Listening
Conversation 1:
Student: Hi professor, may I come in?
Professor: Of course. How was your day?
Student: Great. I went to practice piano today.
Professor: Really? I didn’t know that you could play piano before. Your major is science right?
Student: That’s right. Actually…eh…I chose this major only for the consideration of future planning, you know, like finding a job. But I really love music and I play piano quite well actually.
Professor: That is great to hear. I think every body should learn some music, you know, it can help them to relax.
Student: Indeed. But I came for another reason…
Professor: What is it about?
Student: Well, I heard that you are leading a band now. I wonder you still need a piano player.
Professor: Oh, I know it might hear a little bit disappointed but we have enough people for the moment. But…well…have you ever tried to go to the website and check if other bands need a piano player?
Student: You mean the student bands?
Professor: Yes, there are other students’ bands in our school and some of them are very good. I think you should give it a shot.
Student: I could do that.
Professor: They need new band player very often. I am sure you can find a really good band that need piano player.
Student: It was really helpful. Thanks!
Lecture 1:
If you would like to see some relics for yourself, whether as a spiritual pilgrimage or a matter of historical interest, the locations of some of the most notable Christian relics are given below.
In Christianity, relics are the material remains of a deceased saint or martyr and objects closely associated with those remains. Relics can be entire skeletons, but more usually they consist of a part such as a bone, hair or tooth. Pieces of clothing worn by the deceased saint or even an object that has come in contact with a relic is also considered a relic.
Relics have played an important role in Christian ritual since the earliest centuries of the church and were a major part of popular religion in the Middle Ages. Until 1969, relics were placed under the altar stones of all Roman Catholic churches. The veneration of relics was rejected by most of the Protestant Reformers and most Protestants today, but relics continue to play an important part in Catholic and Orthodox Christianity.
A primary objection made to the veneration of relics is their dubious authenticity. Many supposed relics have been subject to a great deal of ridicule from non-Catholics, and even the Catholic Encyclopedia admits that, especially in the Middle Ages, There was always a disposition to regard any human remains accidentally discovered near a church or in the catacombs as the body of a martyr," and "doubtful relics came to abound.
Lecture 2
Earth is unique among the known planets: It has an abundance of water. Other worlds — including a few moons — have atmospheres, ice, and even oceans but only Earth has the right combination to sustain life.
Earth's oceans cover about 70 percent of the planet's surface with an average depth of 2.5 miles fresh water exists in liquid form in lakes and rivers and as water vapor in the which causes much of Earth's weather.
Crust has multiple layers. The ocean basins and the continents compose the crust, the outermost layer. Earth's crust is between three and 46 miles deep. The thickest parts are under the continents and the thinnest parts are under the oceans.
The crust is divided into huge plates that float on the mantle, the next layer. The plates are constantly in motion; they move at about the same as fingernails grow. It occurs when these plates grind against each other. Mountains form when the plates collide and deep trenches form when one plate slides under another plate. Plate tectonics is the theory explaining the motion of these plates.
The mantle under the crust is about 1,800 miles deep. It is composed mostly of silicate rocks rich in magnesium and iron. Intense heat causes the rocks to rise. This convection — like a lava lamp — is believed to be what causes the tectonic plates to move. When the mantle pushes through the crust, volcanoes erupt.
Writing
Integrated Writing
Reading:
The reasons why the Akkand Empire doesn’t last for long .
There were rebellions from the conquered city.
2) There were some serious problems about food supply, the main food supply area suddenly rained less and food was lacked in the north area.
3) Trade relationship resisted.
Listening:
Disagree. Those three theories cannot hold up this phenomenon.
1) The conquered city was too weak to fight against the Akkand Empire.
2) There were agricultural technologies like irrigation that can bring water from remote areas and store the rain water, so the food chain will not be broken.
3) The Akkand Empire was always developing new trade relationships which can provide kinds of resources and make up the losses.
Independent Writing:
Some people prefer to buy new technological devices immediately when they become available. Others prefer to wait until many people have adopted them. Which way do you prefer?
以下内容为付英东老师独家提供的6月15日托福大陆考试全真试题还原，准备托福考试的同学们可以参考学习。点击直接下载>>
全真试题列表：
Reading
①Development of European newspaper
There has been a long history about the development of European newspaper.After the typography was invented,the whole world went into the time of mass media.The first printed newspaper was well known as the Nieuwe Tijdinghen,published in 1609 in Netherland.This was seen as the start of a new era.Since then,newspaper has made a huge progress.However,at that time,the politics was not so developed as today,so the government didn’t put tough regulation on newspapers.
After the advent of newspapers,they were all controlled by some rich or powerful people.They could decide what to be printed and what should be expressed to the public.In 1881,France published the law supporting the freedom of speech,newspaper got a rapid growth in France.The amount of publish had been five times than before and more and more people began to accept this kind of way to spread news.While the government has take involved in this business.They tried to keep the power in their hand and controlled the main newspaper in order to lead the public.They took two methods to do this thing.First,they made laws to regulate the newspaper so that they could speak on their behalf.What was more,they also sponsored some important newspapers in order that they could get exactly what were printed swiftly.All what they do had the same goal,that was to guide the people and support the government.This was the final political aim.
There were a lot of factors that contributed to the prosperity of the newspaper.Here would list the most important two parts of that.First is the globalization of politics and economics.After the revolution of industry,colonization spread all over the world rapidly.The Netherland was one of the most powerful countries to set its colony around South Asia.With the growth of colonization,newspaper was taken into all those places.This way had contributed a lot to the quickly spread of newspaper.
Another way was the evolvement of postal systems.With the general improvement of postal system day by day,the news paper had got a great evolvement.Postal system led us to the mass media and made newspaper well accepted.Especially in France,they have complicated the postal system so that this contributed a lot for the newspaper.There was a funny thing could reflect this globalization of newspaper,a person from the Netherland was reading a French newspaper which was published by England.
The spread of newspaper also introduced reading to the public.People had got the motivation of self-awareness and they tried to express themselves freely.
②The composition of atmosphere
Generally, the composition of atmosphere in early period was suitable for the advancement of higher living organism, since it provided them with sufficient energy as well as protection, contributing to their appearance and survival during the evolution of the biosystem.
In the early days, the atmosphere was filled with a large amount of carbon dioxide and methane, since the sun is a little dark at first, that is to say, it cannot produce enough heat at that time. However, the carbon dioxide and methane can let the heat stay in earth, preventing it from escaping from the earth, which can be considered as an effective way to give the living things on earth a suitable habitant with reasonable climate. Due to the enough energy and heat on earth, those living things can develop and survive during the process of natural selection.
However, with the time passing by, the bacteria produces the dioxide during the photosynthesis, leading to the accumulation of the dioxide in our planet. And at the same time, the sun became huger and huger, which brought about a lot of heat and sunlight. However, owing to the fact that carbon dioxide and methane on earth occupied declining percentage, the climate or the temperature on earth did not change with comparison of that in the early days. The climate at that time is also suitable for the living things.
Why does the accumulation of the dioxide contribute to the development some plants? For this question, there are two reasons. First, the dioxide can facilitate those plants’ metabolism, letting them storing enough nutrition in bodies and providing some water through other functions. Second, the dioxide can form the ozone layer, playing the role a proctor for plants on earth and stopping some cosmic radiation out of the earth. These two functions benefit plants a lot and finally help out earth to be filled with a variety of amazing living things, just as we see now.
With the consideration of the composition of atmosphere on Mars, though some scholars have done some many research on it and also raise and analyze numerous evidences of the existence it is unlikely that there exists some higher organism living there. If they insist on the opinion that some living things has existed on Mars, they must be the lower organism. Until now, most individuals still believe that our planet-earth is the only one for the higher organism.
③Natural Selection
Natural selection is the gradual process by which biological traits become either more or less common in a population as a function of the effect of inherited traits on the differential reproductive success of organisms interacting with their environment. It is a key mechanism of evolution. The term "natural selection" was popularized by Charles Darwin who intended it to be compared with artificial selection, now more commonly referred to as selective breeding.
Variation exists within all populations of organisms. This occurs partly because random mutations occur in the genome of an individual organism, and these mutations can be passed to offspring. Throughout the individuals’ lives, their genomes interact with their environments to cause variations in traits.Individuals with certain variants of the trait may survive and reproduce more than individuals with other, less successful, variants. Therefore the population evolves. Factors that affect reproductive success are also important, an issue that Charles Darwin developed in his ideas on sexual selection, for example. Natural selection acts on the phenotype, or the observable characteristics of an organism, but the genetic (heritable) basis of any phenotype that gives a reproductive advantage may become more common in a population. Over time, this process can result in populations that specialize for particular ecological niches and may eventually result in the emergence of new species. In other words, natural selection is an important process by which evolution takes place within a population of organisms. Natural selection can be contrasted with artificial selection, in which humans intentionally choose specific traits (although they may not always get what they want). In natural selection there is no intentional choice. In other words, artificial selection is teleological and natural selection is not teleological.
Natural selection can act on any heritable phenotypic trait, and selective pressure can be produced by any aspect of the environment, including sexual selection and competition with members of the same or other species. However, this does not imply that natural selection is always directional and results in adaptive evolution; natural selection often results in the maintenance of the status quo by eliminating less fit variants.
The unit of selection can be the individual or it can be another level within the hierarchy of biological organization, such as genes, cells, and kin groups. There is still debate about whether natural selection acts at the level of groups or species to produce adaptations that benefit a larger, non-kin group. Likewise, there is debate as to whether selection at the molecular level prior to gene mutations and fertilization of the zygote should be ascribed to conventional natural selection because traditionally natural selection is an environmental and exterior force that acts upon a phenotype typically after birth. Some science journalists distinguish gene selection from natural selection by informally referencing selection of mutations as "pre-selection."
Selection at a different level such as the gene can result in an increase in fitness for that gene, while at the same time reducing the fitness of the individuals carrying that gene, in a process called intragalactic conflict. Overall, the combined effect of all selection pressures at various levels determines the overall fitness of an individual, and hence the outcome of natural selection.
The life cycle of a sexually reproducing organism. Various components of natural selection are indicated for each life stage.Natural selection occurs at every life stage of an individual. An individual organism must survive until adulthood before it can reproduce, and selection of those that reach this stage is called viability selection. In many species, adults must compete with each other for mates via sexual selection, and success in this competition determines who will parent the next generation. When individuals can reproduce more than once, a longer survival in the reproductive phase increases the number of offspring, called survival selection.
A prerequisite for natural selection to result in adaptive evolution, novel traits and speciation, is the presence of heritable genetic variation that results in fitness differences. Genetic variation is the result of mutations, recombinations and alterations in the karyotype (the number, shape, size and internal arrangement of the chromosomes). Any of these changes might have an effect that is highly advantageous or highly disadvantageous, but large effects are very rare. In the past, most changes in the genetic material were considered neutral or close to neutral because they occurred in noncoding DNA or resulted in a synonymous substitution. However, recent research suggests that many mutations in non-coding DNA do have slight deleterious effects.[16][17] Although both mutation rates and average fitness effects of mutations are dependent on the organism, estimates from data in humans have found that a majority of mutations are slightly deleterious.
By the definition of fitness, individuals with greater fitness are more likely to contribute offspring to the next generation, while individuals with lesser fitness are more likely to die early or fail to reproduce. As a result, alleles that on average result in greater fitness become more abundant in the next generation, while alleles that in general reduce fitness become rarer. If the selection forces remain the same for many generations, beneficial alleles become more and more abundant, until they dominate the population, while alleles with a lesser fitness disappear. In every generation, new mutations and re-combinations arise spontaneously, producing a new spectrum of phenotypes. Therefore, each new generation will be enriched by the increasing abundance of alleles that contribute to those traits that were favored by selection, enhancing these traits over successive generations.
Some mutations occur in so-called regulatory genes. Changes in these can have large effects on the phenotype of the individual because they regulate the function of many other genes. Most, but not all, mutations in regulatory genes result in non-viable zygotes. When such mutations result in a higher fitness, natural selection will favor these phenotypes and the novel trait will spread in the population.
Established traits are not immutable; traits that have high fitness in one environmental context may be much less fit if environmental conditions change. In the absence of natural selection to preserve such a trait, it will become more variable and deteriorate over time, possibly resulting in a vestigial manifestation of the trait, also called evolutionary baggage. In many circumstances, the apparently vestigial structure may retain a limited functionality, or may be co-opted for other advantageous traits in a phenomenon known as preadaptation. A famous example of a vestigial structure, the eye of the blind mole rat, is believed to retain function in photoperiod perception.
Conversation 2
Student：Hi, professor, our excursion is tomorrow. I want to ask your advise about our trip.
Professor: I am very glad to help.
Student: Well, do you know in New York City there is a very good site that reconstructed by the train?
Professor: Yes, you want take students to there? You know it was very far, don’t you?
Student: I know, but it is a very good chance we don’t want to miss it.
Professor: Have you asked students about their opinions.
Student: Not really, I want to hear your advice first.
Professor: Actually I think it might not be a good idea. Firstly it is so far away. Secondly I think on that day you will be very busy, you don’t really have time to go there.
Student: Well…
Professor: You have to think about it, we will still have chance to go there next time.
Student: Fairly enough. Students might complain about the trip schedule, too.
Professor: Yes. Actually I will join in on this trip, why don't we talk about other schedules later.
Student: Of Course. Thank you!
Lecture 3:
To some, "cowboy poetry" might be considered an oxymoron. But buckaroos and drovers have a long tradition of telling stories around the campfire. As with all oral traditions, a story is better remembered if it is in rhyme. Though some of this might be more properly categorized as "Doggerel," some of it approaches the level of Robert Service or Rudyard Kipling; and all of it reflects a certain humor, a certain set of values and a certain lifestyle that is fast becoming extinct. Don't read this poetry to be "elevated" or enlightened. Read it for amusement and entertainment, and if something lingers that enriches your life or your perspectives... well, if you eat a lot of oysters you're bound to find a pearl.
Newcomers are surprised to hear cowboy poetry that is contemporary. Many people tend to focus on the historic cowboy lifestyle, but the work that cowboys do continues. The cowboy lifestyle is a living tradition that exists in western North America and other areas, thus, contemporary cowboy poetry is still being created, still being recited, and still entertaining many camp visitors around campfires and convention halls. Much of what is known as "old time" country music originates from the rhyming couplet style often seen in cowboy poetry along with guitar music.
Lecture 4
The Amazon is home to more species of plants and animals than any other terrestrial ecosystem on the planet -- perhaps 30% of the world's species are found there. Its biodiversity is astounding: a single bush in the Amazon may have more species of ants than the entire British Isles, while a lone hectare of forest may have more than 600 species of trees.
The fast-disappearing Amazon rain forest harbors some amazing creatures. Most of us have heard of vampire bats, piranhas and the anaconda, but among the forest’s inhabitants are weird and wonderful animals just as bizarre as the more famous ones, if not more so.
There is a clear link between the health of the Amazon and the health of the planet. The rain forests, which contain 90-140 billion metric tons of carbon, help stabilize local and global climate. Deforestation may release significant amounts of this carbon, which could have catastrophic consequences around the world.
Speaking
1、Describe a gift you want to give to someone and why you want to give it to him/her.
2、Do you agree that being a teacher is easier than being a student?
3、R: There is a statement on newspaper that require Spanish students live in the school instead of outside. The first reason is that living outside is too expensive and the dormitories are much cheaper. The second reason is that living in the dormitories help students get along with Spanish students and also practice their language study.
L: The woman holds a negative attitude towards it. She complains that this is not a good policy.
1) Firstly, she says that living outside is not that expensive. For example, her sister found a homestay which is close to the school and also very cheap.
2) Furthermore, she says the students live together will only hang out, which will not help the language study.
R: The term is the Responding Effort, when people doing something, the efforts they put in depends on the possibility to complete the mission.
L: (The professor) Well, today we will talk about the Responding Effort. I will give an example to illustrate this term. For instance, when kids are told to draw pictures by using crayons and clean crayons up to put them into a bin. The kids do not try and give up immediately, they just leave them on the table and floor because it is difficult to put them into a small cabin. Then the teacher changed the strategy to ask kids to put crayons into a big plastic bin, and the kids might think this mission is possible to complete, and finally they clean all crayons up and put them into the bin.
5、The student invited a speaker to his school, but he does not know where the speaker should live.
Two suggestions, 1) The student could clean up his dormitory and invite the speaker to live in. But there is not enough time and he also does not want the speaker to have a bad impression on him.
2) The speaker could live in the hotel. But the charge is too expensive.
6、Two reasons why roosting is important to the survival of bats.
1) First reason is the disability to stop in the air, so bats roost up in order to prey some insects as soon as they spread their wings .
2) Second reason is to avoid the attack from snakes. When bats are sleeping, they are vulnerable. So if they roost in some places higher, they will not be attacked by snakes and also get some good sleep.
