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新托福TPO8阅读原文及译文(二)Extinction of the Dinosaurs

新托福TPO8阅读原文及译文(二)Extinction of the Dinosaurs
新托福TPO8阅读原文及译文(二)Extinction of the Dinosaurs

新托福TPO8阅读原文(二):Extinction of the Dinosaurs

TPO-8-2:Extinction of the Dinosaurs

Paleontologists have argued for a long time that the demise of the dinosaurs was caused by climatic alterations associated with slow changes in the positions of continents and seas resulting from plate tectonics. Off and on throughout the Cretaceous (the last period of the Mesozoic era, during which dinosaurs flourished), large shallow seas covered extensive areas of the continents. Data from diverse sources, including geochemical evidence preserved in seafloor sediments, indicate that the Late Cretaceous climate was milder than today’s. The days were not too hot, nor the nights too cold. The summers were not too warm, nor the winters too frigid. The shallow seas on the continents probably buffered the temperature of the nearby air, keeping it relatively constant.

At the end of the Cretaceous, the geological record shows that these seaways retreated from the continents back into the major ocean basins. No one knows why. Over a period of about 100,000 years, while the seas pulled back, climates around the world became dramatically more extreme: warmer days, cooler nights; hotter summers, colder winters. Perhaps dinosaurs could not tolerate these extreme temperature changes and became extinct.

If true, though, why did cold-blooded animals such as snakes, lizards, turtles, and crocodiles survive the freezing winters and torrid summers? These animals are at the mercy of the climate to maintain a livable body temperature. It’s hard to understand why they would not be affected, whereas dinosaurs were left too crippled to cope, especially if, as some scientists believe, dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Critics also point out that the shallow seaways had retreated from and advanced on the continents numerous times during the Mesozoic, so why did the dinosaurs survive the climatic changes associated with the earlier fluctuations but not with this one? Although

initially appealing, the hypothesis of a simple climatic change related to sea levels is insufficient to explain all the data.

Dissatisfaction with conventional explanations for dinosaur extinctions led to a surprising observation that, in turn, has suggested a new hypothesis. Many plants and animals disappear abruptly from the fossil record as one moves from layers of rock documenting the end of the Cretaceous up into rocks representing the beginning of the Cenozoic (the era after the Mesozoic). Between the last layer of Cretaceous rock and the first layer of Cenozoic rock, there is often a thin layer of clay. Scientists felt that they could get an idea of how long the extinctions took by determining how long it took to deposit this one centimeter of clay and they thought they could determine the time it took to deposit the clay by determining the amount of the element iridium (Ir) it contained.

Ir has not been common at Earth’s since the very beginning of the planet’s history. Because it usually exists in a metallic state, it was preferentially incorporated in Earth’s core as the planet cooled and consolidated. Ir is found in high concentrations in some meteorites, in which the solar system’s original chemical composition is preserved. Even today, microscopic meteorites continually bombard Earth, falling on both land and sea. By measuring how many of these meteorites fall to Earth over a given period of time, scientists can estimate how long it might have taken to deposit the observed amount of Ir in the boundary clay. These calculations suggest that a period of about one million years would have been required. However, other reliable evidence suggests that the deposition of the boundary clay could not have taken one million years. So the unusually high concentration of Ir seems to require a special explanation.

In view of these facts, scientists hypothesized that a single large asteroid, about 10 to 15 kilometers across, collided with Earth, and the resulting fallout created the boundary clay. Their calculations show that the impact kicked up a dust cloud that cut off sunlight for several months, inhibiting photosynthesis in plants; decreased surface

temperatures on continents to below freezing; caused extreme episodes of acid rain; and significantly raised long-term global temperatures through the greenhouse effect. This disruption of food chain and climate would have eradicated the dinosaurs and other organisms in less than fifty years.

译文:TPO-8-2 恐龙的灭绝

很长时间以来,古生物学家们认为恐龙的灭亡是与因地质构造而引起的海洋和大陆位置变迁相关的气候变化所致。在整个白垩纪(中生代的最后的一段时间,这时恐龙正值繁盛),广阔的浅海覆盖了大量的陆地。各方面的数据,包括海床沉积中的地理化学证据,都表明白垩纪后期的气候比现在的气候要温和得多。白天不是很热,夜间也不是很寒冷。夏天不是太炎热,而冬天也不是太寒冷。大陆上的浅海可能使其附近的空气少受影响,以保持相对稳定的温度。

在白垩纪后期,地质资料表明这些浅海都从大陆退回到主要的海洋盆地内了,没有人明白为什么。大约在100 000年内,海洋收缩了,世界的气候也随之变得更极端:白天更热,夜间更冷,夏天更炎热,冬天更寒冷。恐龙或许就是因为无法忍受这种严峻的气温变化因而灭绝。

如果真是这样,那么为什么冷血动物,比如蛇类、蜥蜴、乌龟和鳄鱼却能够幸免于寒冬和酷夏呢?这些动物都是依赖于气温以使其身体保持适合生存的温度。很难理解它们为什么毫不受影响,然而恐龙却如此的无能以至于无法适应,尤其是有些科学家认为恐龙是热血动物。批评者们也指出浅海在中生代曾有过无数次的进入大陆而又退回盆地的过程,所以为什么恐龙在前面的海洋起伏中能幸免于难,而在这一次中却不能呢?尽管最初人们这样认为,但是简单的与海平面高度有关的气候变化假设是不足以解释所有数据的。

对传统的关于恐龙灭绝解释的不满使得人们反过来惊奇的发现,从而产生了新的假设。当人们对比白垩纪后期的岩层资料和新生代(中生代后面的一个时期)早期的资料时发现很多植物和动物都突然地消失了。在白垩纪最后的一层岩石和新生代的第一层岩石之间,常有一层很薄的粘土。科学家们感觉到他们可以通过

确定这层一厘米厚的粘土层中元素铱的含量来推测其的沉积时间,进而推测大灭绝所用的时间。

自从地球以来,铱元素在地球的表面上就不常见。因为它通常是以金属状态存在,并随着地球的冷却和固结而优先地合并到地核中了。在一些陨石中,依可能会高度富集,而这里常保存着太阳系内原始的化学组成。直到今天,小型的陨石也在连续不断地撞击地球,并掉落在陆地和海洋中。通过确定在一段给定时间内掉落在地球上的这种陨石的数量,科学家们就可以确定沉积隔层粘土的形成时间。这种计算表明形成这种沉积可能需要一百万年。然而其他可靠的证据则表明沉积这层粘土不可能花费了一百万年。所以这种不正常的铱的富集可能需要一种特殊的解释。

考虑到这些事实,科学家们就假设有一个较大的小行星,直径差不多有10到15公里,曾与地球相撞,所以碰撞扬起的灰尘等就形成了这层粘土层。他们的计算表明撞击扬起的灰尘遮挡了阳光达几个月之久,阻止了植物的光合作用,将陆地上的气温降到了零点之下,导致酸雨,通过温室效应造成了长期的、严重的全球升温。这种对食物链和气候的极大扰乱将可使恐龙和其他生物在不到50年的时间内绝迹。

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1. 旅游业不但给政府带来税收而且给很多人提供了就业机会。 2. 赌博不但对健康有害,而且会影响家庭和睦。 3. 打工不但能让学生赚零花钱,而且还能让他们学到人际交往的能力。 4. 现在很多学校的校服不但贵,而且还难看,质量不好。 5. 政府不但要多建一些公路,还要鼓励人们多使用公交车。 6. 老人们既不需要很多的钱,也不需要很大的房子,他们最需要的是子女的关心和照顾。 7. 我喜欢旅游,但是,我既没有钱,也没有时间。 8. 在老人院,老人既能够接受到医疗,又能够找到很多有共同话题,共同兴趣的的伙伴。 9. 缴税既是有有利于国家,也是有利于个人。因为政府的税收主要用于公共服务,这个是每个人都会受益的。 10. 打电脑游戏既浪费时间,又有害视力。

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3.Early Food Production in Sub-Saharan Africa 在更新世末期(大约公元前10000年),食品生产的技术可能已经在非洲西部和中部 的热带雨林的边缘地区使用,在那里非洲山药等根茎型植物的普遍使用,使人们认识到自己种植食物的好处。这种原始形式的“蔬菜栽培”(块根植物和树本作物的种植)可 能已经成为了一种经济传统,基于这种传统,夏季降水谷类作物的种植也采用嫁接的办法,这种种植技术已经在撒哈拉沙漠南部边界地区的草原南部被使用。随着撒哈拉 沙漠在公元前5000年之后干涸,游牧民族(牧民)向南沿着主要河道迁移到了西非和苏丹的热带草原地带。 直到公元前3000年,正如埃及文明发源于尼罗河流域一样,这些游牧民族定居在了离南部很远的东非高原地区的中心。东非高原是理想的养牛场所,如今也是像马赛人(肯尼亚和坦桑尼亚的游牧狩猎民族)这样的有名的牧牛民族的家园。直到大约公元前3300 年,第一批牧牛人出现时,高地上居住着狩猎采集者,他们居住在平原附近的山区。和其他地方的情况一样,在非洲,牛是饲养起来很费劲的动物。如果要饲养各种规模 的牛群的话,这些牛至少每24小时就需要喝一次水,而且需要大片的牧场。饲养的秘 诀在于仔细挑选放牧场地,尤其是在季节性降雨会导致全年牧草质量有明显差异的环境中。即使是规模适中的牛群也需要大片的土地和相当大的可移动性。为了获得这样的土地,经常需要牛群移动相当远的距离,甚至是从夏季牧场移动到冬季牧场。同时,放牧人不得不让牲畜在有舌蝇出没的地带吃草。唯一能够保护人类和牲畜,不患上昏 睡病(一种由舌蝇传播的疾病)的办法,就是避免在这些地区定居或者放牧——对非 洲东部和中部地区的牧民来说,这个办法严重地限制了他们的迁移。结果是,小牛群迅速地向南部地区迁移,在那里人们可以放牧。在谷类农业占领最南部的撒哈拉沙漠之前,非洲东部和南部稀树草原地区的一些依靠狩猎和采集生活的人可能已经饲养了牛群和其他家养动物,他们将牲畜作为礼物交换,或者通过劫掠放牧的邻居,来获得这些牲畜。 和主流观点相反:没有所谓的“纯粹”的牧民,即只依靠牧群生存的社会。撒哈拉沙漠地 区为了躲避干旱而向南迁移的牧民,几乎肯定的是他们也在种植高粱、小米和其他热带降雨作物。到公元前1500年,谷类作物已经广泛分布于整个撒哈拉沙漠南部的稀树 草原带。小型农业社区遍布在草原和西非东部森林的边界处,这些小型农业社区都依赖于所谓的轮耕法。这种形式的农业包括清理林地,焚烧清理过的地块上的那些被砍倒的灌木丛,将灰烬混合在土壤中,然后在这些制备好的土地上耕种。几年后,土地耗尽了养分,于是农民们继续前进,开辟新的林地,让原来的荒地休耕。轮耕法,也 被称为“刀耕火种”,高度适用于没有犁的稀树草原地区的农民,因为这种方法能够消耗 最少的能量。

新托福TPO11阅读原文及译文(一)

新托福TPO11阅读原文(一):Ancient Egyptian Sculpture TPO11-1:Ancient Egyptian Sculpture In order to understand ancient Egyptian art, it is vital to know as much as possible of the elite Egyptians' view of the world and the functions and contexts of the art produced for them. Without this knowledge we can appreciate only the formal content of Egyptian art, and we will fail to understand why it was produced or the concepts that shaped it and caused it to adopt its distinctive forms. In fact, a lack of understanding concerning the purposes of Egyptian art has often led it to be compared unfavorably with the art of other cultures: Why did the Egyptians not develop sculpture in which the body turned and twisted through space like classical Greek statuary? Why do the artists seem to get left and right confused? And why did they not discover the geometric perspective as European artists did in the Renaissance? The answer to such questions has nothing to do with a lack of skill or imagination on the part of Egyptian artists and everything to do with the purposes for which they were producing their art. The majority of three-dimensional representations, whether standing, seated, or kneeling, exhibit what is called frontality: they face straight ahead, neither twisting nor turning. When such statues are viewed in isolation, out of their original context and without knowledge of their function, it is easy to criticize them for their rigid attitudes that remained unchanged for three thousand years. Frontality is, however, directly related to the functions of Egyptian statuary and the contexts in which the statues were set up. Statues were created not for their decorative effect but to play a primary role in the cults of the gods, the king, and the dead. They were designed to be put in places where these beings could manifest themselves in order to be the recipients of ritual actions. Thus it made sense to show the statue looking ahead at what was happening in front of it, so that the living performer of the ritual could interact with the divine or deceased recipient. Very often such statues were enclosed in rectangular shrines or wall niches whose only opening was at the front, making it

新托福TPO26阅读原文及译文(一)

新托福TPO26阅读原文(一):能源与工业革命 TPO26-1:nergy and the Industrial Revolution For years historians have sought to identify crucial elements in the eighteenth-century rise in industry, technology, and economic power known as the Industrial Revolution, and many give prominence to the problem of energy. Until the eighteenth century, people relied on energy derived from plants as well as animal and human muscle to provide power. Increased efficiency in the use of water and wind helped with such tasks as pumping, milling, or sailing. However, by the eighteenth century, Great Britain in particular was experiencing an energy shortage. Wood, the primary source of heat for homes and industries and also used in the iron industry as processed charcoal, was diminishing in supply. Great Britain had large amounts of coal; however, there were not yet efficient means by which to produce mechanical energy or to power machinery. This was to occur with progress in the development of the steam engine. In the late 1700s James Watt designed an efficient and commercially viable steam engine that was soon applied to a variety of industrial uses as it became cheaper to use. The engine helped solve the problem of draining coal mines of groundwater and increased the production of coal needed to power steam engines elsewhere. A rotary engine attached to the steam engine enabled shafts to be turned and machines to be driven, resulting in mills using steam power to spin and weave cotton. Since the steam engine was fired by coal, the large mills did not need to be located by rivers, as had mills that used water- driven machines. The shift to increased mechanization in cotton production is apparent in the import of raw cotton and the sale of cotton goods. Between 1760 and 1850, the amount of raw cotton imported increased 230 times. Production of British cotton goods increased sixtyfold, and cotton cloth became Great Britain’s most important product, accounting for one-half of all exports. The success of the steam engine resulted in increased demands for coal, and the consequent increase in coal production was made possible as the steam-powered pumps drained water from the ever-deeper coal seams found below the water table.

新托福真题TPO27阅读翻译及词汇整理

智课网TOEFL备考资料

新托福真题TPO27阅读翻译及词汇整理 摘要:新托福真题TPO27阅读翻译及词汇整理,下面是小马过河为同学们搜集整理的新托福真题TPO27阅读翻译及词汇整理的相关信息,小马小编整理过来,供同学们参考。 Crafts in the Ancient near East古代近东的手工艺 本文为最新的托福真题TPO第27套阅读第一篇,文章反映了托福“古代社会文明”类型的阅读的特点,阅读中的学科词汇很典型,对我们准备托福的阅读有很重要的参考意义,备战托福的同学不可错过。 学科词汇总结words craft手工艺 urban城市的 civilization 文明 settlement定居点 agriculture农业 pottery实用陶器 textile纺织品

mold模具 carve雕刻 relief浮雕 clay粘土 utilitarian实用的 elaborate精心制作的 refined精制的文章翻译translation 一、人类历史上的第一个城市乌鲁克兴起。 Some of the earliest human civilizations arose in southern Mesopotamia, in what is nowsouthern Iraq, in the fourth millennium B.C.E. In the second half of that millennium, in thesouth around the city of Uruk, there was an enormous escalation in the area occupied bypermanent settlements. A large part of that increase took place in Uruk itself, which became areal urban center surrounded by a set of secondary settlements. While population estimatesare notoriously unreliable, scholars assume that Uruk inhabitants were able to supportthemselves from the agricultural production of the field surrounding the city, which could bere ached with a daily commute. But Uruk’s dominant size in the entire region, far surpassingthat of other settlements, indicates that it was a regional center and a true city. Indeed, it wasthe first city in human history.一些人类最早的文明崛起于公元前四千年的米索达比亚的南部(如今的伊拉克南部)。在公元前四千年的后半期,在乌鲁克城的南部附近被永久定居点占据的区域急剧的增加, 大部分的增长都发生在乌鲁克城内,使其成为了一个真正的城市中心并被一些次要的定居点包围着。虽然众所周知人口估计数是不可靠的,学者们认为乌鲁克居民每天往返城市和城市周边的田地,可以通过周边田地的农业生产来

托福OG TEST 2——green icebergs原文翻译。解析

绿色冰山 冰山就是巨大的冰块,它们的形状各不规则;他们在海面上所呈现出来的部分大概只有总量的12%。冰山是由冰川----从格陵兰岛, 南极洲, 和阿拉斯加的内陆降雪开始积累成为大河中的冰----然后缓慢流入海洋。向前的移动,在进入海洋的时候冰川底部的融化,和波浪与潮汐变化造成了冰块的断裂从而漂浮在海上。 冰山的颜色一般是从蓝到白,虽然有时会因为他们带有砂砾和石块而显得颜色很深或不透明。在不同情况的光和云量下,它们的颜色呈现可能会随之不同,如在早晨和傍晚的阳光下所呈现的耀眼的粉色或金色,但这个颜色变化大致与太阳位于海平面上的低角度有关。不管怎样,总会有到南极洲的旅游者们报告说在Weddell Sea看到了绿冰山,南极洲东部Amery Ice Shelf的附近则更为常见。 对于绿冰山的颜色的一个解释是由于纯冰被接近海平面的太阳所照射而造成的错觉,但是绿冰山在很多不同状态的阳光下都能从白色和蓝色冰山中区分出来。另一个解释就是,它的颜色可能与冰里面所含高浓度的金属化合物有关,比如铜和铁。进来的探险队从南极洲的冰架上带回了一些绿色冰山和冰核的样本----到达深度的垂直圆柱型的冰的样本。对这些冰核和样本的分析给问题提供了一个不一样的解决方法。 215米长的冰架核已经足够用来穿透由压缩的雪组成,并含有气泡的流动冰,并随后穿透在流动冰的底部由冻结的海水形成的清透的没有气泡的冰。这个清透的冰的性质与绿冰山上的冰十分相似。科学家总结出,绿冰的构成是在两层的架冰分开并翻转过来时,暴露出的没有气泡的海水冰。 一个在Amery Ice Shelf西部滞留的绿冰山呈现出了两个明显的层:含有气泡的白蓝色冰,和没有气泡的绿色冰,它们中间是由1米长的带有沉积物的冰分隔开的。海水的侵蚀决定了绿色冰的质地。由于光的分散,裂痕处的颜色是浅绿的;而没有裂痕的地方是深绿色。绿色冰中是没有气泡的,因为它是由冻结的海水所构成,而不是压缩的雪。沿着这个地区冰架的边缘,可以发现,带有绿色色素的单细胞生物非常多,而且海水里面含有它们丰富的分解有机物质。绿冰山虽没有包含很多这些生物体的微粒,但从海水中所积累的分解有机物质还是很多的。不同于盐,分解有机物质并没有在结冰过程中被排除掉。分析表明,分解的有机物质会从太阳光中吸收足够的蓝波段,从而使冰呈现出绿色。 化学证据表明冰的小盘(微小的平面部分)是在水中构成,然后共生并附着在冰架底部形成一个slush (部分融化的雪)。Slush被一种未知的原理压缩成冰,而这种固体,没有气泡的冰形成于可溶解的有机物质多的水。当冰山从冰架上分离并翻转过来时,绿色冰便呈现出来了。 GREEN ICEBERG 1. 排除法,第一句说irregular shape,所以A正确,不选;第一句还说12% above sea surface,所以C说反,选;最后一句说了B和D两个答案,对,不选 2. 以dark or opaque做关键词定位至第一句,because后面是原因,很明显答案是B

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