托福听力新手入门须知6个考试特点汇总分析-笑傲英语网

托福听力新手入门须知6个考试特点汇总分析

侧重学术性(Academic atmosphere)

侧重学术是托福听力的重要特点，考题中4篇lectures和两篇long conversations大都涉及到各个学科专业知识，仅在两篇长对话中会出现校园服务等一般性话题，数量较小。最常考的十五大学科为：Zoology，botany，biology or microbiology，geology，geography，meteorology，astronomy，archeology，physiology，law，business and economy，literature，arts (music and architecture)，history，philosophy。因此，在考生正式进入听力练习之前，务必要先通过专业学术词这一关，推荐书籍为《词以类记》。

听力难度较高(Degree of difficulty)

新托福听力有难度是达成广泛共识的。听力时间为60-90分钟(根据有无加试题而定)，大部分水平可以的考生，由于缺乏长时间持续性的专注练习，听到中后期就不知道自己在听什么了，从而导致分数不高。其“三不原则”–不可看，不可逆，不可改，也是让考生觉得很茫然的原因之一，这些限制之下听力自然增加了难度。考前看不到选项，只能前进不能后退，选完不能修改。寄期望于分析选项和前后联系选题的解题思路也用不了，这也进一步提升了托福听力的难度。

题型复杂问法多变(Macro and micro)

这是针对题型的，托福听力题既有微观又有宏观题。考生在以往没见过的多选题(四选二，五选三)，排序题，复听题等让考生眼花缭乱，所以对各种题型的分析和研究非常必要。缺乏解题经验积累的同学面对不同题型不知道如何去做也是家常便饭的事。

多人讨论分不清(More characters)

在托福听力的考题中，考生会发现常常不是一个人或者两个人在讲，总是会一个教授和几个学生，或者好几个同学之间的讨论，角色多元是其另一大显著特点。考生如果没有特别留意，也容易发生听到后面分不清到底是谁说了什么的情况。

重视实战经验(Focus on practical tests)

因为托福听力是IBT(internet based test)考试，所以真正的实战就显得尤为重要。ETS唯一的官方教材OG(Official guidance)，官方真题Official (Toefl practice on line)，DELTA 等套题或模考是考生必须要认真分析拿下的，因为新托福考试纸上的练习和上机练习有很大差别。另外，“机经”对于初识新托福的同学也会有较大的帮助，应该予以关注，这也是实战后的产物。

需要做笔记技巧(Note-taking)

新托福听力每篇文章都在4-6分钟，长度是大部分考生之前没见过的，为了弥补短期记忆不足，就必须要记笔记。记什么，怎么记是笔记训练的关键。一般是三种境界：什么都记(记中听) —有选择的记(边听边记) – 边听偶尔记 (听中记)，要达到第三层境界，需要较长的时间甚至需要一些有效点拨，当然内功到了，一点即破。

2020托福听力练习：预防少女怀孕的项目反而增加怀孕率

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

Used to be, teenage kids had to carry around a bag of flour wrapped in a blanket to learn the responsibilities of parenthood. But these days? The same lesson is taught with hi-tech dolls that cry and record every interaction.

"You know they get grumpy, you have to rock them to calm them down, they have to be fed." Sally Brinkman, an epidemiologist at the Telethon Kids Institute, in Australia. "It's supposed to be so tiring and so difficult that it puts them off and they say 'I don't want to be a teenage mom.' And then they think about contraception and all of those sorts of things."

Problem is, that theory — that the dolls will discourage teenage parenthood—doesn't seem to be true, according to a new study by Brinkman and her colleagues. The team recruited nearly 3,000 13- to 15-year-old girls for the trial, from 57 schools in Western Australia. All the girls got the standard Australian curriculum on contraception and sexual health. But half had to care for the infant dolls—and got extra education sessions with the school nurse.

The team's hypothesis? "We thought either it's going to make a difference, or it's going to make no difference whatsoever. We hadn't expected that it would do the opposite." And in fact, the girls who cared for the dolls were nearly one and a half times more likely to get pregnant before age 20, than teens in the control group. The findings are in The Lancet.

The company that makes the dolls has criticized the trial, and says the researchers didn't properly implement the educational portion of the program. But Brinkman disagrees. Maybe, she says, the program itself is flawed. "If we're inadvertently increasing teenage pregnancy rates, you know, this program needs to stop. We shouldn't be delivering it in schools."

以前，十几岁的孩子在学习为人父母的责任时要带着裹在毯子里的一袋面粉。那现在呢?现在，同样的课程用可以哭还可以记录所有互动的高科技娃娃来完成。

“你知道他们会生气，你要抱着他们轻轻晃动来让他们平静下来，你要喂他们吃东西。”萨莉·布林克曼是澳大利亚特里松儿童研究院的流行病学家。“这既累人又很难，会让他们失去耐心，他们会说‘我不想当年轻妈妈。'然后他们会考虑避孕和其他相关问题。”

问题是，娃娃会让年轻父母感到泄气的理论看起来并不正确，这是布林克曼和她同事进行的新研究得出的结论。布林我曼和她的团队从西澳大利亚57所学校招募了近3000名13至15岁的女孩进行试验。所有女孩都在澳大利亚国家标准课程学习了避孕和性健康的知识。其中有一半女孩曾照顾过婴儿娃娃，而且在护校学习了额外的教育课程。

该团队的假设?“我们认为，结果要么有区别，要么就完全没有区别。我们没想到结果恰恰相反。”实际上，曾经照顾过娃娃的女孩可能在20岁以前怀孕的机率比对照组中的女孩高出1.5倍。这一研究结果发表在《柳叶刀》期刊上。

生产这种娃娃的公司对这项试验进行了指责，他们认为研究人员没有妥善实施该项目的教育责任。但是布林克曼不同意这种说法。她说，也许这个项目本身就存在缺陷。“如果我们无意中使少女怀孕率上升，那这个项目就要停止。我们不应该在学校里进行这个项目。”

重点讲解：

1. calm down (使)平静下来;(使)镇定下来;

例句：His rage was soon calmed down by the rustic peace.

乡村的宁静很快就使他的怒气平静下来。

2. put off 使反感;使对…失去兴趣;

例句：The high divorce figures don't seem to be putting people off marriage.

离婚的人很多，但这好像并没有打消人们对结婚的热情。

3. care for 照料;照顾;护理;

例句：It seemed to be her mission to care for her brother's children.

照顾她兄弟的孩子似乎成了她一生的使命。

4. in fact (用于修正、引出相反意见或对比等)事实上，其实;

例句：No doubt he means to help, but in fact he just gets in the way.

他确实是想帮忙，然而事实上却只是帮倒忙。

2020托福听力练习：皮肤变色有助气候控制与交流

Various animals evolved coloration that keeps them hidden. A jaguar's patterns help it slink undetected across the sun-dappled rainforest floor. The mottled pigmentation on the wings of some let them rest on tree bark undisturbed. And then there are animals that can quickly change their appearance—for example, the Central Bearded Dragon.

This two-foot-long lizard lives in the more arid parts of Australia.

"They can change color really quickly, just in a matter of seconds or minutes."

University of Melbourne biologist Katie Smith.

"And they do this by moving pigments within specialized skin cells called chromatophores."

Bearded dragons modify their colors for camouflage, or to maintain their body temperature, or to communicate with other dragons. Smith wanted to know how they meet all those needs with the same tool kit.

So she and her team rounded up twelve bearded dragons and put them through a series of tests before releasing them back into the wild. They found that when the dragons want to communicate with other members of their species, they change the colors on their neck.

"This is actually one of the reasons they're called bearded dragons—because they look like they have a really serious five o'clock shadow."

Changes to their backs were for temperature regulation. Shifting to yellow lets them to cool off during extreme heat, while darker greys allow them to soak up more heat during cooler weather.

"They actually save about, on average, 22 minutes a day at the darker colors than the lighter colors. That's about 85 hours throughout the whole year."

Eighty-five hours a year NOT spent out in the open and exposed to potential predators. The results were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: B.

The lizards can clearly control each part of their body separately, resulting in an efficient system. Temperature regulation involves the back, which is facing the sun. Social signaling uses the neck, easily visible to another lizard they're faced off with.

The researchers' next task is to see what happens when the lizards have to deal with simultaneous but conflicting coloration requirements—situations that could give a bearded dragon a close shave.

很多动物会进化颜色让自己隐藏起来。美洲豹身上的斑纹让它可以在阳光斑驳的雨林地带潜行。一些动物翅膀上的斑驳沉着色素可以让它们在树上休息时不被打扰。另外，还有些动物可以快速改变它们的外表，比如鬃狮蜥。

这种两英尺长的蜥蜴生活在澳大利亚的干旱地区。

“它们可以非常快速地改变颜色，仅仅只需要几秒钟或者几分钟的时间。”

凯蒂·史密斯是墨尔本大学的生物学家。

“它们通过转移特定皮肤内细胞内的色素来实现的。”

鬃狮蜥通过改变自己的颜色进行伪装、保持体温，或和其他鬃狮蜥进行交流。史密斯想知道拥有同样保护伪装的鬃狮蜥是如何满足这些需求的。

所以，她和自己的团队找了十二只鬃狮蜥，对它们进行了一系列的测试，然后再把它们放回野外。他们发现，当鬃狮蜥想和本物种的其他成员进行交流时，它们会改变自己颈部的颜色。

“这实际上是它们被称为长鬃狮蜥的原因之一，因为它们看起来像长了胡须。”

鬃狮蜥改变背部的颜色是为了调节温度。变成黄色可以让它们在酷热的天气中凉爽下来，而变成深灰色可以让鬃狮蜥在寒冷的天气吸收更多的热量。

“实际上平均而言，它们每天呈现深颜色的时间要比浅颜色的时间少22分钟。那么一年也就长达85个小时。”

这也就意味着它们一年有85个小时的时间没有在户外，而且不会接触到可能的捕食者。这项研究结果发表在《皇家学会学报B》上。

鬃狮蜥可以明确地控制自身各个部分，从而形成一个有效的系统。在有阳光时，可以调节背部的颜色。社交的时候调节颈部的颜色，让另一只鬃狮蜥清楚地看到它们面临的情况。