今天
TPO17 listening 问题解析
Section 1
Question 1：
1. Why does the man visit the professor?
A. To get the professor’s approval for his paper topic.
B. To ask for source material for his paper.
C. To ask the professor’s opinion about a particular production of a Shakespeare play.
D. To get help finding articles about a play.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Professor : Yes, I like that. Straightforward and to the point. So how is the research going?
Student : Well, that’s what I came to talk to you about. I was wondering if you happen to have a copy of the Peter Brook production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in your video collection. I’ve been looking for it everywhere and I am having a really hard time tracking it down.
学生说well，这是个标志词，后面that’s what I came to talk to you about很清楚的说明了他接下来要讲来找老师的目的了。本题迷惑选项 D，但是只要听到 vedio collection 就可以排除 D。
Question 2：
What is the subject of the man’s paper?
A. The influence of film on theater.
B. The transient nature of theater.
C. Modern interpretations of a play by Shakespeare.
D. A comparison of different film versions of Shakespeare’s play.
答案：C
解析：(原文中)Professor：OK, let’ s see. Right, Modern Staging of a Shakespearian Classic. Well, like I told you last week, I think that’s a great topic for you paper. So the title would be something like ... uh ...
OK,..Right是标志词。这句话在开头，因此不太好确定这句话服务的对象。但是往后听立刻出现了topic for you paper，与题目中 subject 相呼应，作为解题的关键。
Question 3：
What do the speakers say about Peter Brook’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Click on 2 answers.
A. It influenced subsequent productions.
B. It was performed only a few times.
C. Written accounts of it are difficult to find.
D. Film versions of it probably do not exist.
答案：AD
解析：(原文中)Professor：I mean at all. That particular production was never filmed or recorded.
Student ：Oh no. I had no idea. From what I read, that production, like, it influenced every other production of the play that came after it. So I just assumed it had been filmed or videotaped.
Professor ：Oh, It definitely was a landmark production. And it’s not like it ran for just a week, but either it was never filmed or if it was the film’s been lost. And it’s ironic because there’s even a film about the making of the production, but none of the production itself.
学生说的it influenced every other production of the play that came after it，可以选出答案A;教授对学生的回答中never filmed or if it was the film’s been lost可以选出D选项。
Question 4：
What point does the professor make when she mentions that some students are writing about 19th century productions of Shakespeare’s plays?
A. Other students’ paper topics are even more difficult than the man’s topic.
B. The man should refer to some nineteenth-century productions in his paper.
C. Students should focus their research on film adaptations of the plays.
D. Theater students often face the same problem the man is facing.
答案：D
解析：(原文中)Professor：That’s it. Unless it’ s filmed, it’s gone. But that doesn’t mean we can’t study it. And of course some students in this class are writing about productions in the 19th century, there are no videos of those. You know, one of the challenges for people who study theater is to find way of talking about something that ’s really so transient, about something that, in a sense, doesn’t exist.
you know为关键词，老师说学戏剧的学生要面对的挑战之一就是讨论一些瞬间的或者根本不存在的事情，可见男生的 problem——can’t study it是学戏剧的学生常常要碰见的。所以老师是在安慰男生，不用担心，很多人也和你一样。
Question 5：
Why does the professor say this?
A. To point out that the topic of the student’s paper has been covered before.
B. To convince the student to write about the production.
C. To persuade the student to change the topic of his paper.
D. To see if the student agrees with her opinion about the production.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Student：So now what do I do? If there is no video.
Professor：Well, think about it. This is the most important 20th century staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, right?
题目问的老师为什么要这么说。那我们就要找之前学生说了什么。学生对自己没有 vedio 感到束手无策。老师的回答是well,think about it,….most important…., right，强调这是最重要的一段，很明显老师是在说服学生继续做这个 topic。
Question 6：
What is the talk mainly about?
A. Techniques for locating archaeological sites.
B. Methods of preserving archaeological sites.
C. Limitations of some techniques for dating artifacts.
D. Difficulties in determining where artifacts were created.
答案：C
解析：(原文中)Amy：Why don’t we know the exact date when this head was made?
Professor: That’s a fair question. We are talking about prehistory here. So obviously the artists didn’t put a signature or a date on anything they did. So how do we know when this figure was carved?
老师对 Amy 的提问表示赞许，最后一句话教授说道怎么知道when this figure was carved，接着文章对此展开讨论。
Question 7：
According to the professor, when might stratigraphy provide misleading information about a portable object?
A. When the object has decomposed over time.
B. When the object is older than the site at which it was found.
C. When the object is found in the lowest soil layer of a site.
D. When the object was broken during excavation.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Professor: That would be stratigraphy. Stratigraphy is used for dating portable art. When archaeologists are digging at a site, they make very careful notes about which stratum(strata), which layer of earth they find things in. And, you know, the general rule is that the oldest layers are at the lowest level. But this only works if the site hasn’t been touched, and the layers are intact. A problem with this dating method is that an object could have been carried around, used for several generations before it was discarded. So itmight be much older than the layeror even the site where itwasfound. The stratification technique gives us the minimum age of an object, which isn’t necessarily its true age. Tom, in your archaeology class, did you talk about radiocarbon dating?
A problem之后开始说这个方法的缺陷：被挖出来的物品很可能在它被丢弃在这里之前就已经被使用了很长一段时间了。所以挖出来的物品可能比掩埋的土层时间更久远，也就是B答案。Stratigraphy 只能告诉我们物品至少有多少年历史，而不是它真正的年代。
Question 8：
What are two disadvantages of radiocarbon dating? Click on 2 answers
A. It cannot be used for dating art made of organic material.
B. It causes damage to the material being analyzed.
C. It can be used for dating only portable art.
D. It cannot prove when a piece of art was made.
答案：BD
解析：(原文中)Professor: Fortunately, they did, at least some of the time. So it turns out that radiocarbon dating works for a lot of prehistoric art. But again there’s a problem. This technique destroys what it analyzes, so you have to chip off bits of the object for testing. Obviously we are reluctant to do that in some cases. And apart from that, there’s another problems. The date tells you the age of the material, say, a bone or a tree, the object is made from, but not the date when the artist actually created it. So, with radiocarbon dating, we get the maximum possible age for the object, but it could be younger. Ok, let’ s say our scientific analysis has produced an age range. Can we narrow it down?
教授先回答了 Amy 的问题，肯定了 radiocarbon dating 的作用。随后But转折，表示还是有缺陷的。第一个问题是作品会被破坏。随后，another problem出现， radiocarbon dating 只能显示骨头或是树这些原材料的生产时间，而不是艺术家创作作品的时间。
Question 9：
What is the professor’s opinion about the practice of dating a piece of art by analyzing its artistic style?
A. It provides the strongest type of dating evidence.
B. It is more useful for some types of art than others.
C. Use of the practice has improved over the last century.
D. Some analysts make questionable assumption when using it.
答案：D
解析：(原文中)Professor :Well, we have all kinds of pre-conceived ideas about how artistic styles develop. For example, a lot of people think the presence of details demonstrates that the work was done by a more sophisticated artist. While a lack of detail suggests a primitive style. But trends in art in the last century or so certainly challenge that idea. Don’t get me wrong though, analyzing the styles of prehistoric art can help dating them. But we need to be careful with the idea that artistic development occurs in a straight line, from simple to complex representations.
定位 artistic styles，找到教授说的话。But是关键词，这里转折，说明这个观点被很多人质疑。
Question10：
How does the woman summarize the professor’s main point in the talk?
A. By drawing a parallel with a process common to the legal field.
B. By repeating a comment the professor made at the beginning of class.
C. By referring to a study that supports the professor’s theory.
D. By comparing the professor’s remarks with statements in the textbook.
答案：A
解析：(原文中)Amy：What you are saying is, I mean, I get the feeling that this is like a legal process, like building a legal case, the more pieces of evidence we have, the closer we get to the
truth.
Amy 在重述教授的观点，Whar you are saying is, I mean是关键词，表示她要总结了。legal process定位到 A 选项。
Question 11：
Why does the professor say this?
A. To make the point that written records are not important.
B. To explain why the question is worth discussing.
C. To justify the omission of an important point.
D. To express his opinion about the quality of prehistoric art.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Amy：Why don’t we know the exact date when this head was made?
Professor ：That’s a fair question. We are talking about prehistory here. So obviously the artists didn’t put a signature or a date on anything they did. So how do we know when this figure was carved?
教授显示肯定了 Amy 提出的问题的有效性。然后进行挖掘：很明显早期的艺术家不会在作品上刻上签名或是时间，So我们要如何知道这些 figure 是什么时候雕的?所以正因为这是个难题，这个问题才值得讨论。
Question 12：
What is the lecture mainly about?
A. A hypothesis that explains how changes in Earth’s motions affect climate.
B. A hypothesis that explains why the shape of earth’s orbit varies over time.
C. Reasons it is difficult to find evidence to support hypotheses about the climate.
D. Analyses of the accuracy of data collected in different ways.
答案：A
解析：(原文中)Professor: Ok, so we have been talking about theories that deal with the effects of human activity on the climate. But today I’d like to talk a little bit about other theories that can explain variations in climate. And one of thebest-known is called the Milankovitch Hypothesis.
教授说到But today…I’d like to talk这里是标志词，表示他要说主题了。他要介绍一些能解释气候变量的理论，其中一个最有名的理论就是Milankovitch Hypothesis。
Question 13：
Why does the professor compare Earth’s movements to a watch?
A. To clarify a common misunderstanding.
B. To show in what way Earth is similar to a watch.
C. To emphasize the regularity of Earth’s movements.
D. To connect the concepts of orbits and time.
答案：A
解析：(原文中)Professor: Ok, a lot of people think of earth’s orbit around the sun as being perfectly circular, as smooth and as regular as, say, the way that hands move on a well –made watch, but it just doesn’t work that way. You are probably aware that the earth’s orbit around the sun, it is not shaped like a perfect circle. It is more of an oval, it is elliptical.
很多人都认为earth’s orbit是像watch一样规律地绕圆圈运动，但是它不是。所以这里教授提到watch是为了说明人们对earth’s orbit的运动有误解。
Question 14：
Why does the professor mention Northern Hemisphere glaciers?
A. They have a significant effect on the axial tilt of Earth.
B. They play a moderating role on Earth’s climate.
C. Their formation could be affected by changes in Earth’s orbit.
D. Their melting could result in longer warm seasons.
答案：C
解析：(原文中)Professor：And when earth’s orbit is more elliptical, earth is actually closer to the sun during part of the year.Which makes earth, and in particular, the northern hemisphere, warmer. And why is that important? well, because most of the planet’s glaciers are in the northern hemisphere, and if it gets too warm, then glaciers will stop forming. And we’ve already talked about how that affects earth’s overall temperature.
定位Northern Hemisphere glaciers，发现教授马上自问自答，why is that important? Well, because…说明这里是重点了，他说因为地球上大部分的冰川在北半球，如果那里太热的话，冰川就无法形成。那为什么会太热呢?再定位到教授提到Northern Hemisphere之前，是在说earth’s orbit的椭圆形运动路线在一年中有时离太阳会更近一些。由此，我们可以知道，是earth’s orbit影响了温度从而影响冰川的形成。
Question 15：
What is the significance of the evidence found on the ocean floor?
A. It negated earlier evidence that Milankovitch found.
B. It led the development of new methods to measure global climate changes.
C. It helped Milankovitch first formulate his hypothesis.
D. It confirmed Milankovitch’s hypothesis.
答案：D
解析：(原文中)Professor : Now, when Milankovitch first proposed this theory in the 1920s, many of his colleagues were skeptical. Milankovitch didn’t have any proof. Actually there wouldn’t be any evidence to support his hypothesis until the 1970s, when oceanographers were able to drill deep into the seafloor and collect samples, samples which were then analyzed by geologists.
Now为关键词，Milankovitch假设第一次被提出时是遭到很多同事质疑的，而且Milankovitch 没有证据。直到 80 年代才有证据证明这个假设，海洋学家从海底挖出并采集样本，这些样本由地质学家进行分析。所以很明显答案是 D。
Question 16：
What did calcite deposits from Devils Hole reveal?
A. Inaccurate information about long-term climate changes.
B. Evidence that contradicted Milankovitch’s hypothesis.
C. Evidence that climate changes occur only locally.
D. Variations in Earth’s orbit that had little impact on climate.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Professor: Over millions of years, groundwater left deposits of a mineral called calcite3, on the rock within Devil’s Hole. And by studying these clacite deposits, we can determine the climate conditions, the temperatures over the last half million years. Well, the Devil’ s Hole findings contradicted the ones obtained during the 1970s, so basically the question was, were the agesof one orboth thesampleswere wrong,or were scientists misunderstanding the significance of the evidence.
定位到calcite和Devil’s Hole。教授说研究calcite我们可以确定过去 50 万年的气候。Well是关键词，contradict表示否定性的词也是关键。这题关键在于明确 contradict的对象是the ones obtained during the 1970s也就是 Milankovitch Hypothesis。所以答案是 B。
Question 17：
Why does the professor say this?
A. To inform the students about what he will not discuss.
B. To indicate the difficulty of measuring precession.
C. To explain why he plans to spend a long time discussing precession.
D. To clarify that he will provide additional information later.
答案：A
解析：(原文中)Professor: There is a third movement the hypothesis covers called precession. Precession, basically is the change in the direction of earth’s axis of rotation. It will take me a million years to explain even just the basics of this movement as precession is quite complex. And all these details are way beyond our scope. What’s important for you to understand is that these three movements, well, they are cyclical, and they work together to form, to produce complex but regular variations in earth’s climate, and lead to the growth or decline of glaciers.
重听部分教授已经在暗示可能要花一百万年来解释因为旋进运动实在太复杂了。重点是And all these details are way beyond our scope，说明他不会解释这些知识。What’s important for you to understand告诉学生他们只需明白三种运动是周期性的并且一起运作形成了规律的气候变更。
Section 2
Question 18：
Why does the man go to see the woman?
A. To complain about customers.
B. To request an increase in his pay.
C. To ask for a change in his work schedule.
D. To apply for a job playing music in the dining hall.
答案：C
解析：(原文中)Student: Well, I work week nights, except for Friday. I was wondering if I could switch from working the dinner service to working at lunch.
关键词I was wondering if…学生提出要换工作时间。后面都是在和 manager 讨论换工作的话题。
Question19：
What activity does the man want to be able to do at dinnertime?
A. Prepare for his morning music classes.
B. Rehearse with a school music group.
C. Play jazz for the faculty in the dining hall.
D. Eat with classmates from his music class.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Student: Oh, you see, I have joined this group, the University Jazz Band, and the band’s practice time is right around dinner time. You know, it is so hard to get into this group, I must have auditioned like ten times since I have been at the school, so I am ...
Anyway, so I was really hoping to have the dinner hour free so I can go to practice.
Oh, you see后面给出理由，学生说他参加了一个爵士乐队，而且很难才进去的。
Anyway总结说想要晚餐时间自由，因为自己要在晚餐时间去参加排练。
Question 20：
The woman asks the man to consider a different job. What kind of work would the man have to do for the new job?
A. Get ingredients ready for a meal.
B. Clean kitchen equipment for the cooks.
C. Prepare the weekly menu for the dining hall.
D. Coordinate schedules for student workers.
答案：A
解析：(原文中)Student ： What’s prep work?
Manager ： You prepare food for the cooks. You know, like cutting up vegetables for soup, or cleaning greens for salads.
Manager： Let me see, I am offering you something that has the hours you want, it is right here on campus, and you make as much money as you did being a waiter, quite a
sacrifice.
Student ： I am sorry, I know you are just trying to help. I guess I should look into the food-prep job.
Manager ：Ok, then, I’ll tell the kitchen manager that you will stop by tomorrow to talk about the job and schedule your hours. And I will let the dining hall manager know that he needs to find a new waiter for the evening.
男生在纠结一阵之后终于确定接受这份新工作food-prep job，往前定位我们可以找到prep-work的解释You know, like cutting up vegetables for soup, or cleaning greens for salads. 由此可以确定答案 A。
Question 21：
What does the man imply about his job as a waiter?
A. It allows him to get to know the professor better.
B. It is his first job at the university.
C. It does not pay as much as other jobs.
D. It interferes with his studies.
答案：A
解析：(原文中)Student: Oh, that doesn’t sound, I mean... Being a waiter, I get to see a lot of the professors, like in a different light, we joke around a little you know. In the classroom, they always have to be pretty formal, but ...
男生开始的语气有些不太满意，然后给出理由I mean他做 waiter 的时候可以和很多教授聊天开玩笑，但是在教室里他们都很严肃。所以我们可以推测做 waiter 可以让他和教授聊得更开。
Question22：
What does the woman imply when she says this?
A. She thinks the man should keep his job as a waiter.
B. She is grateful that the man is willing to work longer hours.
C. The man will have to make many sacrifices to achieve his goals.
D. The man does not appreciate the opportunity she is offering him.
答案：D
解析：(原文中)Manager ：Let me see, I am offering you something that has the hours you want, it is right here on campus, and you make as much money as you did being a waiter, quite a sacrifice.
从语气上听经理已经有些不满。从内容上听，I am offering…it is right here…make as much money as经理说我已经给你理想时间段的工作，而且就在学校里，赚的钱又和以前一样多，我已经做了让步了。可见经理对于男生不仅犹豫要不要接工作，而且丝毫没有对她的让步表示感谢而感到不满。
Question 23：
What is the lecture mainly about?
A. Differences between modern and ancient calendars.
B. The importance of astronomy in Egyptian religion.
C. The timekeeping system of ancient Egypt.
D. How to use agriculture as a method of timekeeping.
答案：C
解析：(原文中)Professor: Ok, so one of the challenges that faced ancient civilizations like Egypt was timekeeping, calendars. When you have to grow food for whole cities of people, it is important to plant your crops at the right time. And when you start having financial obligations, rents, taxes, you have to keep track of how often you pay. So today we will look at how the Egyptians adressed these problems.
Ok,so…标志词带我们找到 lecture 的主题。明确these problem指的是timekeeping problem。再看全文，都在描述这个 calendar system。很明显答案是 C。
Question24
Why does the professor mention the names of the seasons in ancient Egypt?
A. To explain the importance of religion.
B. To emphasize the significant of the Nile River.
C. To indicate when different types of crops were harvested.
D. To describe early discoveries in astronomy.
答案：B
解析：(原文中) Professor: So let’s take a look at the hows and whys of one ancient Egyptian calendar system, starting with the Nile River. Why the Nile? Well, there’s no other way to put it. Egyptian life basically revolved around the mysterious rise and fall of the river. The success of their agriculture system depended upon them knowing when the river would change. So, naturally, their first calendar was divided up into three seasons, each based on the river ’s changes: inundation, subsidence and harvest. The first season was the flooding, or inundation, when the Nile valley was essentially submerged in water for a few months or so.And afterwards during the season of subsidence, the water would subside, or recede, revealing a new layer of fertile black silt and allowing for the planting of various crops. And finally the time of the year would arrive when the valley would produce crops, such as wheat, barley, fruit, all ready to harvest. Ok, so it was important to the ancient Egyptians to know when their Nile based seasons would occur, their way of life depended upon it.
注意why、Well这些标志词。再往后定位到三种季节的名字。inundation,subsidence and harvest。教授举例三个季节的名字是为了说明尼罗河和日历之间的关系并且说明尼罗河对埃及生命的生存有巨大的影响。这题也可用排除法做出。
Question 25：
Why was the helical rising of Sirius important to the Egyptians? Click on 2 answers.
A. It helped determine the beginning of the New Year.
B. It was used to calculate the length of the month.
C. It marked the beginning of harvest time.
D. It indicated when the Nile would flood.
答案：AD
解析：(原文中)Professor: Even more significantly, the reappearance of Sirius would occur around the same time as the Nile’s flooding. And this annual event is called a heliacal rising. The heliacal rising was a fair indicator of when the Nile would flood. The next new moon, after the heliacal rising of Sirius, which happened in the last month of the calendar year, marked the New Year. And because the ancient Egyptians were using the lunar cycle in combination with this heliacal rising, some years ended up having 12 lunar months, while others had 13 lunar calender months, if Sirius didn’t rise in the 12th month.
Even more significantly表示此处有重点内容。这里有两个点，一个是：heliacal rising是尼罗河发洪水的标志。另一个是：在 heliacal rising 之后也就是下一轮新月表示新的一年的到来。
Question 26：
Once the Egyptians realized the significance of the heliacal rising of Sirius, what change did they make to their agricultural calendar?
A. They made each month exactly 30 days.
B. They shortened the length of the year.
C. They added a religious festival date to celebrate the heliacal rising of Sirius.
D. They allowed the number of months in the year to vary.
答案：D
解析：(原文中)Professor：Even though the length of the agricultural calendar still fluctuated, with some years having 12 months and others having 13, it ended up being much more reliable than it was before. They continually adjusted it to the heliacal rising of Sirius, ensuring that they never got too far off in their seasons. This new calendar was ideal, because, well, it worked well for agricultural purposes as well as for knowing when to have traditional religious festivals. So, that was their first calendar.
Even though是关键词，转折有重点，埃及人一直在根据 heliacal rising of Sirius 来调整每年的月份，来保证每个季节不会偏离太远。所以答案 D。
Question 27：
What are two points the professor makes about the administrative calendar? Click on 2 answers.
A. It included more religious festivals than did the other calendar.
B. It was used for scheduling tax payments.
C. It had the same number of days every year.
D. It used the Moon to determine the beginning of the year.
答案：BC
解析：(原文中)Professor：：But was it any way to run a government? They didn’t think so. For administrative purposes, it was very inconvenient to have years of different lengths. So another calendar was introduced, an administrative one. Probably soon after 3,000 BC, they declared a 365-day year, with 12 months per year, with exactly 30 days each month, with an extra 5 days at the end of each year. This administrative calendar existed alongside the earlier agricultural and religious calendar that depended on the heliacal rising of Sirius. This administrative calendar was much easier to use for things like scheduling taxes and other things that had to be paid on time. Over time, the calendar got out of step with seasons and the flooding of the Nile, but for bureaucratic purposes, they didn’t mind.
So是标志词。定位 administrative calendar。每年 365 天(12 个月，每个月 30 天，每年末多 5 天)，所以 C 选项正确。much easier这里出现比较级，有重点。用 administrative calendar 来计算安排税收更方便些。所以 B 正确。A 和 D 都没有提到可以排除。
Question 28：
What is the professor explaining when she says this?
A. The weakness of the Egyptian bureaucracy.
B. The Egyptians’ motivations for developing a second calendar.
C. The importance of accurately predicting when the Nile would flood.
D. The problems that result from using two calendars.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Professor：And because the ancient Egyptians were using the lunar cycle in combination with this heliacal rising, some years ended up having 12 lunar months. . Even though the length of the agricultural calendar still fluctuated, with some years having 12 months and others having 13, it ended up being much more reliable than it was before.
从上文我们可以看出，Egyptians结合农业生产的calendar，发展出来的calendar是比之前的更可靠的。所以答案选择B，说明Egyptians希望发展第二个calendar。
Question 29：
What is the lecture mainly about?
A. Different kinds of color vision in sea animals.
B. Differences in appearance between various species of octopus.
C. Ways that octopuses attract their prey.
D. Ways that octopuses protect themselves from predators.
答案：D
解析：(原文中)Professor：Ok, now I want to talk about an animal that has a fascinating set of defense mechanisms. And that’s the octopus, one of the unusual creatures that live in the sea. The octopus is prey to many species, including humans, so how does it escape its predators?
Ok, now I want to talk about引出话题。So是标志词。全文都在说 octopus 摆脱敌人的办法。
Question 30：
Why does the professor first mention Proteus?
A. To explain how the octopus got its scientific name.
B. To introduce the octopus’ exceptional abilities.
C. To point out that the octopus played an important role in Greek mythology.
D. To provide an example of a mythological character that was part animal and part human.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)Professor：Well, let me back up here a second. Anyone ever heard of Proteous? Proteus was a God in Greek mythology who could change form. He could make himself look like a lion or a stone or a tree, anything you wanted, and he could go through a whole series of changes very quickly. Well, the octopus is the real world version of Proteus. Just like Proteus, the octopus can go through all kinds of incredible transformations. And it does this in three ways: by changing color, by changing its texture, and by changing its size and shape. For me, the most fascinating transformation is when it changes its color.
首先定位Proteus，在介绍完Proteus后，教授说 octopus 就是真实世界版的Proteus。像Proteus一样，章鱼也会变各种形状。因此，教授是引用了Proteus的例子介绍章鱼的特性。
Question 31：
How does an octopus change color to match the colors in its environment? Click on 2 answers
A. By raising its papillae.
B. By releasing colored ink.
C. By reflecting light from its environment.
D. By contracting the muscles around its chromatophores.
答案：CD
解析：(原文中)Professor：：For me, the most fascinating transformation is when it changes its color. It’s a normal skin color, the one it generally presents, is either red or brown or even grey, and it ’s speckled with dark spots. But when it wants to blend in with its environment to hide
from its enemies, it can take on the color of its immediate surroundings: the ocean floor, a rock, a piece of coral, whatever. Charles?
Student： Do we know how that works, I mean, how they change colors?
Professor：：Well, we know that the reaction that takes place is not chemical in nature. The color changes are executed by two different kinds of cells in the octopus ’ skin, mainly by color cells on the skin’s surface call chromatophores. Chromatophores consist of tiny sacks filled with color dye. There might be a couple hundred of these color sacks per square millimeter of the octopus ’ skin, and depending on the species, they can come in as many as five different colors. Each one of these sacks is controlled by muscles. If the muscles are relaxed, the sack shrinks, and all you see is a little white point. But if the muscle’s contract, then the sack expands, and you can see the colors. And by expanding different combinations of these color sacks to different degrees, the octopus can create all sorts of colors. Yes, Elizabeth?
此处 For me 之前有长时间停顿, 随即出现most最高级，说明这里很可能有重点。有两处But需要关注。一处 But 是说章鱼会从周围环境中取色,也就是选项 C。另一处 But是说如果肌肉收缩，色素细胞里的小袋子会膨胀，你就能看见颜色了。这个是章鱼变色的原理。所以 D 选项也要选。
Question 32：
What does the professor say about the function of the papillae?
A. They produce dye in different colors.
B. They propel the octopus through the water.
C. They change the texture of the octopus’ skin.
D. They help the octopus contract into a smaller shape.
答案：C
解析：(原文中)Professor: But they don’t just mimic the colors in their environment; they can alos mimic the texture of objects in their environment. They have these little projections on their skin that allow them to resemble various textures. The projections are called papillae. If the octopus wants to have a rough texture, it raises the papillae. If it wants to have a smooth texture, it flattens out the papillae, so it can acquire a smooth texture to blend in with the sandy bottom of the sea. So the octopus has the ability to mimic both the color and the texture of its environment. And it’s truly amazing how well it can blend in with its surroundings. You can easily swim within a few feet of an octopus and never see it.
定位 papillae。The projections are called papillae后有明显停顿，可能出现重点。If 章鱼想要粗糙一点的纹理它就突出乳头状突起。If 章鱼想要光滑的纹理，它就把突起物弄平。由此可见，papillae 可以改变他们的皮肤。
Question 33：
What two examples does the professor mention to describe the octopus’ ability to change its shape? Click on 2 answers
A. A small round stone
B. The leaves of a plant
C. A cloud of ink.
D. A piece of coral.
答案：AB
解析：(原文中)Um, now there’s a third way that octopus can transform themselves to blend in with or mimic their environment, and that’s by changing their shape and size, well, at least their apparent size. The muscular system of the octopus enables it to be very flexible to assume all sorts of shapes and postures. So it can contract into the shape of a little round stone, and sit perfectly still on the seafloor. Or it can nestle up in the middle of a plant and take the shape of one of the leaves. Even Proteus would be impressed, I think.
章鱼变形的第三种方式是通过改变自己的大小和形状模仿周围的环境。注意So。章鱼可以收缩钻进一块小石头或者依偎在植物中间模仿成一片叶子。
Question 34：
Why does the professor say this?
A. To point out an error.
B. To illustrate a point.
C. To propose an explanation.
D. To correct a misunderstanding.
答案：B
解析：(原文中)So the octopus has the ability to mimic both the color and the texture of its environment. And it’s truly amazing how well it can blend in with its surroundings. You can easily swim within a few feet of an octopus and never see it. 教授说的这段话知识为了强调章鱼的与环境融合这个特点。并不是在解释什么，也不是在更正之前的错误。