托福TPO18套听力真题（文本）

托福TPO18套听力真题（文本）小马过河为大家准备了“托福TPO18套听力真题（文本）”， 供各位备考托福的考生们参考使用，来提高自己的托福成绩！免费咨询电话：400-0123-267。TPO-18Listening1A: Hi ! I hope you can help me . I just transferred from Northeastern State University near Chicago.B: Well welcome to Central University .But Chicago is such agreat city.Why did you leave?A: Everyone asks that. Its my hometown. And it was sure convenient to go to a school nearby. But Northeastern is still fairly small. And it doesnt have the program Im interested in. I want to major in international studies. And the only program int the State is here.A: We do have a great program. Well how did you get interested in international studies?B: My family hosted a few foreign exchange students while I was growing up. Then I took part in an international summer program after I graduated from high school. I thought I reallyI like meeting people from all over,getting to know them.A: OH! Ok! And that led you to our program. Right now though I think you are looking for a job.B: Yeah,a part time job on campus. I thought Id save money,being away from the big city.But it doesnt seem to be working that way .Anyway Im not having muchluck.A: Im not surprised. Most of our campus jobs are taken in the first week or two of the semester.What work experience have you had?B: Well,I worked in the university library last year.But I already checkedat the library here.They said their remaining positions were for work-study students getting financial aid.Ive never run into that before.A: Well, I guess each school has its own policies. Uh, we really dont have much right now.You mightbe better.If you really want something, how are your computer skills?B: About average Id say. I helped teach some of the basic computer classes. Northeasternoffers for new users, ifthat helpsany.A: OK, The technology support department needs people to work its helpdesk. Its basicallya customer service job, answering questions, helping people solve their computerproplems,give you a chance to developyour people skills.B: Something every diplomat needs. But is there some problem? I mean why is the job stillopen?A: Well,they have extended hours, from 6am to 2am every day. So they need a large staff.But right now they only need people early mornings, late nights, and weekends. Youdprobably end up with a bit of everything rather than a regular spot. On the bright sideyoull probably be able to get some studying done between calls. At least it could be astart and then you can try for better hours nextsemester.B: Um, I see why the hours might be a problem.But Iguess I cant afford to be too picky ifIwant a job.Still maybe we can work something out.Listening2We are going to start a study of sunspots today, and I think youll find it rather interesting.Now Im going to assume that you know that sunspots, in the most basic terms, are darkspots on the Suns surface. That will do for now. The ancient Chinese were the first torecord observations of sunspots as early as the year 165. When later Europeanastronomers wrote about sunspots, they didnt believe that the spots were actually on theSun. Thats because of their belief at the time that the heavenly bodies, the Sun, Moon,Stars, and Planets, were perfect, without any flaws or blemishes. So the opinion was thespots were actually something else, like shadows of planets crossing the Suns face. Andthis was the thinking of European astronomers until the introduction of the telescope,which brings us to our old friend, Galileo. In the early 1600s, based on his observations ofsunspots. Galileo proposed a new hypothesis. He pointed out that the shape of sunspots,well, the sunspots werent circular. If they were shadows of the planets, they would becircular, right? So that was a problem for the prevailing view. And he also noticed that theshape of the sunspots changed as they seemed to move across the Suns surface. Maybe aparticular sunspot was sort of square, then later it would become more lopsided, then latersomething else. So there is another problem with the shadow hypothesis, because theshape of a planet doesnt change. What Galileo proposed was that sunspots were indeed afeature of the Sun, but he didnt know what kind of feature. He proposed that they mightbe clouds in the atmosphere, the solar atmosphere, especially because they seemed tochange shape and there was no predicting the changes, at least nothing Galileo couldfigure out. That random shape changing would be consistent with the spots being clouds.Over the next couple hundred years, a lot of hypotheses were tossed around. The spotswere mountains or holes in the solar atmosphere through which the dark surface of theSun could be seen. Then in 1843, astronomer named Heinrich Schwa be made aninteresting claim, Trobe had been watching the Sun every day that it was visible for 17years, looking for evidence of a new planet. And he started keeping tracks of sunspots,mapping them, so he wouldnt confuse them, so he wouldnt confuse them with anypotential new planet. In the end, there was no planet, but there was evidence that thenumber of sunspots increased and decreased in a pattern, a pattern that began repeatingafter 10 years, and that was a huge breakthrough. Another astronomer named Wolf kepttrack of the Sun for an even longer period, 40 years actually. So Wolf did 40 years ofresearch, and Trobe did 17 years of research. I think there is a lesson there. Anyway, Wolfwent though all records from various observatories in Europe and put together a history ofsunspot observations going back about 100 years. From this information, he was able toconfirm the existence of a pattern, a repeating cycle but Wolf detected an 11-year cycles?Dose that sound familiar to anyone? No? Well,geomagnetic activity,the natural variationsin Earths magnetic field, it fluctuates in 11-year cycles. Well, well cover this later in thissemester, but for now, well, scientists in the late 19thcentury were aware of geomagneticcycles, so when they heard that the sunspots cycle was also 11 years, well, they just hadto find out what was going on. Suddenly, everyone was doing studies of the possiblerelationship between the Sun and the Earth. Did the sunspots cause the geomagnetic fieldsor did the geomagnetic fields cause the sunspots? Or is there some other thing that causedboth? And astronomers did eventually figure out what sunspots had to do with magneticfields. And the fact that sunspots are magnetic fields accounts for their dark appearance.Thats because magnetic fields reduce the pressure exerted on the gases inside of them,making the spots cooler than the rest of the Suns surface. And since they are cooler, theyare darker.Listening3A: Today well continue our examination of ancient Roman sculpture. Weve already lookedat portrait sculpture which are busts created to commemorate people who had died,and weve looked at relief sculpture, or sculpting on walls. And today well look at yetanother category of sculpture-made copiesof famous Greeksculptures.B: Why didthey do that?A: Well no one knows for sure. You see, in the late 4thcentury B.C., the Romans began acampaign to expand the Roman Empire, and in 300 years they had conquered most ofthe Mediterranean area and parts of Europe. You know the saying, copies. Romansculptors often “To the victor belong the spoils”? Well, the Roman army returned toRome with many works of Greek art. Its probably fair to say that the Romans wereimpressed be Greek art and culture and they began making copies of the Greek statues.Now the dominant view in traditional art his that Roman artists lacked creativity andskill especially compared to the Greek artists who came before them. Essentially, thetraditional view, a view thats been prevalent for over 250 years, is that the Romanscopied Greek sculptures because they couldnt create sculpture of their own. But finallysome contemporary art historians have challenged this view. One is Elaine Gazda .Gazda says that there might be other reasons that Romans made copies. She wasntconvinced that it was because of a lack of creativity. Can anyone think of anotherpossible reason? Well maybe they just admired these sculptures. You know, they likedthe way they looked. Yes. Thats one of Gazdas points. Another is that while nowadaysreproduction is easy,it was not so easy in Roman times. Copying statues required a lotof skill, time and effort. So Gazda hypothesizes that copying didnt indicate a lack ofartistic imagination or skill on the part of Roman artists, but rather the Romans madecopies because they admired Greek sculpture. Classical Greek statues represented anidealization of the human body and were considered quite beautiful at the time.Gazdaalso believes that its been a mistake to dismiss the Roman copies as, well, copies forcopyssake and not to considerthe Roman function and meaningof the statues.B: What do you mean the Roman function? Werent they just for decoration?A: Well, not necessarily. Under the Emperor Augustus at the height of the Roman Empire,portrait statues were sent throughout the empire. They were supposed tocommunicate specific ideas about the emperor and the imperial family and to helpinhabitants of the conquered areas become familiar with the Roman coins were alsodistributed throughout the empire. Anybody care to guess what was on them?The emperors face? Thats right! The coins were easy to distribute and they allowedpeople to see the emperor or at least his likes and served as an additional reminder tolet them know, well, who was in charge. And the images helped people becomefamiliar with the emperor. Statues of him in different roles were sent all over theempire. Now, actually some Roman sculptures were original but others were exactcopies of Greek statues and some Roman sculptures were combinations of some sort.Some combined more than one Greek statue and others combined a Greek god or anathlete with a Romans head. At the time of JuliusCaesar, I wasnt uncommon to createstatues that had the body of a god and the head of an emperor.And the Romans wereclever. What they did was they made plaster casts from molds of the sculptures. Thenthey shipped these plaster casts to workshops all over the empire, where they werereplicated in marble or bronze. And on some statues the heads were removable. Theycould put an emperors head on different bodies, showing him doing different things.And then later when then time came they could even use the head of the next emperoron the same body.Listening4A: Well,Im glad you redid your outline. I feda few comments, but nothing you have to acton. Its ingood enough shape for you to start writing you paper.B: Thanks! At first I was afraid all that prep work would be awaste oftime.A: Well, especially with a challenging topic like yours: factors leading to the emergence ofsociology as an academic discipline. Theres just so much history to consider; you couldget lost without a solidoutline. So did you have a question?B: Yeah, itsaboutyou mentionedneeding volunteers for a research study?A: Yep, its not mystudy. Its my colleagues inthe marketingdepartment. She needs peopleto watch various new TV programs that havent been broadcast yet, then indicate on asurvey whether they liked it, why, if theyd watch another episode. Itd be kind of funplus participants get a $50 giftcertificate.B: Wow, well I like the sound of that. Butso they are trying to predict if the shows aregonna succeed or fail, right, based on students opinions? Why would they care whatwe think?A: Hey, dont sell yourself short. People your age are a very attractive market foradvertisers who promote their products on television. The study is sponsored by a TVnetwork. If enough students dont like the show, the network may actually reconsiderputting iton the air.B: OK, well,how do I sign up?A: You just add your name and phone number to this list and check a time slot, although itlooks likethe only timesleftare next Monday morning and Thursday evening.B: Oh, well,I have marketing and economics Monday mornings and Thursday.A: OH, you are taking the marketingclass? Whos teaching it?B: ItsProfessor Largin -Intro to Marketing. Hr hasnt mentioned the study though.A: Oh, well, the marketing departments pretty big. I happen to be friends with a womanwho is doing the TVstudy. Ok, well,we dont want you missing class. Hows Thursday?B: Oh, I work from 5 till 9 that night. Hmm,no flexibility with your schedule? Where do youwork?A: Oh, I likeFoxs. Ieat there every week.Maybe you could switch shifts with someone.B: Im still in training. And the only night my trainer works is Thursday.Look!A: I know the owners there really well. Why dont you let me give them a call and explainthe situation?B: OK! Itd be cool to be part of a real research study. And the gift certificate wouldnt hurteither.Listening5In order to really study the social history of the Middle Ages, you have to understand therole of spices. Now, this might sound a little spurring, even a little strange. But what seemlike little things now were back then actually rather big things. So first lets define what aspice is. Technically speaking, a spice is part of an aromatic plant that is not a leaf or herb.Spices can come from tree bark like cinnamon, plant roots like ginger, flower buds likecloves. And in the Middle Ages. Europeans were familiar with lots of different spices, mostimportant being pepper, cloves, ginger, cinnamon, maize and nutmeg. These spicesliterarily dominated the way Europeans lived for centuries, how they traded and even howthey used their imaginations. So why this medieval fascination with spices? We can boil itdown to there general ideas briefly. One was cost and rarity. Uh two was exotic taste andfragrance. And third, mysterious origins and kinds of mythical status. Now for cost andrarity, spices arent native to Europe and they had to be imported. Spices only grew in theEast Indies and of course transportation costs were incredibly valuable even from the verybeginning. Here is an example. In 408 AD, the Gothic General who captured Romedemanded payment. He wanted 5000 pounds of gold among other things but he alsowanted 3000 pounds of pepper. Maybe that would give you an idea of exactly wherepepper stood at the time. By the Middle Ages, spices were regarded as so important andexpensive they were used in diplomacy, as gifts by heads of state and ambassadors. Nowfor the taste. The diet then was relatively bland, compared to todays. There wasnt muchvariety. Especially the aristocracy who tended to eat a lot of meat, they were alwayslooking for new ways to prepare it, new sources, new tastes and this is where spices camein. Now, this is a good point to mention one of the biggest myths about spices. Itscommonly said that medieval Europeans wanted spices to cover up the taste of spoiledmeat. But this isnt really true. Anyone who had to worry about spoiled meat couldntafford spices in the first place. If you could afford spices, you could definitely afford freshmeat. We also have evidence that various medieval markets employed a kind of police tomake sure that people did not sell spoiled food, and if you were caught doing it, you weresubject to various fines, humiliating public punishments. So what actually was true wasthis: In order to have meat for the winter, people would preserve it in salt, not a spice.Spices actually arent very effective as preservatives. And throughout winter, they wouldeat salted meat, but the taste of the stuff could grow really boring and depressing after awhile. So the cook started looking for new ways to improve the taste and spices were theanswer, which brings us to mysterious origins and mythical status. Now the ancientRomans had a thriving spice trade and they sent their ships to the east and back. But whenRome collapsed in the fifth century and the Middle Ages began, direct trade stopped, andso did that kind of hands-on knowledge of travel and geography. Spices now came by wayof the trade routes with lots of intermediariesbetween the producer and the consumer. Sothese spices took on an air of mystery. Their origins were shrouded in exotic travels. Theyhad the allure of the unknown, of wild places. Myths grew up of fantasy lands, magicalfaraway places made entirely of food and spices. And to that, spices themselves hadalways been considered special or magical not just for eating and this was already true inthe ancient world where legends about spices were abundant. Spices inspired the medievalimagination. They were used as medicines to ward off diseases, and mixed into perfumes,incent. They were used in religious rituals for thousands of years. They took on a life oftheir own and they inspired the medieval imagination, spurred on the age of discovery inthe 145thand 16thcenturies. When famous explorers like Columbus and da Gama andMagellan left Europe in their ships, they werent looking for a new world.; they werelooking for spices. And we know what important historical repercussions some of thosevoyages had.Listening6A：Well, its finally looking like spring is arriving. The last of the winter snow would bemelting away in a few days. So before we close today, I thought Id mention abiological event thats a part of the transition from winter to spring, something youcan go outside and watch if you have some patience. There is a small creature thatlivesin this area; youve probably seen it. Its the North American wood frog. Now thewood frogs not that easy tosspot since it stays pretty to close to the ground, underleaves and things and it blends in really well with its background as you can see. Butthey are worth the effort because they do something very unusual, something youmight not have eventhought possible. OK North American wood frogs live over a verybroad territory or range. Theyre found all over the northeastern United States and allthrough Canada and Alaska, even inside the Arctic Circle. No other frog is able to livethat far and north. But wherever they live, once the weather starts to turn cold andthe temperature starts to drop below freezing, as soon as the frog even touches an icecrystal or a bit of frozen ground, well, it begins to freeze.Yeah.yes to me. You look alittle bit takenaback.B: Wait,you mean its still alive but itfreezes,solid?A: Well,almost. Ice forms inall the spaces outside the cells but never within a cell.B: But then how does its heart beat?A: It doesnt.B: Butthen how could it.A: You are gonna do such a thing? Well, that first touch of ice apparently triggers abiological response inside the frog. That first of all starts drawing water away from thecenter of its body, so the middle part of the frog, its internal organs, its heart, lungs,liver, these start getting drier and drier while the water thats being pulled away isforming a puddle around the organs just underneath the skin. And then that puddle ofwater starts to freeze. OK, up to known, the frogs heart is still beating, right? Slowerand