Yes. They build a dam across the bay and they have gates and
turbines in the dam. And when the tides produce the required difference in the
water level on opposite sides of the dam, the gates are opened and waters
force through the turbines, which turn a generator which produces electricity.

Okay, so what about the waves? There are 2 kinds of power systems we can
use to convert the energy and waves into electricity. There's what we call an
offshore system where you have devices that are installed in deep water that
float on the waves in the open sea. And then you have what we call an
onshore system where you install your devices along the shoreline to extract
the energy from waves that are breaking on the shore. And there are several
varieties of these systems.

I've never heard of that. No, most people haven't. Because wave power is a
lot like tidal power. You only have a handful of places in the world where it's
practical to use waves to produce electricity. So there's a fundamental
problem with trying to harness the ocean's mechanical energy.

Yes, Ken. What about using the heat energy in the ocean? Has anybody tried
to do that? I mean, I know the ocean has to absorb a lot of heat from the sun.
Well, yes, they have, as a matter of fact, we have a process called ocean
thermal energy conversion or OTEC to convert that heat into electricity. The
ocean covers more than 70% of earth's surface. And it's like a huge solar
panel, a huge solar cell collecting solar energy and heating up. The sun warms
the surface water, a lot more than the deep ocean water. And that
temperature difference creates thermal energy. Ocean, thermal energy
conversion works best when the temperature difference between the surface

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water and the deeper water is about 20℃. You have those conditions in a lot
of tropical areas.

Actually, the idea of tapping the thermal energy of oceans goes way back.
The first of OTEC system was built around. I think it was 1930. Unfortunately,
OTEC systems are very expensive. Still, there are some energy experts who
believe that they might be a major power source in the future. If we can
figure out how to make them more efficient, and OTEC might have a
significant side benefit. There are a number of valuable minerals dissolved in
ocean water. But when they've studied the possibility of mining, you know,
extracting minerals from the ocean, they've always said it wasn't feasible
because it would cost too much money, one to pump all that ocean water
and two to extract the elements. But if you have OTEC plants already
pumping the water, you don't have to worry about that cost. You just have to
figure out how to reduce the cost of extraction.

1. What is the lecture mainly about?

A. The history of power plants in the ocean

B. Differences between renewable and nonrenewable energy

C. Ways of using the ocean as a source of energy

D. Attempts to convert solar energy into electricity

2. What is the professor's opinion about solar energy?

A. He believes that its benefits outweigh its costs

B. He believes that it is more efficient than ocean energy

C. He thinks that it is an especially efficient energy source for tropical regions

D. He thinks that it will be a long time before it replaces nonrenewable

energy sources

3. What condition must exist in order to use ocean tides to generate

electricity?

A. There must be a great difference between high tide and low tide.

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B. The current must be strong even at low tide

C. The height of high tides must be relatively consistent.

D. The power generators must be at least five kilometers from shore.

4. Why does the professor compare the ocean to a solar panel?

A. To clarify the difference between ocean energy and solar energy

B. To explain why ocean thermal energy conversion is possible

C. To emphasize the importance of solar energy

D. To suggest that solar panels should be placed on the ocean's surface

5. What does the professor imply about the ocean's thermal energy?

A. It is potentially more useful than the ocean's mechanical energy

B. It should be combined with wave power to be more efficient

C. Its conversion into electricity is a fairly new process.

D. It could supply up to 70 percent of the world's energy needs

6. According to the professor, how might OTEC systems facilitate the

extraction of minerals from ocean water?

A. By identifying ocean locations that have a high mineral content

B. By eliminating the mining company's cost of pumping ocean water

C. By increasing the mineral content of the water

D. By raising water temperatures to a level at which mineral extraction is less

difficult

答案：CDABAB

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C2
Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.

Hello, professor Stevenson, do you have a minute? Yes, how can I help you?
It's about the essay contest that the one in the English department. Mine is
almost ready, but I just wanna check with you. You're the right person to… to
give it to. Yes, but let's just make sure your essay meets the guidelines.
You're a student, of course, right? And currently enrolled? Yes. Okay. Now,
this essay had to originally been done as a class assignment, and you need a
statement to that effect from your professor. Do you have that? Well, I've
actually rewritten this quite a bit, but originally it did start off as a paper for
professor Walker. Yes, we've had quite a few from her classes. What's the
essay about? Well, don't worry. I don't have anything to do with the judging. I
just push the papers in their direction. It's just the professor Walker and our
colleagues. We teach different sections of the same classes. So I'm always
interested in what students are doing. Oh. Well, it's about the three Bronte
sisters, Emily, Ann and Charlotte, and how they influenced each other. I've
always loved 19th century English novels, especially theirs.

Anyway, the essay, it was about similarities between their books with some
parallel passages to show how it's hard to distinguish them. It's almost like
they helped each other write the books.

Right. Yes? But then for the contest, I added some stuff for my own family, my
sister and I have a close relationship. So I like compare the journals we wrote
when we were in high school. So now it's more like a memoir, but with the
other stuff, too, of course.

I see. Well, it's part of the rules that it was created a written for a specific class.
I don't know about the revisions. They'll be way around it, We’ll figure
something out, but at any rate, we do require documentation from the
professor.

Okay? By the way, since you're interested in the English novel. I'm teaching a
class next semester. It's not exactly the same time period, it's a little later.
Thomas Hardy Conrad, but important work and interesting. You should
consider taking it.

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Well, I'm actually a journalism student. I was doing a humanities requirement

with that other course, I did enjoy it and I think I wrote a good paper, but I'll
probably concentrate on journalism courses next semester. It does sound
interesting, though. Well, keep it in mind just in case. Okay, thanks. I'll bring
the paper by later with a note from professor Walker. Fine. You can catch me
pretty much anytime this afternoon.

1. What is the conversation mainly about?

A. An essay that the student is submitting for a contest

B. An essay that the student needs to revise for Professor Stevenson's class

C. A class that Professor Stevenson is planning to teach

D. An assignment for a journalism class

2. The student hesitates when the professor asks about her essay. What
does the professor infer from this?

A. That the student thinks he is on the evaluation committee

B. That the essay includes personal information

C. That the student is worried that her essay will not meet the requirements

D. That the student is having trouble remembering what the essay is about

3. What was the student's essay for Professor Walker mainly about?

A. An overview of nineteenth-century English literature

B. Childhood memories her sister has written about

C. A comparison of the work of three writers

D. Journalists in the nineteenth century

4. Why does the student mention that she is studying journalism?

A. To try to help her chances of winning the contest

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B. To explain why she will not take Professor Stevenson's class

C. To explain how she learned about the contest

D. To explain why she wants to interview the professor

5. What does the professor imply when he says this:

A. He is willing to help the woman revise the essay

B. He did not realize that revisions were not allowed

C. The revisions have not improved the essay

D. The revised version of the essay will probably be acceptable

答案：AACBD

L3
Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class. The professor has been
discussing Mesoamerica, a region that covers parts of Mexico and Central
America.

So, uh, we've established that ancient Mesoamerican culture shared unique
art, architecture and technology for thousands of years. Uh, what we're gonna
talk about today is the art of another one of the early Mesoamerican cultures,
the Olmec civilization.

Now, to analyze any work of art, it helps to know about the people who
created it. Uh. The problem here is that we don't know a lot about the people
who created the Olmec civilization. And much of what we know about them,
we actually only know through their art. Why do we know so little? Well, the
Olmec civilization began around 1,200 BC and lasted for just 700 years. By
400 BC Olmec society was gone. Uh, we know that the people lived in small
agricultural communities in uh, the swampy, low lands of southern Mexico.
They fished raised turkeys, had an extensive trade network of valuable
materials like jade. They had a writing system as well. We'll see their writing
on various pieces of their art as we study it.

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But it's their art, not their writing that they're known for. The, uh, Olmec,
created large stone sculptures, uh, painted murals, fine pottery, and little
figures carved out of jade. But their gigantic stone heads are the most famous
of their art. Here's a picture of one. These heads are huge, approximately 3
meters high. That's at least a whole meter taller than most of us, right? And
they're almost just as wide. Uh, they all have similar features. Uh, the heads
are really round, and they've all get broad noses and these very full
down-turned lips. It looks like they're frowning. They're so characteristic. It's
easy when you see one of the heads to look at it and say, yep, that's Olmec.
And something really surprising uh astonishing, really, the heads were carved
out of a very hard type of rock using only stone tools. The Olmec didn't have
metal tools. And and yet with just these stone tools, they created what many
considered the best quality sculptures in ancient Mesoamerica. It's really
striking how they achieved such remarkable sophistication, with uh, such
basic tools.

What's that hat on its head? It looks like some kind of helmet or something.
Did they wear armor? You know, for fighting wars? Well, it is a helmet, and
helmets like these probably did provide protection in battles, but uh, most
archaeologists and art historians think it was also used in a ball game, a
ceremonial ball game of the Olmec culture. Teams played the game with a
rubber ball on courts that were built specially for those games, which, which
brings up an interesting. Let's say you've come across an ancient sculpture in
the jungle, and carved onto its head is a helmet. But you don't know anything
about the culture it came from. So you'd probably assume it was for
protection during war. But, if you knew that other ancient people groups in the
area played a ballgame, and you knew they wore lots of protective clothing
during the game, then you'd realize there might be another meaning. It might
not be a warrior, it might be the head of a ball player.

So, you see, as an art historian, you must also study uh, be knowledgeable uh,
about subjects like um anthropology and, and archaeology, uh so that you
can see how different cultures have influenced one another. You have to
understand a culture, its region, its neighbors, to really understand how its
artistic style developed, what its symbols me, to come up with a valid
interpretation of the art. In other words, you can't study just art, because you
have to have something to relate the symbols in art too.

Now, um, let's see what's next. Oh, yes, uh, the jaguar, the jaguar is a
common image in Olmec art. This large, predatory cat was prevalent
throughout the Americas. Uh, it was very important to Olmec , culture, and
religion. So it's not surprising that we see it so often in their art. It was
frequently used to uh, to represent that actually to glorify someone important
like a ruler. You even see it represented in the stone heads, uh, like that stone

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head we just looked at. You saw the mouth, the way the lips turned down, it
looked a lot like the mouth of a big cat, a jaguar, didn't it? And this is one of
the reasons why many researchers believe that these heads represent
important rulers of the period.

Uh, Jenny, I'm sorry, professor, but now I'm confused, are these heads? Are
they ball players or rulers? Or Warriors? Rulers often fill many roles. Some real,
some ceremonial. So these sculptures could symbolize more than one thing.
But regardless, uh, the similarities, the way all these heads look alike makes
them pretty easy to identify as Olmec .

1. What does the professor mainly discuss?

A. Why very little is known about Olmec art

B. How Olmec art is similar to other Mesoamerican art

C. The importance of art in Olmec society

D. Some notable characteristics of Olmec art

2. What does the professor say is a surprising aspect of Olmec stone

sculptures?

A. They are very large.

B. They were carved with simple tools.

C. They contain writing

D. They were used in trade.

3. Why does the professor mention specially built ball courts?

A. To discuss a common political ceremony

B. To give an example of how warriors trained

C. To present one interpretation of a sculpture

D. To indicate where jade sculptures are usually found

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4. Which detail of the Olmec stone heads leads researchers to think that they
may represent rulers?

A. The style of the helmet

B. The angle of the eyes

C. The width of the nose

D. The shape of the mouth

5. What does the professor imply about Olmec stone heads when he says
this:

A. Their meaning is obvious.

B. They symbolize warriors.

C. Their appearance is distinctive

D. They are often imitated.

6. What point does the professor intend to make when he says this:

A. Art historians need to be familiar with a variety of academic fields

B. Art historians often disagree about the meaning of a particular symbol

C. Ancient art offers unique insights into human nature

D. Ancient art is easier to understand than many people realize.

答案：DBCDCA

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