2013年7月14日托福阅读真题解析.docVIP

2013年7月14日托福阅读真题解析第一篇TOPIC：Ancient Greek sarced groves希腊圣林讲古希腊精神文明和自然有关，尊重自然和宗教信仰有关，他们把神龛建在树木植物多的地方。不仅古希腊人这样，欧洲其他地方的人也有类似文化，举了欧洲人用树作为神灵的例子。然后讲了希腊人认为god真实存在，最后谈到保护问题（有一道句子简化题，与亚里士多德和golden age有关。补充版本二：有关Ancient Greek sarced groves。讲它怎么跟神有关了，希腊人怎么敬畏他，又跟别人怎么不一样了（神住在林子里，在地上不是天上） 又说希腊人不孤单，别的地方也有把林子供起来的，还有这个groves是imperfect的，因为神化后添了别的东西，不自然了。还有因此希腊人特别注重保护林子。解析：本文属古代文明相关话题，所考察的希腊文明在托福过去考试中曾以多种不同角度进行过考察，因其对于欧美文化发展的意义极为重大。下附关于希腊圣林的介绍。Sacred Groves the Secret Power of TreesSacred groves of olive and other trees were an intrinsic part of early religion. They were the meeting points of the world of the gods and the world of the humans, the mortals. Here priests offered animal sacrifice to please the gods, linking the world of the ordinary with that of the invisible and the spiritual. According to Pliny the Elder in Historia naturalis: Book XII, the trees formed the first temples of the gods, and even at the present day, the country people, preserving in all their simplicity their ancient rites, consecrate the finest among their trees to some divinity.each kind of tree remains immutably consecrated to its own peculiar divinity, the beech to Jupiter, the laurel to Apollo, the olive to Minerva, the myrtle to Venus, and the poplar to Hercules: besides which, it is our belief that the Sylvans, the Fauns, and various kinds of goddess Nymphs, have the tutelage of the woods, and we look upon those deities as especially appointed to preside over them by the will of heaven.The ancient Greeks and the Romans were not the only people to hold the tree sacred. Sacred groves were, and can still be found scattered as far afield as India, the Middle East, Africa, Japan and any region with Celtic ancestry. Celtic sacred groves were called Nemetons, or Nemeta. They were the meeting places of the druids who preferred to perform their rituals in the open air. Many considered them no-go areas where only the initiated could venture safely.The ancient Roman poet Lucan described a sacred grove near modern-day Marseilles like this: no bird nested in the nemeton, nor did any animal lurk nearby; the leaves constantly shivered though no breeze stirred. Altars stood in its midst, and the images of the gods. Every tree was stained with sacrificial blood. the very earth groaned, dead yews revived; unconsumed trees were surrounded with flame, and huge serpents twined round the oaks. The people feared to approach the grove, and even the priest would not walk there at midday or midnight lest he should then meet its divine guardian.第二篇TOPIC 彗星先说comet不好预测，有的周期长有的短，短的可以看见，然后两个图介绍彗星结构（头部有两个部分加tail），然后说彗星在地球周围没有尾巴很小，接近太阳时就被磁场和太阳风搞大了还多了尾巴。然后对比long period comet和short的，一个轨道圆，和行星在一个平面，容易被other planet影响从而inner solar system，另一个椭圆，不在一个plane，最后一段讲了哈雷彗星，76年一次，最后30次中国人都记录了，但17XX哈雷才认为这是一个彗星。解析：本文属天文学话题，是托福阅读常考话题之一。在TPO中天文学文章并未涉及彗星，但有若干篇文章与其话题类似，如谈到陨石、小行星、太阳系行星等，都可以作为借鉴阅读的内容。从考生回忆来看，普遍对本文回忆得较为完整，说明该文章并不难读。下附关于comet的全面介绍性文章。Comets: Formation, Discovery and ExplorationComets OverviewA comet is an icy body that releases gas or dust. They are often compared to dirty snowballs, though recent research has led some scientists to call them snowy dirtballs. Comets contain dust, ice, carbon dioxide, ammonia, methane and more. Some researchers think comets might have originally brought some of the water and organic molecules to Earth that now make up life here.Comets orbit the sun, but most are believed to inhabit in an area known as the Oort Cloud, far beyond the orbit of Pluto. Occasionally a comet streaks through the inner solar system; some do so regularly, some only once every few centuries. Many people have never seen a comet, but those who have wont easily forget the celestial show.The solid nucleus or core of a comet consists mostly of ice and dust coated with dark organic material, with the ice composed mainly of frozen water but perhaps other frozen substances as well, such as ammonia, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane. The nucleus might have a small rocky core.As a comet gets closer to the sun, the ice on the surface of the nucleus begins turning into gas, forming a cloud known as the coma. Radiation from the sun pushes dust particles away from the coma, forming a dust tail, while charged particles from the sun convert some of the comets gases into ions, forming an ion tail. Since comet tails are shaped by sunlight and the solar wind, they always point away from the sun.The nuclei of most comets are thought to measure 10 miles (16 km) or less. Some comets have comas that can reach nearly 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) wide, and some have tails reaching 100 million miles (160 million kilometers) long.We can see a number of comets with the naked eye when they pass close to the sun because their comas and tails reflect sunlight or even glow because of energy they absorb from the sun. However, most comets are too small or too faint to be seen without a telescope.Comets leave a trail of debris behind them that can lead to meteor showers on Earth. For instance, the Perseid meteor shower occurs every year between August 9 and 13 when the Earth passes through the orbit of the Swift-Tuttle comet.Orbital CharacteristicsAsteroids classify comets based on the durations of their orbits around the sun. Short-period comets need roughly 200 years or less to complete one orbit, long-period comets take more than 200 years, and single-apparition comets are not bound to the sun, on orbits that take them out of the solar system. Recently, scientist have also discovered comets in the main asteroid belt these main-belt comets might be a key source of water for the inner terrestrial planets.Scientists think short-period comets, also known as periodic comets, originate from a disk-shaped band of icy objects known as the Kuiper belt beyond Neptunes orbit, with gravitational interactions with the outer planets dragging these bodies inward, where they become active comets. Long-period comets are thought to come from the nearly spherical Oort cloud even further out, which get slung inward by the gravitational pull of passing stars.Some comets, called sun-grazers, smash right into the sun or get so close that they break up and evaporate.NamingIn general, comets are named after their discoverer, either a person. For example, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 got its name because it was the ninth short-periodic comet discovered by Eugene and Carolyn Shoemaker and David Levy. Spacecraft have proven very effective at spotting comets as well, so the names of many comets incorporate the names of missions such as SOHO or WISE.Astronomers think comets are leftovers from the gas, dust, ice and rocks that initially formed the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.HistoryIn antiquity, comets inspired both awe and alarm, hairy stars resembling fiery swords that appeared unpredictably in the sky. Often, comets seemed to be omens of doom the most ancient known mythology, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, described fire, brimstone, and flood with the arrival of a comet, and Emperor Nero of Rome saved himself from the curse of the comet by having all possible successors to his throne executed. This fear was not just limited to the distant past in 1910, people in Chicago sealed their windows to protect themselves from what they thought was the comets poisonous tail.For centuries, scientists thought comets traveled in the Earths atmosphere, but in 1577, observations made by Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe revealed they actually traveled far beyond the moon. Isaac Newton later discovered that comets move in elliptical, oval-shaped orbits around the Sun, and correctly predicted that they could return again and again.Chinese astronomers kept extensive records on comets for centuries, including observations of Halleys Comet going back to at least 240 BC, historic annals that have proven valuable resources for later astronomers.A number of recent missions have ventured to comets. NASAs Deep Impact collided an impactor into Comet Tempel 1 in 2005 and recorded the dramatic explosion that revealed the interior composition and structure of the nucleus. In 2009, NASA announced samples the Stardust mission returned from Comet Wild 2 revealed a building block of life. The European Space Agencys Rosetta is scheduled to orbit Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko in 2014 and deploy a probe to make the first landing on a comet.Famous CometsHalleys Comet is likely the most famous comet in the world, even depicted in the Bayeux Tapestry that chronicled the Battle of Hastings of 1066. It becomes visible to the naked eye every 76 years when it nears the sun. When Halleys Comet zoomed near Earth in 1986, five spacecraft flew past it and gathered unprecedented details, coming close enough to study its nucleus, which is normally concealed by the comets coma. The roughly potato-shaped, nine-mile-long (15 km) contains equal part ice and dust, with some 80 percent of the ice made of water and about 15 percent of it consisting of frozen carbon monoxide. Researchers believe other comets are chemically similar to Halleys Comet. The nucleus of Halleys Comet was unexpectedly extremely dark black its surface, and perhaps those of most others, is apparently covered with a black crust of dust over most of the ice, and it only releases gas when holes in this crust expose ice to the sun.The comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 collided spectacularly with Jupiter in 1994, with the giant planets gravitational pull ripping the comet apart for at least 21 visible impacts. The largest collision created a fireball that rose about 1,800 miles (3,000 km) above the Jovian cloudtops as well as a giant dark spot more than 7,460 miles (12,000 km) across about the size of the Earth and was estimated to have exploded with the force of 6,000 gigatons of TNT.A recent, highly visible comet was Hale-Bopp, which came within 122 million miles (197 million kilometers) of Earth in 1997. Its unusually large nucleus gave off a great deal of dust and gas estimated at roughly 18 to 25 miles (30 to 40 kilometers) across appeared bright to the naked eye.When Earth crosses the path of a comet, even if the comet hasnt been around for a few years, leftover dust and ice can create increased numbers of meteors in whats known as a meteor shower.第三篇TOPIC 冰川时期形成讲冰川时期的形成问题，科学家目前没有完整可信的理论来解释，要探测冰期很难，因为有间冰期存在。因为冰川时期分长时期和短时期，最后一题选项里有长时期和短时期有共同之处，没时间了，没回原文看。忘了是长的还是短的和solar radiation有关，还有地壳运动有关，geo运动的cause是考点。冰川那题有提到了有一个宇航员，提出了一个设想，是说地球的轨道每隔一段时间就有一些微弱的偏移？然后发现冰川时期是在这些偏移的同时太阳活动？又同时影响了地球，于是设想是不是这两者共同作用的时候就会导致冰川期的来临，这里有改写句子。解析：本文属于地质学话题，其中冰川时期glacier相关内容在TPO阅读和听力中都有多次出现，如阅读文章Glacier Formation以及Discovering the Ice Age等。机经中涉及的间冰期interglacial period在TPO听力中有专门讲座与其对应。Glacier PeriodA glacial period (or alternatively glacial or glaciation) is an interval of time (thousands of years) within an ice age that is marked by colder temperatures and glacier advances. Interglacials, on the other hand, are periods of warmer climate between glacial periods. The last glacial period ended about 15,000 years ago; The Holocene epoch is the current interglacial.Interglacial periodAn interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene interglacial has persisted since the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,400 years ago.During the 2.5 million year span of the Pleistocene, numerous glacials, or significant advances of continental ice sheets in North America and Europe have occurred at intervals of approximately 40,000 to 100,000 years. These long glacial periods were separated by more temperate and shorter interglacials.During interglacials, such as the present one, the climate warms and the tundra recedes polewards following the ice sheets. Forests returns to areas that once supported tundra vegetation. Interglacials are identified on land or in shallow epicontinental seas by their paleontology. Floral and faunal remains of species pointing to temperate climate and indicating a specific age are used to identify particular interglacials. Commonly used are mammalian and molluscan species, pollen and plant macro-remains (seeds and fruits). However, many other fossil remains may be helpful: insects, ostracods, foraminifera, diatoms, etc. Recently, ice cores and ocean sediment cores provide more quantitative and accurately dated evidence for temperatures and total ice volumes.The interglacials and glacials coincide with cyclic changes in the Earths orbit. Three orbital variations contribute to interglacials. The first is a change in the Earths orbit around the sun, or eccentricity. The second