TPO 35 挖空练习

Conversation 1

⽣词 - position filled applicant generalist - specialist specialize

real-realize modern-modernize staff subject area graph
ebb v.退潮 project v. 投射, 投影 migration flexible route

Listen to a conversation between a student and a counselor.

Counselor
Hi, I’m Tina Molly.

Student
Oh, Tina, yeah, good to meet you. You told me on the phone that you are
looking for a part-time position?

Counselor
Yeah. My roommate works at the dinning hall, and she heard about a part-job
might be opening up there for this semester. So, I was hoping...

Student
There was one, but that got ____ a couple of days ago.

Counselor
Oh, no! Really? Thing is I’ve gotta do something to pay for expenses. And,
well, I’m not afraid of hard work.

Counselor
I guess NOT! You see, I always have to check the class schedules of potential
____ to make sure they are full-time students and good-standing. And, your
schedule...this past semester, I mean, everything, from computer science to
African history, to zoology and physics. How do you manage with such a heavy
class load?

Student
Pretty well, actually. If I do get a job, of course, I may have to cut back to a
more normal schedule. But, you know, there are so many great subjects to
learn about.

Counselor
Ah, generalist!
Student
Yeah, it’s gonna be hard for me to pick just one thing to ____ in.

Counselor
Say, that gives me an idea. Hum, you are pretty comfortable on a computer,
right? With learning new software applications, right?

Student
Sure, I’m pretty good at that. Why?

Counselor
Well, last week I got a call from the folks over the visualization project. They
want to add a couple of part-timers to their ____.

Student
Visualization project?

Counselor
Yes. They help professors from all different departments turn information into
something their students can see, you know, instead of just writing on a
blackboard. More and more professors want to ___ information onto a
screen. And, how do I say this. Some professors are really good in their own
___ ___ , but when it comes to computers... well…

Student
I get the picture. So they use the visualization project to create......what? Like
graphs of different sorts?

Counselor
Right! ____ of economic trends for instance, or population growth, and
sometimes dynamic maps, maps that change on screen to show , for instance,
how trade ebbed and flowed over the centuries along various ____ between
China and the Mediterranean.

Student
Well, that would be interesting!

Counselor
Yeah, that’s what they do for classroom lectures. A project staffer may also be
asked to help professors pull together some of their research data and model
that visually. They claim that putting the research in a map for example or
moving image helps them see connections, new relations in data
on ...say..,animal ____ patterns that they might miss if they just looking at
numbers on a piece of paper.

Student
That’s terrific! What about working hours?
Counselor
They are pretty ____. Staffers can go in to work day or night. They just have
to make sure it’s all done by the time the professor needs it. So, shall I give you
the number to call to get in touch with these people?

Student
Would you? To think I came in just hoping to get something in the dinning
hall.

TPO 35 Lecture 1

species elaborate rely on land marks navigation magnetic field

tunnel wheel inconclusive trial Regardless magnet speculate
reliable indicator

Listen to a lecture in an animal behavior class.

Before we leave the topic of animal navigation, let’s look at one more ___, and
how it finds its way through its environment. The species we’ll look at is the
blind mole rat. Blind mole rats are interesting in terms of navigation, because
they live entirely in the dark, in ____ underground tunnel systems.

So how do blind mole rats find their way around in these complicated tunnels.

Well, for sometimes we’ve known that blind mole rats use some combination
of two different navigation systems. Hum, one system ___ on their sense of
time, and their ability to remember underground ___ ___. For example, let’s
say a mole rat wants to find its way through its tunnels system back to its nest
where it sleeps. Well, it goes along, then feels some hard stones or tree root
under its feet , and it basically says to itself, ok, here is where I took a left. And
then it might remember how long it took to get to the next turn and so forth.
The mole rat goes straight or turns based on what it remembers having sensed
along the way on previous trips, and the time it took between turns.

Now the other ____ system for the mole rat relies on earth ___ field. Mole
rats have the ability to sense the magnetic field and use it to orient themselves
directionally. But until recently, scientists won’t sure about the role
of these two different systems.

Recently, a team of researchers conducted an experiment to answer that

question. Do these two navigation systems play different roles? What they did
was they designed a special structure that very closely resembles a blind mole
rat’s ___ system, which looks like a bicycle ___. A central hub with multiple
spokes radiating outward. Now, this turned out to be quite important. Earlier
experiments have used more generic habitat, basically a wide open circle ,
which was originally designed to test magnetic navigation in other animals.
That design led to _____ results with mole rats.
Now, with their bicycle wheel tunnel system, the researchers were able to vary
the distance that the mole rats travel between their nest and their food source
by creating long routes and short routes.

In each ____, the mole rats started out in their nest, went to the food source,
and then had to find their way back home, back to the nest. To determine
which navigation system they were using, the researchers tested the animals
under two different conditions.

First, the mole rats were tested under conditions of normal magnetism, for
both the trip to the food and the trip home. And under these normal
conditions, they all followed their original route back home. ____ of the
length of the trip to the food source.

Then in the second part of the experiment, the magnetic field was altered,
but only for the trip home. A specially constructed set of ____ was used to
shift the magnetic field around the habitat 90 degrees eastward. The
researchers wanted to see how the mole rats responded to the shift.

Well, it turns out that the magnetic field had no impact on the return route of
the blind mole rats after a short trip. They returned to the point where they
had started from. But after a longer trip, they took a totally different route.
One that led them 90 degrees east of the nest. Essentially, they got lost. This
was strong evidence that blind mole rats use magnetic navigation only for
longer trips.

So, why two navigation systems? one for long trips, and one for short trips?
Well, for now, we can only ___, but we think that when mole rats rely on the
first system, using underground land marks or their sense of time. Well, they
make small mistakes here and there. On a short trip, this doesn’t matter
much. The trip is short, so they can’t make many mistakes. But on a long trip,
well, there are lots of opportunities to make small mistakes, and small
mistakes can add up, leaving the mole rats far from where it wants to be. So
on a long trip, a magnetic navigation system is better, more useful, since earth
magnetic field is stable, a constant, a more ____ ____ of direction.

TPO 35 Lecture 2

⽣词 - sedentary nomadic edible climatic consensus circular grain

elevated consistent rodents-squirrels excavated similarity grain
remnants descendants surplus substantial mortar

Listen to a lecture in an archaeology class.

Professor
One of the frustrating things about archaeology, especially for beginning
students, is that theories are constantly evolving. A theory that has been
accepted for many years may suddenly be called into question.

Male student
But why would that happen?

Professor
Oh, there are probably a number of reasons. Earlier finds are always being
reexamined in the context of newer finds, or it may just be that someone looks
at the evidence in a different way, has a different idea of what it suggests.
Take the theory about the earliest permanent settlements. They were found in
the area to the east of the Mediterranean sea called the Levant. And the people
who lived there were the Natufians. For quite some time, it has been widely
accepted that about 15,000 years ago, the Natufians developed a ___
lifestyle.Can someone remind us what that means?

Male student
It means that they stopped being ____, that they began staying in one area
year round instead of moving around all the time.

Professor
Right, and we think there was abundance of ___ plants and animals in the
area at that time that made the shift away from a nomadic life style possible.
Hum, keep in mind, that the Natufians were hunter-gatherers, so in spite of
other changes, they were always a pre-agricultural society.
Anyway, after being sedentary for around 2,000 years, something happened
that forced the Natufians to change their life style. The general _____ is that
there was a period of ____ cooling which had a negative effect on the
availability of food. And this food shortage likely caused the Natufians to
revert to a nomadic lifestyle.
Then, around 11,500 years ago, the climate warmed again. Food became more
abundant, and people in that area became sedentary again.
Now, no one is contesting that these people probably ____ of the Natufians
were indeed sedentary by 11,500 years ago, the evidence is quite strong.
Archaeologists have uncovered numerous ____ structures dating from that
period that appeared to have been used to store grain.
We think this for a couple of reasons. First, the remains of barley husks have
been found inside them. Barley was the main type of ___ that grew in this
area. And secondly, the floors on these structures were ____. This design
would have been _____ with the need to keep the barley dry and safe from
____. So, that makes sense. And there are lots of these structures in the
settlements, in one settlement that was only partially ____, archaeologists
have already found 4 of these structure.

Male student
So, it’s the earlier part, that the Natufians were sedentary 15,000 years ago,
that’s changed?
Professor
Well, there’s evidence, but some archaeologists have questioned the criteria
used to identify permanent settlements. See, circular structures have also
been found in early Natufian settlements, So archaeologists believed that
these were also food storage structures based on their physical ____ to the
structures of later settlements, and they would indicate that the Natufians
were sedentary 15,000 years ago.
But now, there are doubts about the use of these earlier structures.
Reachers point to the the lack of ___ ____ in these earlier structures. In fact,
things other than grains have been found in them. So, at the very least, they
say, these structures probably had multiple purposes. And another
problem they point to is that most early settlements have only one of these
so called storage structures, but do you think one structure would be enough
to hold the ___ for an entire settlement?

Male student
Well,whatever there structure were used for, couldn’t they just have built
them at place they came back to regularly? Maybe to stored things for their
next visit?

Professor
Exactly, so called ‘Base Camps’, where the Natufians didn’t stay all year round.
But artifacts that were found in a number of Natufian sites seem to present
evidence of a sedentary way of life——Large heavy ____, the sort of thing
that would been used for grinding grain.
Such heavy equipment could indicate that the Natufians could have stayed
permanently in one place, since the work involved in moving an item like this
around constantly would have been ____. But this evidence of
sedentism has also been called into question. Because the materials
used to make the stone mortars did originally come from quite a distance, and
if the Natufians could move the materials over great distances ……
灵⻓长动物

TPO 35 Conversation 2

⽣词 - first-hand account invasion primary artifact documentation

problematic controversial commission v. eyewitness’ account
controversy depict objectively

Listen to a conversation between a student and his European

history professor.

Professor
So, I want to talk about your outline. I do like your topic, William the conquer,
leading the Norman ____ of England, but…I’m a little concerned about your
source, and the fact that you want to use it as the entire basis of your paper.

Student
Really? The Bayeux Tapestry? I thought it was pretty creative to use
something that was made to hang on the wall as a source.And as far as I know,
it’s the most important _____ of the invasion, a ___ ___, right?

Professor
Well, you’re right! It’s considered a ____ source. And that 70 meters long, the
tapestry certainly is impressive. Imagine the time it took for those embroiders
to sew all those words and images to tell the story of the Norman forces sailing
from France to England. So, yeah, it is an amazing ____. But what’s ____ is
that the tapestry is a very …… ____ source. Were you aware of this?

Student
Well, I know some pieces of it were probably lost.

Professor
It is incomplete. But……?

Student
Uh…but…I also read that historians have relied on it to help interpret the
events leading to the invasion and the battle itself.

Professor
Well, it has great historical value. No doubt.But in my opinion, there is a
problem, because…well, do you know who _____ the tapestry ?

Student
Uh….It was a church official, hum, the Bishop of Bayeux, a city in France?

Professor
Yes, and the bishop was also William the Conquer’s half brother.

Student
Oh, that I didn't know. But regardless of who commissioned it, isn’t the fact
that it was based on ____ _____ the most important thing? I mean it was
made only 17 years after the battle so plenty of eyewitness were still alive.

Professor
Yes, that’s true.But the real point of the ____ isn’t the battle itself. It has to
do with the reason for the battle —— Who was the rightful heir to the throne?
Who would be the next king?
And if William the Conquer’s brother is the one who has commissioned this
tapestry….

Student
Then he would be the one to decide which words and images would go on the
tapestry and what would be left out.

Professor
Exactly! So of course the tapestry shows why Williams should be the new king.
Student
I guess I see your point. Embroiders are just gonna do what they were told to
do.

Professor
You have to understand that the tapestry ____ an entire series of events as
they were interpret by the Normans,the victors of the battle,and that’s a
problem, if you’re trying to write ____ about the invasion, especially if you
use it as your only source of the information. After all, It’s important for
historians to examine an event from all sides.

TPO 35 Lecture 3

ceilings Moisture damp humidity layer whitish plaster cement

prestige solitude collaboration sheer repetition adjacent
affluence fresco canvas term n. 术语

Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class. The professor has

been discussing the Italian Renaissance.

Professor
In our discussion of Italian Renaissance paintings from the 1400s and early
1500s. We’ve looked some masterpieces on ____ and on wood, but our
discussion would be grossly incomplete without talking about frescos.

Frescoes are basically paintings done on the interiors of buildings, on walls

and ___. They weren’t invented during the Renaissance, if you remember we
looked briefly at fresco paintings way back in our discussion of ancient
Romans and ancient Roman art a few weeks ago. But it was much later,
during the Renaissance, that the ____ ‘fresco’ was commonly used. It’s an
Italian word, that means, literally, ‘fresh’, and well, to explain that, we have
to get specific about technique.

Back then, most buildings had stone and brick walls with highly irregular
surfaces. They weren’t smooth. Also, the walls weren't completely water-proof.
____ could seep in. Buildings were often ____. There was no way to really
control ____ inside buildings in those days. So because frescoes are done
inside buildings on walls, well, the walls needed to be prepared before work
could begin. So for example, sometimes, thin reed mats were stuck onto the
walls, so these thin reed mats would be like an additional ____ between the
original part of the wall and the frescoes, the painted part of the walls that
were done over them. The reed mats could smooth out the surface of a rough
wall, or could also provide all that important protection from moisture, or do
both. So it was the wall, then the mats, then plaster on top of the mats, then
the fresco painted onto the plaster.
Other time though, plaster was applied directly to the walls, a thick layer of
___ to fill in spaces between the bricks, to smooth out the wall surface for
painting the fresco. You see, plaster is a ___ kind of paste, a mixture of lime,
water and sand. After you spread plaster on a surface, it’ll harden like ____
does. But as I said, fresco means fresh, and that’s because to create a fresco,
the paint has to be applied very soon after the plaster has been spread over a
surface , right onto the wet fresh plaster. By doing this, the painting actually
becomes part of the plaster. Finishing a painting before the plaster dry was a
real challenge for fresco painters. The technique of creating frescoes was
developed over time, and eventually perfected during the Renaissance, a time
when immense buildings were being erected as symbols of wealth and
power. Very large buildings, which people wanted decorated on inside as well
as the outside. The owners of these grand buildings wanted to decorate the
walls to reflect their own affluence and ____.

Now few people would argue with the greatness of artists from that period ,
Michelangelo, Raphael, but there is this popular mental image people have
of an artistic genius producing a masterpiece in total ____. Well, that idea
is fine for canvas painting or other small works. But a practical reality of
fresco painting in the Renaissance was ____, the ___ dimensions of the
surfaces involve, plus the physical properties of the plaster meant it was
inevitable that Renaissance’s artists would rely on assistants, apprentices they
were called, to help create their masterpieces.

Artists had to plan the work carefully, divided it into several days. Each day
was a ____ of the same technical process. Apprentices mixed paints,
prepared the plaster, spread it on one section of the wall or ceiling. Then
finally, painted on the wet plaster. This had to be done within a few hours
before the plaster dried. So they’d go through that whole process in one day on
one section. The next day, they’d move on, and do it again, on an ____ part.
So any fresco commissioned to an artist, was for practical reasons ,
commissioned to a whole team.

Now, I’m not saying a genius like Michelangelo lacked the skill to paint the
enormous ceiling of Sistine Chapel by himself , but he probably would have
to live until he was 200 years old to finish the ceiling’s frescoes like that
without anyone’s help.

So, although we aren’t sure actually how many people took an active role
and actually painting the ceiling, we can see areas which are really inferior to
Michelangelo’s work that must have been painted by his apprentices.

TPO 35 Lecture 4

asteroid extinction diversify profusely impact crater volcanic eruptions

crust molten bump lump swell anomaly circular ridge
samples impact
Listen to part of a lecture in an earth science class.

Professor
Let’s review something from lass week. We talked about an event happened 65
million years ago. Anyone?

Female Student
An ___ hit earth. Hum, well, we think an asteroid hit earth, near the Yucatan
Peninsular in Mexico, and that wiped out all the dinosaurs.

Professor
Right. Hum… I wouldn’t say that we’ve got one hundred percent proof, but
there is very strong evidence that this is why that mass ____ occurred.

Ok, but, did you know there was an earlier extinction far greater than the one
killed out the dinosaurs? It was what we call the Permian Extinction.

Now way back about 290 million years ago at the beginning of the Permian
period, there was just one big continent —— a super continent . And as the
climate warmed up, plant and animal species began to _____ ____. So life
during the Permian period was abundant and diverse, but about 250 million
years ago, the Permian period ended with a rapid massive extinction.
Something happened that wiped out 75 percent of the land animals, and over
95 percent of ocean life. So, what was it? What could have caused this?

Well, with all the evidence that it was an asteroid that led to the dinosaur
extinction. We began asking ourselves, is it possible that another asteroid
much earlier caused the Permian extinction? And so researchers have been
looking for an ___ ____.

Female Student
I thought the Permian extinction was caused by a decline in sea water oxygen
levels. Isn’t that what’s in the textbook?

Professor
But don’t forget, the textbook makes it very clear —— that’s only a theory.

Male Student
And it mentioned something about ___ ____ too.

Professor
It does, but now, this new theory has led to a search for evidences of an
asteroid impact. And one place of interest is a region called Wilkes Land in
eastern Antarctica.

A few years ago, a researcher reported a strange anomaly beneath the ice in
Wilkes Land. Evidence of what maybe a mascon. That’s just short for mass
concentration.
When an asteroid hits earth, when it slams into earth ___, we think that
causes ___ rock from deep below the surface to rise up into the impacted
area, sort of like if you ___ your head, you get a big ____ under the skin.
Fluid makes the area ___. Anyway, the material flowing up from below the
crust is more dense than the crust itself. So that’s how we get a mascon, a spot
in the crust with newer material that’s more dense that the material all around
it. There are lots of mascons on the moon too, where a mascon’s density
causes a small increase in the local gravity that can be measured and mapped
by orbiting spacecraft. And where do these mascons tend to be found? In the
centers of impact craters on the moon’s surface.

But back to Wilkes Land. We are not certain that the mascon there what might
be a mascon was actually caused by the impact of an asteroid. But there does
seem to be evidence. Researchers noticed a gravity ____ similar to those on
the moon. And the spot where the gravity readings are especially high, this is
right in the middle of a 500 kilometer wide ___ ___. What could be part of
an old impact crater. And if there was an asteroid impact there in Wilkes
Land, the next question is, did it happen 250 million years ago? Because that
would put it when in the geological history?

Male Student
At the end of the Permian period? Right when all these animals went extinct?

Professor
Exactly!

Male Student
But can’t researchers figure that out by studying the rocks there in Wilkes
Land, where this impact supposedly took place?

Professor
Well, to get to anything from that long ago, we’d have to drill down through
about a mile, about 1.7 kilometers of solid ice that covers the area today, and
that’s not likely to happen. But, speaking of rocks, I should mention that
Wilkes Land is not the only place of interest here. There is another called
Bedout High off the coast of Australia. And we have rock ____ from the
Bedout High. Some are apparently of extra-terrestrial origin. I mean they
show the effects of extreme temperatures and pressures, the level of extremes
produced only by an ____. And ask for their age? Well, they do, in fact, date
back to about 250 million years ago.