托福TOFEL考试阅读背景知识(三)

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托福阅读中常考背景解释总结

托福阅读中常考背景解释总结

托福阅读中常考背景解释总结辽阔的海洋既是一个硕大无比的储热库,它大量地吸收着太阳能;同时它又是一台极其巨大的调温机,随时都在调节着海洋的表面和深层的水温。

海洋中上下层水温的差异蕴藏着一定的'能量,专家们称之为海水温差能,也叫做海洋热能。

而这种海水温差能可以用来进行发电,人们把这种发电方式叫做海水温差发电。

早在本世纪20年代,科学家们就开始着手研究试验海水温差发电的方法。

1926年,法国物理学家G·克劳德进行了海水温差发电的小型试验。

他在烧瓶A里加入28℃的温水(这相当于海水表层的水温);连接在另一端烧瓶B里放入冰块,并保持0℃水温(以代表海洋深层的水温)。

用真空泵将A烧瓶内的空气抽出(抽到压力低到每平方厘米0。

038)。

由于液体的沸点是随着加在液面上压力的减小而降低的,所以在此低压下,足以使得烧瓶中28℃的水沸腾起来。

要是能够使烧瓶内的真空度进一步提高,也就是使烧瓶内的压力变得更低,那么烧瓶内的温水就会提前沸腾而迅速蒸发。

这样,相对于烧瓶B内0℃的冰块,就产生了以水蒸汽压差为主的压力差。

于是,A烧瓶内蒸发的水蒸汽通过一个喷嘴喷出,推动涡轮发电机组进行发电。

克劳德试验成功以后,于1929年在古巴建造了一套专门进行海水温差发电的实验装置。

他用一根直径2米的铜管,在距离海岸2000米处,从 650米的深海中汲取冷海水。

当温海水的温度为27。

5℃而冷海水的温度为13℃时,其发电功率为22千瓦。

然而,他用水泵抽取冷海水时所消耗的功率却达 80千瓦。

这岂不是得不偿失吗?实际上不然,克劳德的这套实验装置的发电潜力并没有得到充分发挥,按计算其发电功率可达220千瓦。

但不管怎样,克劳德的实验表明:利用海水的温差来进行发电,在技术上是可行的。

现在的新型海水温差发电装置,是首先把海水引入太阳能加温池,将海水加温到45~60℃(有的可高达90℃),然后再将温海水引进保持真空的某一空间,让它蒸发,借助于水蒸汽来推动汽轮发电机组进行发电。

TOEFL阅读背景知识汇总

TOEFL阅读背景知识汇总

TOEFL阅读背景知识汇总新托福阅读背景知识:石化林石化林的一点背景知识石化林存在于美国亚利桑那州的彩绘沙漠内,是广泛散布的石化木和石化树的集聚地。

来自火山灰的氧化硅溶于水并且渗入树木中,变成晶体,此时石化木便形成了。

人们现在所见到的石化木的鲜艳色彩是由其他矿物质所添加而形成的。

有些石化木看上去仿佛曾被斧子砍断以用作木柴,但它们可能是因地震断裂而形成的。

玛瑙桥(玛瑙是一种半宝石)是跨越在一条12米宽的溪流上方的单根石化木。

它在跨度上没有支撑,但两端埋在砂岩中。

宝石收藏者过去曾对石化林造成极大的破坏,如今石化木已受法律的保护,无人能再取走哪一片石头。

土著美洲人有一个解释石化林如何产生的故事。

一位女神为生火做饭集木头,但木头很湿不能燃烧。

女神很生气,便对一些木头施以恶咒语,把这们变成了石头,不能再为任何人所使用。

新托福阅读背景知识:初识芭蕾初识芭蕾芭蕾(Ballet)一词,源自意大利文Ballard,意思就是跳舞,专指“足尖舞”,是欧洲古典舞蹈的一种形式。

在其发展过程中,因常以这种舞蹈来叙述表演故事,而逐渐形成了一种特殊的演出形式。

1772年,查理·狄德罗(Charles Diderot)在法国大百科全书中说:“芭蕾系用跳舞解释行动。

特别要求剧场性的赏心悦目。

”。

帕鲁金尼(Perugino)更详细地叙述说:“芭蕾是由一位编导,运用连带哑剧的一系列独舞和群众,附加音乐和布景,去表现一种诗情画意,或一连串概念,或一个故事化的情节。

”芭蕾这种舞蹈形式一直发展到今天,形成了完整的舞剧艺术。

对于中国观众来说,芭蕾并不陌生,尤其近些年来,芭蕾受到了越来越多的观注,一股“芭蕾热”已经在几座大城市悄然兴起。

1997年的“中国歌剧舞剧年”可以说是热闹非凡,各个中外演出团体为广大观众献上了一台又一台精彩的演出,真是“你方唱罢我登场”。

从通俗的《天鹅湖》到浪漫的《吉赛尔》,从“拉丁味”的《堂·吉诃德》到充满海新托福阅读背景知识:脚尖的艺术脚尖的艺术从运动的实际需要来看,脚尖鞋的发明能够将舞者身体的重量支撑“面”经过若干倍的缩小后变成支撑“点”,从而有效地减小与地面的摩擦力,提高旋转的速度,造成风驰电掣的效果、超凡脱俗的幻觉,进而更好地为仙凡之恋这类虚幻的芭蕾题材服务。

TOEFL新托福阅读背景知识精选5篇

TOEFL新托福阅读背景知识精选5篇

TOEFL新托福阅读背景知识精选5篇为了让大家更好的预备托福考试,我给大家整理新托福阅读背景学问汇总,下面我就和大家共享,来观赏一下吧。

新托福阅读背景学问:太空城休士顿太空城休士顿休士顿是US的第五大都市,人类第一次登上月球的阿波罗飞船11号就在这里升空,因而使它也成为全球著名的城镇。

这一城镇是在1836年当德克萨斯州自墨西哥获得独立时,随之而诞生。

通往墨西哥湾的休士顿港,是US第三大港,在那里出口的棉花和石油产品,其数量占全美第一位。

自从US国家航空太空总署NASA在近效设置太空中心以来,休士顿正在连续不断地急速进展。

阿斯托洛圆顶运动场Astrodome耗资3,100万美元,于1965年兴建完成的这一运动场是目前世界上最大的一座室内运动场,内部装有冷暖气设备。

棒球、足球、骞马,以至于马戏团表演,都可以在室内进行。

紧邻的Afterworld是一个规模极大的消遣中心,游客可以欣赏欧洲各种村落的景色,也能够观赏各类表演。

圣哈新托古战场SanJacintoBattlefield1836年,休士顿将军为了争取德州独立,率军与墨军激战的地方。

现在已成为州立公园,纪念塔高达174公尺,可乘电梯登上塔项。

塔下是历史博物馆。

距休士顿市约26公里。

US航空太空总署太空飞行中心NASAMannedSpacecraft因阿波罗11号在此升空而全球著名。

US国家航空太空总署NASA于1961年设立于休士顿东南方45公里处的克利阿湖畔。

四周有GeneralElectric和InternationalBusinessMachines等重要的电子工业企业,是名符其实的航空太空科学中心。

展览馆Exhibit Hall的一号馆中,陈设着太空飞行员使用的器具、太空食物、太空船模型、月球上采集的岩石,对一般观光客公开。

太空飞行中心内部极为宽阔,可在进入中心的问讯处索取地图,备作参考。

太空中心内也有礼品店,出售太空船模型、月球石头模型,以及阿波罗帽等。

托福考试阅读背景知识(全)

托福考试阅读背景知识(全)

托福考试阅读背景知识(下)第二次世界大战后第二次世界大战规模空前。

战争中发生的事,如600万犹太人被屠杀,原子弹在广岛爆炸,使美国知识分子感到震惊。

他们怀疑人性是否还有善良的一面,也感到人难以控制自己制造出来的巨大物质力量。

他们对文明与进步的信念发生了极大动摇。

50年代在“冷战”、麦卡锡主义和朝鲜战争的背景下,文坛趋于沉寂;印、70年代,经过越南战争、民权运动、学生运动、女权运动、水门案件,文坛活跃起来,出现了一批爱思索的作家。

在他们眼里,美国的社会变得十分复杂,价值观念混乱。

他们普遍感到不知怎样解释这样的现实,于是便通过怪诞、幻想、夸张的方式,再现生活中的混乱、恐怖和疯狂。

他们表现的是没有目标与方向的梦境世界他们讲的是支离破碎的故事,写的是“反英雄”、甚至是不完整的形象。

这个时期,文学作品中对**(包括同性爱)的描写也更为;露骨。

战争文学战后出现的第一股文学浪潮是战争小说。

其中较好的是梅勒的《裸者和死者》(1948)和詹姆斯·琼斯的《从这里到永恒》(1951)。

两部书的共同点是通过战争,写小兵、下级军官与军事机构的矛盾,即人的个性与扼杀个性的权力机构之间的冲突。

这些小说已经触及战后整个一代文学最突出的一个主题。

“怯懦的十年”50年代,右翼保守势力向30年代激进主义传统进攻,许多人由关心社会进步转而关心个人的私利。

这10年被称为“怯懦的十年”或“沉寂的十年”。

这期间,出现了一些作品,将资产阶级描绘成正面人物,鼓吹服从权威,如《穿灰法兰绒衣服的人》(1955)。

这类作品企图维护既定价值标准和现存社会秩序,很快就失去了影响。

另一方面,阿瑟·米勒等作家抵制麦卡锡主义,继续用作品抨击社会的不正义。

“垮掉的一代”50年代沉闷的政治空气使许多青年感到窒息,他们吸毒、群居,以颓唐、放纵的生活方式来表示自己的抗议。

其中有些人把这种生活与情绪写入文学作品,这便是“垮掉的一代”文学。

这种文学发展到60年代后,在国内民主运动高涨的背景下,增加了一些政治色彩。

托福阅读第三篇AgricultureintheLateOttomanEmpire

托福阅读第三篇AgricultureintheLateOttomanEmpire
第二段,展开讲农业发展的第一个原因:需求增长,经济变好和铁路发展
托福阅读 第三篇
3
The second engine driving agricultural output concerns cultivators' increasing payment of their taxes in cash rather than in kind (that is, in agricultural or other products).(并列上一段,第二点原因是人们更愿意用先进而不是物品来付税) Some historians have asserted that the increasing commitment to market agriculture was a product both of a mounting per capita tax burden and the state's growing preference for tax payments in cash rather than in kind.(递进,对于市场农业的押金一方面是由于单位资 产税的提高,二是国家更喜欢现金) In this view, such government decisions forced cultivators to grow crops for sale in order to pay their taxes. (递进,所以有些国家要求农民种庄稼然后买掉来付税)Thus, state policy is seen as the most important factor influencing the cultivators' shift from subsistence farming to market agriculture.(总结,这样看来,国家政策是导致农民从粮食生 产转变到市场农业的)

新托福TPO3阅读原文(三)The Long-Term Stability of Ecosystems及译文

新托福TPO3阅读原文(三)The Long-Term Stability of Ecosystems及译文

新托福TPO3阅读原文(三):The Long-Term Stability of Ecosystems TPO-3-3:The Long-Term Stability of EcosystemsPlant communities assemble themselves flexibly, and their particular structure depends on the specific history of the area. Ecologists use the term “succession”to refer to the changes that happen in plant communities and ecosystems over time. The first community in a succession is called a pioneer community, while the long-lived community at the end of succession is called a climax community. Pioneer and successional plant communities are said to change over periods from 1 to 500 years. These changes—in plant numbers and the mix of species—are cumulative. Climax communities themselves change but over periods of time greater than about 500 years.An ecologist who studies a pond today may well find it relatively unchanged in a year’s time. Individual fish may be replaced, but the number of fish will tend to be the same from one year to the next. We can say that the properties of an ecosystem are more stable than the individual organisms that compose the ecosystem.At one time, ecologists believed that species diversity made ecosystems stable. They believed that the greater the diversity the more stable the ecosystem. Support for this idea came from the observation that long-lasting climax communities usually have more complex food webs and more species diversity than pioneer communities. Ecologists concluded that the apparent stability of climax ecosystems depended on their complexity. To take an extreme example, farmlands dominated by a single crop are so unstable that one year of bad weather or the invasion of a single pest can destroy the entire crop. In contrast, a complex climax community, such as a temperate forest, will tolerate considerable damage from weather to pests.The question of ecosystem stability is complicated, however. The first problem is that ecologists do not all agree what “stability”means. Stability can be defined as simply lack of change. In that case, the climax community would be considered the most stable, since, by definition, it changes the least over time. Alternatively, stability can be defined as the speed with which an ecosystem returns to a particular form following a major disturbance, such as a fire. This kind of stability is also called resilience. In that case, climax communities would be the most fragile and the least stable, since they can require hundreds of years to return to the climax state.Even the kind of stability defined as simple lack of change is not always associated with maximum diversity. At least in temperate zones, maximum diversity is often found in mid-successional stages, not in the climax community. Once a redwood forest matures, for example, the kinds of species and the number of individuals growing on the forest floor are reduced. In general, diversity,by itself, does not ensure stability. Mathematical models of ecosystems likewise suggest that diversity does not guarantee ecosystem stability—just the opposite, in fact. A more complicated system is, in general, more likely than a simple system to break down. A fifteen-speed racing bicycle is more likely to break down than a child’s tricycle.Ecologists are especially interested to know what factors contribute to the resilience of communities because climax communities all over the world are being severely damaged or destroyed by human activities. The destruction caused by the volcanic explosion of Mount St. Helens, in the northwestern United States, for example, pales in comparison to the destruction caused by humans. We need to know what aspects of a community are most important to the community’s resistance to destruction, as well as its recovery.Many ecologists now think that the relative long-term stability of climax communities comes n ot from diversity but from the “patchiness”of the environment, an environment that varies from place to place supports more kinds of organisms than an environment that is uniform. A local population that goes extinct is quickly replaced by immigrants from an adjacent community. Even if the new population is of a different species, it can approximately fill the niche vacated by the extinct population and keep the food web intact.译文:TPO-3-3 生态系统的长期稳定植物群体可以自由地聚集,它们特殊的结构取决于聚集区域的具体历史。

托福TPO9阅读真题(文本+答案+翻译):Part3

托福TPO9阅读真题(文本+答案+翻译):Part3

托福TPO9阅读真题(文本+答案+翻译):Part3托福TPO作为托福的模考工具,它的题目对于我们备考托福很有参考价值,为了帮助大家备考,下面小编给大家整理了托福TPO9阅读真题(文本+答案+翻译):Part3,望喜欢!托福TPO9阅读文本:Part3The Arrival of Plant Life in HawaiiWhen the Hawaiian Islands emerged from the sea as volcanoes, starting about five million years ago, they were far removed from other landmasses. Then, as blazing sunshine alternated with drenching rains, the harsh, barren surfaces of the black rocks slowly began to soften. Winds brought a variety of life-forms.Spores light enough to float on the breezes were carried thousands of miles from more ancient lands and deposited at random across the bare mountain flanks. A few of these spores found a toehold on the dark, forbidding rocks and grew and began to work their transformation upon the land. Lichens were probably the first successful flora. These are not single individual plants; each one is a symbiotic combination of an alga and a fungus. The algae capture the sun's energy by photosynthesis and store it in organic molecules. The fungi absorb moisture and mineral salts from the rocks, passing these on in waste products that nourish algae. It is significant that the earliest living things that built communities on these islands are examples of symbiosis, a phenomenon that depends upon the close cooperation of two or more forms of life and a principle that is very important in island communities.Lichens helped to speed the decomposition of the hard rock surfaces, preparing a soft bed of soil that was abundantlysupplied with minerals that had been carried in the molten rock from the bowels of Earth. Now, other forms of life could take hold: ferns and mosses (two of the most ancient types of land plants) that flourish even in rock crevices. These plants propagate by producing spores-tiny fertilized cells that contain all the instructions for making a new plant-but the spore are unprotected by any outer coating and carry no supply of nutrient. Vast numbers of them fall on the ground beneath the mother plants. Sometimes they are carried farther afield by water or by wind. But only those few spores that settle down in very favorable locations can start new life; the vast majority fall on barren ground. By force of sheer numbers, however, the mosses and ferns reached Hawaii, survived, and multiplied. Some species developed great size, becoming tree ferns that even now grow in the Hawaiian forests.Many millions of years after ferns evolved (but long before the Hawaiian Islands were born from the sea), another kind of flora evolved on Earth: the seed-bearing plants. This was a wonderful biological invention. The seed has an outer coating that surrounds the genetic material of the new plant, and inside this covering is a concentrated supply of nutrients. Thus the seed's chances of survival are greatly enhanced over those of the naked spore. One type of seed-bearing plant, the angiosperm, includes all forms of blooming vegetation. In the angiosperm the seeds are wrapped in an additional layer of covering. Some of these coats are hard-like the shell of a nut-for extra protection. Some are soft and tempting, like a peach or a cherry. In some angiosperms the seeds are equipped with gossamer wings, like the dandelion and milkweed seeds. These new characteristics offered better ways for the seed to move to new habitats. Theycould travel through the air, float in water, and lie dormant for many months.Plants with large, buoyant seeds-like coconuts-drift on ocean currents and are washed up on the shores. Remarkably resistant to the vicissitudes of ocean travel, they can survive prolonged immersion in saltwater when they come to rest on warm beaches and the conditions are favorable, the seed coats soften. Nourished by their imported supply of nutrients, the young plants push out their roots and establish their place in the sun.By means of these seeds, plants spread more widely to new locations, even to isolated islands like the Hawaiian archipelago, which lies more than 2,000 miles west of California and 3,500 miles east of Japan. The seeds of grasses, flowers, and blooming trees made the long trips to these islands. (Grasses are simple forms of angiosperms that bear their encapsulated seeds on long stalks.) In a surprisingly short time, angiosperms filled many of the land areas on Hawaii that had been bare.Paragraph 2: Spores light enough to float on the breezes were carried thousands of miles from more ancient lands and deposited at random across the bare mountain flanks. A few of these spores found a toehold on the dark, forbidding rocks and grew and began to work their transformation upon the land. Lichens were probably the first successful flora. These are not single individual plants; each one is a symbiotic combination of an alga and a fungus. The algae capture the sun's energy by photosynthesis and store it in organic molecules. The fungi absorb moisture and mineral salts from the rocks, passing these on in waste products that nourish algae.It is significant that the earliest living thing that built communities on these islands are examples of symbiosis, a phenomenon that depends upon theclose cooperation of two or more forms of life and a principle that is very important in island communities.托福TPO9阅读题目:Part31. The phrase "at random" in the passage is closest in meaning to○finally○over a long period of time○successfully○without a definite pattern2. It can be inferred from paragraph 2 that the fungi in lichens benefit from their symbiotic relationship with algae in what way?○The algae help the fungi meet some of their energy needs.○The algae protect the fungi from the Sun's radiation.○The algae provide the fungi with greater space for absorbing water.○The fungi produce less waste in the presence of algae.3. Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.○Some of the earliest important examples of symbiosis-the close cooperation of two or more living things-occur in island communities.○Symbiosis-the close cooperation of pairs or small groups of living organisms-is especially important in these island environments.○The first organisms on these islands worked toget her closely in a relationship known as symbiosis, which is particularly important on islands.○It is significant to note that organisms in the beginningstages of the development of island life cannot survive without close cooperation.Paragraph 3: Lichens helped to speed the decomposition of the hard rock surfaces, preparing a soft bed of soil that was abundantly supplied with minerals that had been carried in the molten rock from the bowels of Earth. Now, other forms of life could take hold: ferns and mosses (two of the most ancient types of land plants) that flourish even in rock crevices. These plantspropagate by producing spores-tiny fertilized cells that contain all the instructions for making a new plant-but the spore are unprotected by any outer coating and carry no supply of nutrient. Vast numbers of them fall on the ground beneath the mother plants. Sometimes they are carried farther afield by water or by wind. But only those few spores that settle down in very favorable locations can start new life; the vast majority fall on barren ground. By force of sheer numbers, however, the mosses and ferns reached Hawaii, survived, and multiplied. Some species developed great size, becoming tree ferns that even now grow in the Hawaiian forests.4. The word "abundantly" in the passage is closest in meaning to○ occasionally○ plentifully○ usefully○ fortunately5. The word "propagate" in the passage is closest in meaning to○ multiply○ emerge○ live○ evolve6. According to paragraph 3, what was the relationship between lichens and ferns in the development of plant life on Hawaii?○Ferns were able to grow because lichens created suitable soil.○The decomposition of ferns produced minerals that were used by lichens.○Lichens and ferns competed to grow in the sam e rocky environments.○Lichens and ferns were typically found together in volcanic areas.Paragraph 4: Many millions of years after ferns evolved (but long before the Hawaiian Islands were born from the sea), another kind of flora evolved on Earth: the seed-bearing plants. Thiswas a wonderful biological invention. The seed has an outer coating that surrounds the genetic material of the new plant, and inside this covering is a concentrated supply of nutrients. Thus the seed's chances of survival are greatly enhanced over those of the naked spore. One type of seed-bearing plant, the angiosperm, includes all forms of blooming vegetation. In the angiosperm the seeds are wrapped in an additional layer of covering. Some of these coats are hard-like the shell of a nut-for extra protection. Some are soft and tempting, like a peach or a cherry. In some angiosperms the seeds are equipped with gossamer wings, like the dandelion and milkweed seeds. These new characteristics offered better ways for the seed to move to new habitats. They could travel through the air, float in water, and lie dormant for many months.7. The word "This" in the passage refers to○the spread of ferns and mosses in Hawaii○the creation of the Hawaiian Islands○the evolution of ferns○the development of plants that produce seeds8. According to paragraph 4, why do seeds have a greater chance of survival than spores do? To receive credit, you must select TWO answer choices.○Seeds need less water to grow into a mature plant than spores do.○Seeds do not need to rely on outside sources of nutrients.○Seeds are better protected from environmental dangers than spores are.○Seeds are heavier than spores and are therefore more likely to take root and grow.9. Why does the author mention "a nut", "a peach", and "a cherry"?○To indicate that some seeds are less likely to survive than others○To point out that many angiosperms can be eaten○To provide examples of blooming plants○To illustrate the variety of coverings among angiosperm seeds10. The word "dormant" in the passage is closest in meaning to○hidden○inactive○underground○preservedParagraph5: Plants with large, buoyant seeds-like coconuts-drift on ocean currents and are washed up on the shores.Remarkably resistant to the vicissitudes of ocean travel, they can survive prolonged immersion in saltwater when they come to rest on warm beaches and the conditions are favorable, the seed coats soften. Nourished by their imported supply of nutrients, the young plants push out their roots and establish their place in the sun.11. According to paragraph 5, a major reason that coconuts can establish themselves in distant locations is that their seeds can○survive long exposure to heat on island beaches○float and survive for long periods in ocean water○use saltwater for maintenance and growth○maintain hard, protective coats even after growing roots12. According to the passage, which of the following characteristics do spores and seeds have in common?○They may be surrounded by several layers of covering.○They are produced by flowering plants.○They may be spread by wind.○They are able to grow in barren soils.Paragraph 3: Lichens helped to speed the decomposition of the hard rock surfaces, preparing a soft bed of soil that was abundantly supplied with minerals that had been carried in the molten rock from the bowels of Earth. Now, other forms of life could take hold: ferns and mosses (two of the most ancient types of land plants) that flourish even in rock crevices. ■These plants propagate by producing spores-tiny fertilized cells that contain all the instructions for making a new plant-but the spore are unprotected by any outer coating and carry no supply of nutrient. ■Vast numbers of them fall on the ground beneath the mother plants. ■Sometimes they are carried farther afield by water or bywind. ■But only those few spores that settle down in very favorable locations can start new life; the vast majority fall on barren ground. By force of sheer numbers, however, the mosses and ferns reached Hawaii, survived, and multiplied. Some species developed great size, becoming tree ferns that even now grow in the Hawaiian forests.13. Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.So since the chances of survival for any individual spore are small, the plants have to produce many spores in order to propagate.Where could the sentence best fit?14. Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some answer choices do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.After the formation of the Hawaiian Islands, much time passed before conditions were suitable for plant life.●●●Answers Choices○Algae are classified as symbiotic because they produce energy through the process of photosynthesis.○The first successful plants on Hawaii were probably lichens, which consist of algae and fungi living in a symbiotic relationship.○Lichens helped create favorable conditions for the growthof spore-producing plants such as ferns and mosses.○Seed-bearing plants evolved much later than spore-producing plants, but both types of plants had evolved well before the formation of the Hawaiian Islands.○Unlike spores, seeds must move to new habitats in order to have a strong chance of survival and growth.○Seed-bearing plants arrived and spread quickly in Hawaii, thanks to characteristics that increased their seeds' ability to survive and to move to different areas托福TPO9阅读答案:Part3参考答案:1. ○42. ○13. ○34. ○25. ○16. ○17. ○48. ○2, 39. ○410. ○211. ○212. ○313. ○214. The first successful plants…Lichens helped create favorable…Seed-bearing plants arrived…托福TPO9阅读翻译:Part3参考翻译:夏威夷植物的到来大约500万年以前,当夏威夷群岛作为火山从海洋中出现的时候,它们与其他大陆相距甚远。

托福阅读背景知识大全

托福阅读背景知识大全

托福阅读背景知识大全托福考试中,阅读每篇文章篇幅在700字左右,总共3-4篇。

托福阅读是托福考试中相当重要的一个科目,而它涵盖的题材又十分广泛。

如果在考场上,同样的考题,考生熟悉并掌握了阅读文章的背景知识,做起题来就会非常轻松,做题的速度和准确率也会提高很多。

虽然托福阅读并不考察背景知识,但背景知识又绝对是需要备考的资料之一。

本篇文章雷哥托福小托君就带领大家一起来看看托福阅读中常常出现的背景知识。

一、历史历史背景知识在托福阅读中出现得还是比较多的,历史是一个很宽泛的概念,它包括不同国家的发展进程,从文化、政治到生活、社会等等。

比如说,在欧美近代史中,工业革命占据着特别重要的位置。

从托福TPO中出现的有关工业革命的文章可以看到,它也会涉及工业革命中的农业发展、铁路建设等,还涉及那个时期的人口增长等方方面面。

工业革命起源于英国,它的发展包括了当时的棉花、运输、钢铁、汽车等等产业。

大家在进行阅读备考的时候,可以留意一下文章内容。

除了工业革命之外,还有诸如美国发展史、民族融合、文化融合等等。

二、地理地理学题材包括地球的构成、地理现象、降雨降雪、冰川的形成、河流森林等。

三、文学一般文学都是与历史分不开的,文学就是在记录历史。

研究文学就是重温历史。

托福阅读中常常出现诸如美国文学作品的介绍,包括作者生平、文学流派等。

比如,各种古希腊罗马神话故事作品、史诗文学、自传等等;有黑人文学、男方作家、纽约作家以及诗歌流派等。

四、天文学涉及宇宙、银河、八大行星、日食月食极光天文现象、火星上有水、雷电现象等。

五、社会社会生活中大家比较关心的问题以及比较有争议的问题等,比如说,男女平等、抑郁症的治疗、节日庆典、人际交往、社会群体、社交媒体、交通问题、教育问题、城市规划等等。

六、动植物此题材属于托福阅读必考题材。

涉及到的内容通常涵盖某种动物的起源、某地植物的起源、乌龟的习性、鹿群数量的变迁、植物与矿物等。

七、其他类包括艺术(陶器、瓷器、音乐、绘画、玻璃艺术、手工艺)、建筑、生物科技、经济金融等。

托福阅读7类常考背景知识全在这

托福阅读7类常考背景知识全在这

托福阅读7类常考背景知识全在这在托福阅读考试当中,如果大家能够提前了解托福阅读的背景知识,那么大家在考试时就可以轻松的应对托福阅读的各类题型。

今天文都国际教育小编为大家整理了托福阅读7类常考背景知识,大家一起来学习一下吧。

托福阅读常考背景知识一、印第安题材1.白令海峡移民理论2.印第安文化3.印第安宗教观4.印第安建筑业:大、先进。

5.印第安手工业:好。

6.社会组织结构:严密、分工细、凝聚力强。

7.农业先进:A. irrigation; B. maize, squash, bean, pea。

托福阅读常考背景知识二、动植物题材(必考)1.植物学题材(不多见)a. 地衣、苔、真菌、蘑菇最常见。

b. 树冠上方生物。

c. 植物在生态平衡中的作用。

2.动物学题材(90%以上)a. 考普通动物为多。

最近常考鸟类、蚂蚁、动物智能与灭绝(联系天文学与冰河理论)。

b. 考动物进化(evolution)。

c. 考动物的分类(classification)。

phyla(单数phylum) —门class—纲order—目family—科genus—属species—种carnivore/predator—食肉动物herbivore—食草动物omnivore—杂食动物d. 动物的生活习性最为多见。

群居(social animal)动物的习性a) 蚂蚁:社会组织结构—等级制(caste):交流方式—信息素—气味;生活来源;外来物种的有害性。

b) 蜜蜂:群居个性; “8”字舞;蜜蜂智能;防御;天敌—大黄蜂。

c) 大猩猩:智能:猩际关系k) 迁徙(migration)野鸭、大雁:日照长短;辨别方向。

伪装(camouflage)、花拟态(mimicry)托福阅读常考背景知识三、考古学(archaeology)题材1.文化(cultural)考古学形态(physical)考古学(多见)2.化石(fossil)j 化石构成。

化石比原物更沉重(矿物质环境)k 化石形成原因。

TOEFL新托福阅读背景知识汇总

TOEFL新托福阅读背景知识汇总

TOEFL新托福阅读背景知识汇总TOEFL新托福阅读背景学问汇总为了让大家更好的预备托福考试,我给大家整理新托福阅读背景学问汇总,下面我就和大家共享,来观赏一下吧。

新托福阅读背景学问:现代派文学的兴起两次世界大战之间从第一次世界大战到其次次世界大战,是US文学的其次次富强时期。

20年月,各种流派相继消失,表现了高度进展的资本主义社会的种.种冲突和精神世界方面的问题。

30年月基本上是左翼文学占主导地位,从30年月后期起,文学界分化成各个流派,又消失了纷坛多样的局面。

总的来说,现代派文学与左翼文学是这个时期两股最大的文学思潮。

从这个时期起,US文学开头发生世界性的影响。

1930年后,US作家间续得到诺贝尔文学奖金。

现代派文学的兴起20世纪初,US的经济有了很大进展。

垄断资本进一步集中,大城市人口密集,工农运动规模越来越大。

社会面貌与人的精神面貌,已非19世纪传统现实主义手法与惠特曼式的风格所能精确反映。

大战前的最初10年为孕育新的风格、新的流派作了预备。

欧洲的现代派文艺不断介绍到US。

19世纪下半期US的诗歌处于过渡阶段,继惠特曼后只消失了一个重要诗人艾米莉·狄更生。

她一反浮夸的浪漫主义诗风,以不规章的韵律、奇怪的对比和自由的联想,打开了通向US现代诗的道路。

1912年,《诗刊》在芝加哥创办,标志着现代派文艺的开头。

《诗刊》的头3卷里,消失了庞德(1885-1973)、韦·林赛(1879-1931)、艾·洛威尔(1874-1925)、威·卡·威廉斯(1883-1963)、桑德堡(1878-1967)、沃·斯蒂文斯(1879-1955)、艾·李·马斯特斯(1868-1950)、玛·莫尔(1887-1972)等人的作品。

这些人后来都成为US有成就的诗人。

其中有意象主义者,有接近劳动人民的芝加哥诗派,有20世纪的田园诗人,有新的乡土主义者,有抽象哲理派诗人。

托福阅读知识背景

托福阅读知识背景

托福阅读知识背景〔托福〕阅读备考可以从以下几个方面训练自己:文章的主旨、具体段落的含义、隐含内容、具体细节和逻辑漏洞等。

今天我主要给大家分享托福阅读知识背景,希望对你们有帮助!许多人认为既然是背景知识不够,最好的方法是做一些课外阅读来补充它。

这种方法确实是一个不错的选择,但实际上学习效率相对较低,缺乏针对性。

我认为,如果想扩展自己的背景知识,应该有更明确的学习步骤方法。

1.明确不理解的话题范围每个托福考生的学术背景不同,爱好和兴趣也不同。

因此,在拓展托福阅读的背景知识时,不能使用统一的方法。

我建议大家应该做的第一件事是明确划出自己不理解的话题范围,如果认为范围太大,无妨寻找托福阅读考试的相关信息。

托福阅读的题目有明确的范围,有许多教材有这方面的资料,找到它们并不难。

在找到一个话题列表后,考生可以依据自己的知识、熟悉的话题以及不感兴趣或不理解的话题做一个简单的划分,考生要明确的熟悉到自己在托福阅读背景知识方面有哪些不够,为之后的针对性提升指出正确的学习方向。

2.收集与话题相关的文章在完成了话题范围的第一步之后,下一个任务是找出一些与这些话题相关的文章,并进行高难度、有针对性的学习。

在材料选择方面,我建议大家可以从两个方向着手:一个是在报纸和杂志上寻找权威但不太学术性的文章:另一个方向是从现有的托福阅读材料中找到关于这个话题的文章,以便集中阅读。

前者可以帮助考生丰富知识,提升对这些背景知识的理解。

后者可以让考生看到托福阅读考试中可能出现关于这些话题的文章的具体内容,从而进一步加深对托福阅读考试中这些话题的理解。

3.主动思索加深印象因为有些是考生不感兴趣的学术话题,所以如果大家只是集中看文章,可能不会留下深入的印象,而且很容易在不久的将来再次忘记它。

为了避免这种状况,我建议大家用主动思索的阅读方法来加深对这些话题背景知识的印象。

具体的方法是在阅读此类文章之前,尝试为自己设置一些问题,并在阅读过程中主动寻找和思索问题的答案,以便在阅读后给出更满意的答案。

tpo61三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案背景知识

tpo61三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案背景知识

tpo61三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案背景知识阅读-1 (2)原文 (2)译文 (5)题目 (7)答案 (13)背景知识 (15)阅读-2 (18)原文 (19)译文 (22)题目 (24)答案 (32)背景知识 (34)阅读-3 (39)原文 (39)译文 (42)题目 (45)答案 (53)背景知识 (54)阅读-1原文Physical Properties of Minerals①A mineral is a naturally occurring solid formed by inorganic processes. Since the internal structure and chemical composition of a mineral are difficult to determine without the aid of sophisticated tests and apparatus , the more easily recognized physical properties are used in identification.②Most people think of a crystal as a rare commodity, when in fact most inorganic solid objects are composed of crystals. The reason for this misconception is that most crystals do not exhibit their crystal form: the external form of a mineral that reflects the orderly internal arrangement of its atoms. Whenever a mineral forms without space restrictions, individual crystals with well-formed crystal faces will develop. Some crystals, such as those of the mineral quartz, have a very distinctive crystal form that can be helpful in identification. However, most of the time, crystal growth is interrupted because of competition for space, resulting in an intergrown mass of crystals, none of which exhibits crystal form.③Although color is an obvious feature of a mineral, it is often anunreliable diagnostic property. Slight impurities in the common mineral quartz, for example, give it a variety of colors, including pink, purple (amethyst), white, and even black. When a mineral, such as quartz, exhibits a variety of colors, it is said to possess exotic coloration. Exotic coloration is usually caused by the inclusion of impurities, such as foreign ions, in the crystalline structure. Other minerals —for example, sulfur, which is yellow, and malachite, which is bright green —are said to have inherent coloration because their color is a consequence of their chemical makeup and does not vary significantly.④Streak is the color of a mineral in its powdered form and is obtained by rubbing a mineral across a plate of unglazed porcelain. Whereas the color of a mineral often varies from sample to sample, the streak usually does not and is therefore the more reliable property.⑤Luster is the appearance or quality of light reflected from the surface of a mineral. Minerals that have the appearance of metals, regardless of color, are said to have a metallic luster. Minerals with a nonmetallic luster are described by various adjectives, including vitreous (glassy) pearly, silky, resinous, and earthy (dull).⑥One of the most useful diagnostic properties of a mineral is hardness, the resistance of a mineral to abrasion or scratching. This property is determined by rubbing a mineral of unknown hardness against one ofknown hardness, or vice versa. A numerical value can be obtained by using Mohs' scale of hardness, which consists of ten minerals arranged in order from talc, the softest, at number one, to diamond, the hardest, at number ten. Any mineral of unknown hardness can be compared with these or with other objects of known hardness. For example, a fingernail has a hardness of 2.5, a copper penny 5, and a piece of glass 5.5. The mineral gypsum, which has a hardness of two, can be easily scratched with your fingernail. On the other hand, the mineral calcite which has a hardness of three, will scratch your fingernail but will not scratch glass. Quartz, the hardest of the common minerals, will scratch a glass plate.⑦The tendency of a mineral to break along planes of weak bonding is called cleavage. Minerals that possess cleavage are identified by the smooth, flat surfaces produced when the mineral is broken. The simplest type of cleavage is exhibited by the micas. Because the micas have excellent cleavage in one direction, they break to form thin, flat sheets. Some minerals have several cleavage planes, which produce smooth surfaces when broken, while others exhibit poor cleavage, and still others exhibit no cleavage at all. When minerals break evenly in more than one direction, cleavage is described by the number of planes exhibited and the angles at which they meet. Cleavage should not be confused with crystal form. When a mineral exhibits cleavage, itwill break into pieces that have the same configuration as the original sample does. By contrast, quartz crystals do not have cleavage, and if broken, would shatter into shapes that do not resemble each other or the original crystals. Minerals that do not exhibit cleavage are said to fracture when broken. Some break into pieces with smooth curved surfaces resembling broken glass. Others break into splinters or fibers, but most fracture irregularly.译文矿物的物理性质①矿物质是由无机过程形成的天然固体。

托福考试阅读背景知识1-30

托福考试阅读背景知识1-30

1关于美国的历史The continent's first inhabitants walked into North America across what is now the Bering Strait from Asia. For the next 20,000 years these pioneering settlers were essentially left alone to develop distinct and dynamic cultures. In the modern US, their descendants include the Pueblo people in what is now New Mexico; Apache in Texas; Navajo in Arizona, Colorado and Utah; Hopi in Arizona; Crow in Montana; Cherokee in North Carolina; and Mohawk and Iroquois in New York State.The Norwegian explorer Leif Eriksson was the first European to reach North America, some 500 years before a disoriented Columbus accidentally discovered 'Indians' in Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Haiti) in 1492. By the mid-1550s, much of the Americas had been poked and prodded by a parade of explorers from Spain, Portugal, England and France.The first colonies attracted immigrants looking to get rich quickly and return home, but they were soon followed by migrants whose primary goal was to colonize. The Spanish founded the first permanent European settlement in St Augustine, Florida, in 1565; the French moved in on Maine in 1602, and Jamestown, Virginia, became the first British settlement in 1607. The first Africans arrived as 'indentured(合同的,契约的)laborers' with the Brits a year prior to English Puritan pilgrims' escape of religious persecution(迫害). The pilgrims founded a colony at Plymouth Rock, Massachusetts, in 1620 and signed the famous Mayflower Compact - a declaration ofself-government that would later be echoed in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. British attempts to assert authority in its 13 North American colonies led to the French and Indian War (1757-63). The British were victorious but were left with a nasty war debt, which they tried to recoup(赔偿,付还)by imposing new taxes. The rallying cry 'no taxation without representation' united the colonies, who ceremoniously dumped caffeinated cargo overboard during the Boston Tea Party. Besieged British general Cornwallis surrendered to American commander George Washington five years later at Yorktown, Virginia, in 1781. In the 19th century, America's mantra was 'Manifest Destiny.' A combination of land purchases, diplomacy and outright wars of conquest had by 1850 given the US roughly its present shape. In 1803, Napoleon dumped the entire Great Plains for a pittance(微薄收入), and Spain chipped in with Florida in 1819. The Battle of the Alamo during the 1835 Texan Revolution paved the way for Texan independence from Mexico, and the war with Mexico (1846-48) secured most of the southwest, including California.The systematic annihilation(消灭,歼灭)of the buffalo hunted by the Plains Indians, encroachment(侵犯)on their lands, and treaties not worth the paper they were written on led to Native Americans being herded into reservations, deprived of both their livelihoods and their spiritual connection to their land. Nineteenth-century immigration drastically altered the cultural landscape as settlers of predominantly British stock were joined by Central Europeans and Chinese, many attracted by the 1849 gold rush in California. The South remained firmly committed to an agrarian life heavily reliant on African American slave labor. Tensions were on the rise when abolitionist Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. The South seceded from (脱离)the Union, and the Civil War, by far the bloodiest war in America's history, began thefollowing year. The North prevailed(胜利)in 1865, freed the slaves and introduced universal adult male suffrage(选举权). Lincoln's vision for reconstruction, however, died with his assassination. America's trouncing of the Spaniards in 1898 marked the USA's ascendancy as a superpower and woke the country out of its isolationist slumber.The US still did its best not to get its feet dirty in WWI's trenches, but finally capitulated(停止抵抗,有条件投降)in 1917, sending over a million troops to help sort out the pesky(讨厌的,棘手的)Germans. Postwar celebrations were cut short by Prohibition in 1920, which banned alcohol in the country. The 1929 stock-market crash signaled the start of the Great Depression and eventually brought about Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, which sought to lift the country back to prosperity. After the Japanese dropped in uninvited on Pearl Harbor in 1941, the US played a major role in defeating the Axis powers. Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 not only ended the war with Japan, but ushered in the nuclear age. The end of WWII segued into the Cold War - a period of great domestic prosperity and a surface uniformity belied by paranoia and betrayal. Politicians like Senator Joe McCarthy took advantage of the climate to fan anticommunist flames, while the USSR and USA stockpiled nuclear weapons and fought wars by proxy in Korea, Africa and Southeast Asia. Tensions between the two countries reached their peak in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.The 1960s was a decade of profound social change, thanks largely to the Civil Rights movement, Vietnam War protests and the discovery of sex, drugs and rock & roll. The Civil Rights movement gained momentum in 1955 with a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. As a nonviolent mass protest movement, it aimed at breaking down segregation and regaining the vote for disfranchised Southern blacks. The movement peaked in 1963 with Martin Luther King Jr's 'I have a dream speech' in Washington, DC, and the passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act and 1965 Voting Rights Act. Meanwhile, America's youth were rejecting the conformity of the previous decade, growing their hair long and smoking lots of dope. 'Tune in, turn on, drop out' was the mantra of a generation who protested heavily (and not disinterestedly) against the war in Vietnam. Assassinations of prominent political leaders - John and Robert Kennedy, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr - took a little gloss off the party, and the American troops mired in Vietnam took off the rest. NASA's moon landing in 1969 did little to restore national pride. In 1974 Richard Nixon became the first US president to resign from office, due to his involvement in the cover-up of the Watergate burglaries, bringing American patriotism to a new low.The 1970s and '80s were a period of technological advancement and declining industrialism. Self image took a battering at the hands of Iranian Ayatollah Khomeni. A conservative backlash, symbolized by the election and popular two-term presidency of actor Ronald Reagan, sought to put some backbone in the country. The US then concentrated on bullying its poor neighbors in Central America and the Caribbean, meddling in the affairs of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama and Grenada. The collapse of the Soviet Bloc's 'Evil Empire' in 1991 left the US as the world's sole superpower, and the Gulf War in 1992 gave George Bush the opportunity to lead a coalition supposedly representing a 'new world order' into battle against Iraq. Domestic matters, such as health reform, gun ownership, drugs, racial tension, gay rights, balancing the budget, the tenacious Whitewater scandal and the Monica Lewinsky 'Fornigate' affair tended to overshadow international concerns during the Clinton administration. In a bid to kickstart its then-ailing economy, the USA signed NAFTA, a free-trade agreement with Canada and Mexico, in 1993, invaded Haiti in its role of upholder of democracy in 1994, committed thousands of troops topeacekeeping operations in Bosnia in 1995, hosted the Olympics in 1996 and enjoyed, over the past few years, the fruits of a bull market on Wall St. The 2000 presidential election made history by being the most highly contested race in the nation's history.The Democratic candidate, Al Gore, secured the majority of the popular vote but lost the election when all of Florida's electoral college votes went to George W Bush, who was ahead of Gore in that state by only 500 votes. Demands for recounts, a ruling by the Florida Supreme Court in favor of partial recounts, and a handful of lawsuits generated by both parties were brought to a halt when the US Supreme Court split along party lines and ruled that all recounts should cease. After five tumultuous weeks, Bush was declared the winner. The early part of Bush's presidency saw the US face international tension, with renewed violence in the Middle East, a spy-plane standoff with China and nearly global disapproval of US foreign policy with regard to the environment. On the domestic front, a considerably weakened economy provided challenges for national policymakers. Whether the US can continue to hold onto its dominant position on the world stage and rejuvenate its economy remains to be seen.2英属北美殖民地的建立(1607--1733)北美洲原始居民为印第安人。

新托福阅读背景知识汇总

新托福阅读背景知识汇总

新托福阅读背景知识汇总新托福阅读背景知识:19世纪后半叶经济迅速发展南北战争后,由于南部种植园制度的废除,为资本主义在全国范围的发展创造了条件;造船业和机器制造业迅速发展,横贯大陆的4条铁路建成,西部广大土地的垦殖,边疆的消失,促进了国内统一市场的形成和扩大。

在中西部、远西部和南部日益开拓进程中,各地区发展了具有本地特点的工业。

外国移民的大量涌入,提供了丰富的劳动力,使北美能够大规模进行农业生产。

19世纪后半叶农业机械化迅速发展。

从1860-1916年,耕地面积由4.07亿英亩增加到8.79亿英亩,改良的土地面积扩大了3倍多,小麦和玉米的产量约增加了3倍多。

农业中大生产排挤和兼并小生产,在以工业为主的北部,农业日益采用集约耕作,在其他地区,大农场数字逐渐增加,1900年美国农产品总数的一半是由1/6的大农户生产的,形成了美国式农业资本主义发展道路。

19世纪后半叶,科学技术领域有重要发明和突破,其中首推电力的应用;1876年A.G:贝尔发明电话机,1886年T.A.爱迪生制造了电灯,1892年杜里雅兄弟试制成功汽车,1903年莱特兄弟试制飞机航行成功。

电力广泛应用于工业,导致美国经济的全面发展。

1880年工业在全国生产总值中的比重已超过农业,工业生产总值由1860年的世界第4位,跃居至1894年的首位。

美国成为高度发达的资本主义国家。

第一次世界大战前的内外政策(1889—1914)1889年美国召开泛美会议,1898年美西战争爆发,美国击败了西班牙,夺取了加勒比海的古巴和波多黎各、太平洋的关岛及菲律宾群岛,接着合并了夏威夷群岛。

1903年美国夺取了巴拿马运河区。

在远东,1899年美国提出对华“门户开放”政策。

美国在1904-1905年日俄战争中支持日本。

在日俄战争结束后,美日双方经过谈判,于1908年签订了罗脱—高平协定。

在1912年总统选举中,民主党总统候选人T.W.威尔逊上台。

威尔逊以“新自由”作为号召进行改革,降低关税,建立联邦储备银行制度,通过克莱顿反托拉斯法(1914),征收累进所得税。

托福背景知识(word版)

托福背景知识(word版)

背景知识(BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE)听力背景知识Troy 特洛伊“荷马史诗”包括《伊利亚特》和《奥德赛》两部长诗,被认为是古希腊最伟大的作品,也是欧洲文学中最古老、最杰出的叙事诗。

相传史诗的作者是古希腊盲诗人荷马。

他生于爱奥尼亚(今土耳其西海岸),生存年代约是公元前8世纪的后半叶。

《伊利亚特》共24卷,15693行,记载了希腊联军攻陷特洛伊城的10年战争,而主要描述战争最后一年的一个事件,着重描绘了希腊英雄阿基里斯的的伟大形象。

相传在古希腊的弗提亚地方,有个叫珀琉斯的国王举行婚礼。

他邀请了奥林匹斯山上的众神出席,却把专管争吵的女神厄里斯给忘记了。

厄里斯便挑起是非,偷偷把一个写着“送给最美丽的女神”的金苹果放在了婚礼宴席上。

参加喜宴的天后赫拉、智慧女神雅典娜、爱与美之神阿芙罗狄蒂(即罗马神话中的维纳斯)都认为自己是美丽的,应该得到这个金苹果,于是争吵起来。

天神宙斯无法,只得让她们去特洛伊,让特洛伊王子帕里斯判定金苹果该给谁。

当3位女神见到帕里斯后,都争着向他许愿:赫拉愿给他权力和财宝;雅典娜愿给他胜利和智慧;阿芙罗狄蒂愿让他挑选世界上最美丽的女子为妻。

结果,帕里斯把金苹果判给了阿芙罗狄蒂。

阿芙罗狄蒂便与帕里斯约定帮他得到世界第一美女。

大约在公元前12世纪,希腊半岛上建立了许多小王国,斯巴达是其中的一个。

一天,斯巴达王宫来了两位尊贵的客人,他就是特洛伊国王普里阿摩斯和他的二儿子帕里斯。

特洛伊是小亚细亚半岛(今土耳其)上的一个小王国。

斯巴达国王米雷劳斯以隆重的礼节欢迎两位贵宾,连年轻的王后海伦也亲自出来接待。

海伦是当时全希腊最美丽的女人。

帕里斯禁不住看了她两眼,顿时动心。

海伦见了这位英俊的王子,也感到满心欢喜。

当晚,趁斯巴达国王外出的时候,帕里斯在阿芙罗狄蒂的帮助下,拐走了海伦,乘船逃回特洛伊。

蒙受奇耻大辱的斯巴达国王,立刻找到他的哥哥、另一个小国迈锡尼的国王阿加米农商量,决定向全希腊各王国求助。

托福tpo54阅读第3篇ElementsofLife题目解析

托福tpo54阅读第3篇ElementsofLife题目解析

托福tpo54阅读第3篇ElementsofLife题目解析
A somewhat stricter requirement is the presence of these elements in molecules that can be used as ready-made building blocks for life, just as early Earth probably had an organic soup of amino acids and other complex molecules
building blocks of live 生命基石
The set of elements (or their relative proportions) used by life based on some other element might be somewhat different from that used by carbon-based life on Earth
somewhat 稍微,有点
以其他元素为基础的生命所使用的元素集合(或它们的相对比例)可能与地球上碳基生命所使用的元素有些不同。

even if we allow for life very different from life on Earth
即使我们承认生与地球上会截然不同的生命
The nature of solar-system formation 太阳系形成的本质
a trace amount 微量
Thus, a first requirement for life might be the presence of most or all of the elements used by life.。

tpo50三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案背景知识

tpo50三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案背景知识

tpo50三篇托福阅读TOEFL原文译文题目答案背景知识阅读-1 (2)原文 (2)译文 (5)题目 (7)答案 (16)背景知识 (18)阅读-2 (21)原文 (21)译文 (24)题目 (27)答案 (35)背景知识 (37)阅读-3 (41)原文 (41)译文 (44)题目 (47)答案 (54)背景知识 (55)阅读-1原文American Railroads①In the United States,railroads spearheaded the second phase of the transportation revolution by overtaking the previous importance of canals.The mid-1800s saw a great expansion of American railroads. The major cities east of the Mississippi River were linked by a spiderweb of railroad tracks.Chicago's growth illustrates the impact of these rail links.In1849Chicago was a village of a few hundred people with virtually no rail service.By1860it had become a city of100,000, served by eleven railroads.Farmers to the north and west of Chicago no longer had to ship their grain,livestock,and dairy products down the Mississippi River to New Orleans;they could now ship their products directly east.Chicago supplanted New Orleans as the interior of America's main commercial hub.②The east-west rail lines stimulated the settlement and agricultural development of the Midwest.By1860Illinois,Indiana,and Wisconsin had replaced Ohio,Pennsylvania,and New York as the leading wheat-growing states.Enabling farmers to speed their products to the East,railroads increased the value of farmland and promotedadditional settlement.In turn,population growth in agricultural areas triggered industrial development in cities such as Chicago,Davenport (Iowa),and Minneapolis,for the new settlers needed lumber for fences and houses and mills to grind wheat into flour.③Railroads also propelled the growth of small towns along their routes.The Illinois Central Railroad,which had more track than any other railroad in1855,made money not only from its traffic but also from real estate speculation.Purchasing land for stations along its path, the Illinois Central then laid out towns around the stations.The selection of Manteno,Illinois,as a stop of the Illinois Central,for example,transformed the site from a crossroads without a single house in1854into a bustling town of nearly a thousand in1860, replete with hotels,lumberyards,grain elevators,and gristmills.By the Civil War(1861-1865),few thought of the railroad-linked Midwest as a frontier region or viewed its inhabitants as pioneers.④As the nation's first big business,the railroads transformed the conduct of business.During the early1830s,railroads,like canals, depended on financial aid from state governments.With the onset of economic depression in the late1830s,however,state governments scrapped overly ambitious railroad projects.Convinced that railroads burdened them with high taxes and blasted hopes,voters turnedagainst state aid,and in the early1840s,several states amended their constitutions to bar state funding for railroads and canals.The federal government took up some of the slack,but federal aid did not provide a major stimulus to railroads before1860.Rather,part of the burden of finance passed to city and county governments in agricultural areas that wanted to attract railroads.Such municipal governments,for example,often gave railroads rights-of-way,grants of land for stations, and public funds.⑤The dramatic expansion of the railroad network in the1850s, however,strained the financing capacity of local governments and required a turn toward private investment,which had never been absent from the picture.Well aware of the economic benefits of railroads,individuals living near them had long purchased railroad stock issued by governments and had directly bought stock in railroads, often paying by contributing their labor to building the railroads.But the large railroads of the1850s needed more capital than such small investors could generate.Gradually,the center of railroad financing shifted to New York City,and in fact,it was the railroad boom of the 1850s that helped make Wall Street in New York City the nation's greatest capital market.The stocks of all the leading railroads were traded on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during the1850s. In addition,the growth of railroads turned New York City into thecenter of modern investment firms.The investment firms evaluated the stock of railroads in the smaller American cities and then found purchasers for these stocks in New York City,Philadelphia,Paris, London,Amsterdam,and Hamburg.Controlling the flow of funds to railroads,the investment bankers began to exert influence over the railroads'internal affairs by supervising administrative reorganizations in times of trouble.译文美国铁路①在美国,铁路超越了运河从前的重要性,成为运输革命第二阶段的先锋。

TOEFL阅读背景知识

TOEFL阅读背景知识

TOEFL阅读背景知识为了让大家更好的准备托福考试,给大家整理新托福阅读背景知识,下面就和大家分享,来欣赏一下吧。

新托福阅读背景知识:地球的旋转时间变短地球的旋转时间变短We have been talking about some of the effects that the human beings had on the earth. One you may not be aware of is that we actually begin to change the length of the day. In the other way to say, one day is the amount of time the earth needs to spin completely around an axis, the imaginary line around the center of the earth, from the north to the south. And of course there are a lot of physical causes th at can affect the speed of the earth’s rotation, but there was only one that is direct result of the human activity. Since 1950, human beings have built about ten thousand artificial reservoirs all over the world. These reservoirs have redistributed tremendous amount of the earth water. When they are used to be in the area near the equator, the imaginary line surround the middle of the earth, it’s now the reservoirs in the areas of differentlatitudes. The latitude matters because, well, thinking the earth and axis, the equator contains the areas on the earth that are the farthest away from axis. So water has been redistributed from the equator regions, then wherever the water is, to it’s close to the earth axis. It’s like when ice skaters perform spins when those skaters put their arms enclose to their bodies, they spin faster. So the earth is spinning faster because the reservoirs have redistributed the water close to its axis. And because the earth was spinning faster, since 1950 the length of day has decreased by about 8 millionths of second. I know that doesn’t sound like much but significant in that this is the first time that human beings ever had measurable affect on the earth’s motion.新托福阅读背景知识:潮汐发电潮汐发电凡在海边上生活过的人都知道,海水时进时退,海面时涨时落。

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托福TOFEL考试阅读背景知识(三)
独立的民族主权国家的建成(1781-1814)
在战争过程中,大陆会议制订了邦联条例,1781-1787年13州组成了邦联国会,宣布成立美利坚共和国。

1787年,在费城召开制宪会议,大州和小州的代表经过争论,同意每州均选出两名参议员;在蓄奴制问题上,北部对南部作出了重大妥协,默认奴隶制存在,在征税及分配众议员席位方面,南部黑奴均以3/5的人口计算。

会议最后制定了宪法草案。

这是世界上第1部成文宪法。

1788年6月由9个州批准生效。

根据宪法,美国建成立法、行政、司法三权分立、相互制衡的联邦制国家。

后又增加了宪法前10条修正案(后即以“权利法案”著称)。

该法案于1791年12月,经11个州批准生效。

1789年联邦政府成立。

4月,华盛顿就任美国首届总统(1792年连任)。

在国内外政策出现分歧的过程中,财政部长A.汉密尔顿派组织了联邦党,主张中央集权,外交上亲英,控制了联邦政府的权力。

国务卿T.杰斐逊派主张维护国内人民民主权利,同情法国革命,组织了民主共和党。

1793年华盛顿在欧洲列强联合干涉法国革命时,采取中立政策。

次年11月,联邦政府和英国签订了损害美国主权的杰伊条约。

亲英和亲法成为联邦党和民主共和党在外交政策上的分野。

在内政方面,联邦政府制定关税条例,建立银行,稳定经济。

1801年,民主共和党T.杰斐逊出任总统。

杰斐逊政府废除上述4项法令,削减开支,减轻税收,取消酒税,鼓励农产品出口。

1803年从法国手中购买了面积达200多万平方公里的路易斯安那。

英国一直不甘心丧失北美殖民地。

英舰在公海上继续拦截美国船只,强制征用美国海员。

为维护航海自由,1812―1814年美国进行了第2次对英战争。

除海战外,优势在英军方面。

1814年8月,英军曾攻占华盛顿首府,焚烧总统府及会。

但随后美国取得胜利。

1814年12月,英美在今比利时的根特签订和约。

这次战争使美国得以摆脱英国政治上的控制和经济上的渗透,成为一个完全独立的民族主权国家。

美英巴黎条约 (Treaty of Parise,1783)
美英战争 (1812)(War of l812)
南北战争前南北经济的不同发展(1814―1861)
19世纪上半叶,美国领土逐渐由大西洋沿岸扩张到太平洋沿岸。

经济发生了显著变化,北部、南部经济沿着不同方向发展。

北部发展海上贸易,扩大航运业。

进行大量的资本原始积累。

早在1790年就在罗得岛建立了第l座棉纺厂。

此后,陆续出现其他工厂。

从19世纪初期起,大量资金投放于工商业,工业生产得到发展。

在大力引进西欧科学技术的同时,鼓励创造和发明。

50年代,工业化迅速推进。

1860年,美国工业生产居世界第4位。

2/3的制造品由东北部生产。

西欧移民大批涌入,并向西迁移,为发展经济提供了自由雇佣劳动力。

但在南部,以奴隶劳动为基础的棉花种植园经济不断扩大,由大西洋沿岸各州扩展到得克萨斯境内。

在西部新开辟的地区,是推广自由劳动制还是奴隶制,南部和北部的代言人争执不休,成为全国政治斗争的主题。

1820年北部对南部作出让步,达成《密苏里妥协案》,双方争执暂时乎息。

西进运动 (Westwood Movement)
密苏里妥协案 (Missouri Compromise)
南北战争前的外交和政治(1814―1861)
1823年,美国总统J.门罗发表了“门罗宣言”。

反对欧洲列强干涉西半球事务。

1846-1848年,美国发动对墨西哥战争,把得克萨斯、新墨西哥和加利福尼亚并入美国领土。

1814年美英战争即将结束时,联邦党召集哈特福德会议,图谋分裂联邦,但遭失败,因而瓦解。

联邦党的衰落标志着商业资本开始向工业资本过渡。

1816-1824年,美国进入民主共和党一党执政时期,它代表北部资产阶级和南部奴隶主的共同利益,习称“和谐时期”。

以后民主共和党
分裂,政治力量重新组合。

1828年,成立了民主党,推选A.杰克逊为总统候选人,杰克逊当选并连任总统至1837年3月。

1834年辉格党成立。

杰克逊政府将印第安人迁至密西西比河以西,并制止了南卡罗来纳州借口高关税法而掀起的分裂危机。

政府废除了贫民因负债而受监禁的法令,普及了白人男子的普选权,并进行了一些民主改革,习称“杰克逊民主”。

1828-1856年,民主党和辉格党成为对峙的两大政党。

除1840年和1848年两届总统竞选由辉格党获胜外,其余各届总统竞选均由民主党获胜。

随着南部和北部两种不同社会经济制度斗争的激化和黑奴反抗的不断掀起,群众性的反奴运动广泛开展。

1840年,主张废奴运动的“自由党”成立。

1848年,废奴主义者,民主党和辉格党内反对奴隶制的人组织了自由土壤党,以在西部地域建立自由州为宗旨。

1850年,双方经过争执,达成妥协,国会通过严峻的逃奴追缉法。

1854年国会通过堪萨斯―内布拉斯加法案,取消了奴隶州和自由州的地理疆界线,也就使密苏里妥协案随之废除,遭到北部工业资产阶级的强烈反对。

1854年成立了共和党,以反对奴隶制为宗旨。

1856年。

民主党J.布坎南当选总统,此时实际上民主党已成为代表奴隶主利益的政党。

1857年法院作出斯科特判决案,其法律涵意是使奴隶制的规模推向全国。

1859年J.布朗领导的反奴隶制的武装起义被镇压。

1860年总统选举中,共和党候选人A.林肯获胜。

蓄谋叛乱已久的南部奴隶主集团决定脱离联邦,并于1861年2月另行成立宣布维护奴隶制的南部同盟。

门罗主义 (Monron Doctrine)
废奴运动 (Abolition Movement)
堪萨斯―内布拉斯加法案 (Kansas-Nebraska Act)
约翰?布朗起义 (John Brown's Rebellion)
【。

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