2014年8月16，希望对各位考生的备考有所帮助，祝每位烤鸭考试顺利，都能取得好成绩！ >
机经词汇：
configuration n.配置;结构
sustain v.维持
stationary a. 定居的;固定的
considerable a.可观的;相当多(大)的
notably adv.显著地;尤其
第一篇：Thermoregulation of Marine Organism
海洋生物的体温调节
版本1:
文章主旨是关于海洋生物的体温调节。
第一段说海洋生物分为两种：H和P。
第二段说H。这种海洋海洋生物的体温会比周围环境里的海水高，可以让他们的身体运作得比较好。
第三段说P。大部分的海洋生物是属于P。但是有的生物既不是H也不是P，比如有两种吞拿鱼(tunas，又名金枪鱼)，可以通过快速游动来保持合适的体温。
第四段说动物在冷的环境下会丧失热量，讲了三种丧失热量的方式，最主要的方式是通过皮肤。
第五段说海洋动物如何在低水温里防止体温与热量的丧失。出了一个段间关系的题目，答案就是这一段是solution to上一段的热量的丧失。讲了一个海鸟的例子，是跟海鸟的皮毛(furs and feathers)有关的。还讲了一个鲸鱼脂肪的例子。但光是上面这些也不能防止体温丧失。所以的海洋动物就会通过加快其心率来达到这一目的。这里拿了相同大小的海洋动物和陆地动物作比较，目的是为了支持上面这个观点，这里就出了题目考这个。
第六段说海洋动物有limbs，这些limb是一个缺点因为会让它们丧失更多热量。然后讲了它的体内如何通过一系列复杂的生理机制(包括血红细胞)来克服这些缺点。
版本2： 大多数与的体温与水的温度差不多，但是有一些鱼是特例。有的鱼的体温比水温高，有的鱼的体温比体温低，然后都分别解释了为什么这样的机制(mechanism)。还说了各自如何使自己的体温调节到与水温一致，就是低温动物如何吸热，高温动物如何散热。还讲了sea otter(海獭)的例子，说它有limbs。limbs的血的温度比较低，而核心(core)附近的血的文帝比较高，然后冷热血管交汇以后体温就平衡了，还有一些鱼都是这样使得体温均衡的，这里有出题点。
解析：本文属于海洋生物学的文章。从段落结构看，段落结构清晰，主题明确，阅读文章的难度中等。动物类的文章对事实的描述简单而直接，不会出现像社会科学类文章那样，因为背景知识的生疏而严重影响对于文章理解的情况。但考生们必须提前对相关类型的TPO文章的背景知识与生词熟悉，尤其是各种海洋生物的名称、其各种身体器官以及与体征相关的描述都要熟悉，尽量减少在阅读过程中生词而导致的速度的缓慢。TPO中相关类型的推荐文章包括: Swimming Machines(OG),The Origins of Cetaceans(OG) 与A Warm-Blooded Turtle(TPO15)。
相关背景学习：
Thermoregulation is the ability of an organism to keep its body temperature within certain boundaries, even when the surrounding temperature is very different. A thermoconforming organism, by contrast, simply adopts the surrounding temperature as its own body temperature, thus avoiding the need for internal thermoregulation. The internal thermoregulation process is one aspect ofhomeostasis: a state of dynamic stability in an organism's internal conditions, maintained far from equilibrium with its environment (the study of such processes in zoology has been called ecophysiology or physiological ecology). If the body is unable to maintain a normal temperature and it increases significantly above normal, a condition known as hyperthermia occurs. For humans, this occurs when the body is exposed to constant temperatures of approximately 55 °C (131 °F), and any prolonged exposure (longer than a few hours) at this temperature and up to around 75 °C (167 °F) death is almost inevitable.[citation needed]Humans may also experience lethal hyperthermia when the wet bulb temperature is sustained above 35 °C (95 °F) for six hours.[1]The opposite condition, when body temperature decreases below normal levels, is known as hypothermia.
Whereas an organism that thermoregulates is one that keeps its core body temperature within certain limits, a thermoconformer is subject to changes in body temperature according to changes in the temperature outside of its body at a certain temperature.
It was not until the introduction of thermometers that any exact data on the temperature of animals could be obtained. It was then found that local differences were present, since heat production and heat loss vary considerably in different parts of the body, although the circulation of the blood tends to bring about a mean temperature of the internal parts. Hence it is important to identify the parts of the body that most closely reflect the temperature of the internal organs. Also, for such results to be comparable, the measurements must be conducted under comparable conditions. The rectum has traditionally been considered to reflect most accurately the temperature of internal parts, or in some cases of sex or species, the vagina, uterus or bladder.
Occasionally the temperature of the urine as it leaves the urethra may be of use in measuring body temperature. More often the temperature is taken in the mouth, axilla,ear or groin.
Some animals undergo one of various forms of dormancy where the thermoregulation process temporarily allows the body temperature to drop, thereby conserving energy. Examples include hibernating bears and torpor in bats.#p#副标题#e#
第二篇：Surviving the Frigid Winter (度过严冬)
版本一： 文章的主旨是一个古代民族如何度过寒冬的。
第一段讲俄罗斯某个地方很冷，比其他地方都有更晚晚才有人居住。第一段没有出题。
第二段讲他们生存面临两个大问题。第一个问题是无法取暖，当时的人只能用皮和毛来保暖，还不能完全学会使用火。这里有一个出题点，答案是人们还没法把火当成一种daily use。
第三段是第二个问题，食物来源的问题，因为太冷所以几乎没有合适的食物。提到了有一种植物是他们平常吃的，但是这种植物冬天就冷死了。导致他们不得不去狩猎，但是去狩猎也有风险，因为动物会供给人。
然后说在这个地方，生存除了方法上的问题，还需要发展一些社会关系。就是technique和social都要发展，就是人与人之间的发展。讲一些领袖需要外出捕猎，会有很多很多天不在部落，还有储存食物的方法。除了部落内部，还有部落之间的social，因为他们需要更广泛地区之间的联系来更好地获取猎物的一些相关的信息，比如栖息地和习性。
最后一段讲不管是techniques还是social都没有特别明确的证据，都只是历史学家的猜测。
版本二：考了一篇古时候人们如何保暖(那时候火的利用还不成熟)和狩猎的。其中几段讲的是它们生存遇到的difficulties(困难)的。
版本三：古代的人如何储存食物。讲一个大写的专有人种的生活习性，when and where，如何学会使用gears (齿轮)，如何学会狩猎，如何储存食物与植物。
解析：本文围绕某个俄罗斯民族如何抵御寒冬的主题展开论证，很显然是属于“问题—解决方案(Problems-Solutions)”结构的文章。做题时需注意记录各个问题与其解决办法，这对于结构化阅读及文章总结题的解答有很大好处。“问题—解决方案”类文章是托福阅读常见文章，结构不难理解。需注意各个问题和其解决方案的对应关系，很可能就是最后一题的正确选项。由于条理清晰，最后一题尽量考虑从正面选出，排除为辅。推荐的文章是TPO14的文章Maya Water Problems。
相关背景学习：
Maya Water Problems
To understand the ancient Mayan people who lived in the area that is today southern Mexico and Central America and the ecological difficulties they faced, one must first consider their environment, which we think of as "jungle" or "tropical rainforest." This view is inaccurate, and the reason proves to be important. Properly speaking, tropical rainforests grow in high-rainfall equatorial areas that remain wet or humid all year round. But the Maya homeland lies more than sixteen hundred kilometers from the equator, at latitudes 17 to 22 degrees north, in a habitat termed a "seasonal tropical forest." That is, while there does tend to be a rainy season from May to October, there is also a dry season from January through April. If one focuses on the wet months, one calls the Maya homeland a "seasonal tropical forest"; if one focuses on the dry months, one could instead describe it as a "seasonal desert."
From north to south in the Yucatan Peninsula, where the Maya lived, rainfall ranges from 18 to 100 inches (457 to 2,540 millimeters) per year, and the soils become thicker, so that the southern peninsula was agriculturally more productive and supported denser populations. But rainfall in the Maya homeland is unpredictably variable between years; some recent years have had three or four times more rain than other years. As a result, modern farmers attempting to grow corn in the ancient Maya homelands have faced frequent crop failures, especially in the north. The ancient Maya were presumably more experienced and did better, but nevertheless they too must have faced risks of crop failures from droughts and hurricanes.
Although southern Maya areas received more rainfall than northern areas, problems of water were paradoxically more severe in the wet south. While that made things hard for ancient Maya living in the south, it has also made things hard for modern archaeologists who have difficulty understanding why ancient droughts caused bigger problems in the wet south than in the dry north. The likely explanation is that an area of underground freshwater underlies the Yucatan Peninsula, but surface elevation increases from north to south, so that as one moves south the land surface lies increasingly higher above the water table. In the northern peninsula the elevation is sufficiently low that the ancient Maya were able to reach the water table at deep sinkholes called cenotes, or at deep caves. In low-elevation north coastal areas without sinkholes, the Maya would have been able to get down to the water table by digging wells up to 75 feet (22 meters) deep. But much of the south lies too high above the water table for cenotes or wells to reach down to it. Making matters worse, most of the Yucatan Peninsula consists of karst, a porous sponge-like limestone terrain where rain runs straight into the ground and where little or no surface water remains available.
How did those dense southern Maya populations deal with the resulting water problem? It initially surprises us that many of their cities were not built next to the rivers but instead on high terrain in rolling uplands. The explanation is that the Maya excavated depressions, or modified natural depressions, and then plugged up leaks in the karst by plastering the bottoms of the depressions in order to create reservoirs, which collected rain from large plastered catchment basins and stored it for use in the dry season. For example, reservoirs at the Maya city of Tikal held enough water to meet the drinking water needs of about 10,000 people for a period of 18 months. At the city of Coba the Maya built dikes around a lake in order to raise its level and make their water supply more reliable. But the inhabitants of Tikal and other cities dependent on reservoirs for drinking water would still have been in deep trouble if 18 months passed without rain in a prolonged drought. A shorter drought in which they exhausted their stored food supplies might already have gotten them in deep trouble, because growing crops required rain rather than reservoirs.#p#副标题#e#
第三篇：Writing Record (文字记录)
版本一：
文章主旨是文字对于考古的重要性。
第一段说考考古学家可以通过文字知道一个社会的情况。
第二段说在希腊和罗马考古学家从刻在Clay(粘土)的文字上可以知道当时当地发生的Trade(贸易)和政府的construction(建筑物)的情况。有一题就是关于Trade 的信息，答案是从刻出来的字里知道到底是谁跟谁进行，贸易。
然后还说了用这种原始的记录方法记下的文字不容易保存，很多都由于自然的腐蚀作用(包括被火山灰掩埋)而丢失了，所以发现的很多文字的形式都存在埃及比较干燥的地方。
然后还说文字也有不好的地方，说文字记录也会误导考古学家。举了一个例子，在Angela(安哥拉)有一个文字记录，一开始大家以为记录的是king(国王)，以后那时候就有国王了，但是后来发现这个king不是国王的意思，而是别的东西。
版本二：
讲考古学家和语言学家研究古时候的笔记。有的写在羊皮卷上的，有的写在marble(大理石)上面的。然后说这些record的功能，有的体现了一个国家的政府是谁，神是谁，然后从上面可以探索一些history。还有一段讲的是不光把record刻在羊皮卷上，还有的会刻在coins上面，比如希腊就会记录英格兰政府的变化。
解析： 本文讲文字记录及其各种载体对于考古学以及语言学的贡献。这类历史考证类文章的主旨明确，结构清晰，每段首句为topic sentence的可能性较高。大家在阅读文章之前可以先跳到最后一题(文章总结题)的位置看看那句对于文章总结的句子。对于大家从整体上把握文章的结构非常有帮助。从文章结构与内容上，都非常接近TPO4的文章Art in Europe 。
相关背景学习：
Lascaux Cave Paintings
In Southwest France in the 1940’s, playing children discovered Lascaux Grotto, a series of narrow cave chambers that contain huge prehistoric paintings of animals. Many of these beasts are as large as 16 feet (almost 5 meters). Some follow each other in solemn parades, but others swirl about, sideways and upside down. The animals are bulls, wild horses, reindeer, bison, and mammoths outlined with charcoal and painted mostly in reds, yellow, and browns. Scientific analysis reveals that the colors were derived from ocher and other iron oxides ground into a fine powder. Methods of applying color varied: some colors were brushed or smeared on rock surfaces and others were blown or sprayed. It is possible that tubes made from animal bones were used for spraying because hollow bones, some stained with pigment, have been found nearby.
One of the most puzzling aspects of the paintings is their location. Other rock paintings—for example, those of Bushmen in South Africa—are either located near cave entrances or completely in the open. Cave paintings in France and Spain, however, are in recesses and caverns far removed from original cave entrances. This means that artists were forced to work in cramped spaces and without sources of natural light. It also implies that whoever made them did not want them to be easily found. Since cave dwellers normally lived close to entrances, there must have been some reason why so many generations of Lascaux cave dwellers hid their art.
Scholars offer three related but different opinions about the mysterious origin and significance of these paintings. One opinion is that the paintings were a record of seasonal migrations made by herds. Because some paintings were made directly over others, obliterating them, it is probable that a painting’s value ended with the migration it pictured. Unfortunately, this explanation fails to explain the hidden locations, unless the migrations were celebrated with secret ceremonies.
Another opinion is that the paintings were directly related to hunting and were an essential part of a special preparation ceremony. This opinion holds that the pictures and whatever ceremony they accompanied were an ancient method of psychologically motivating hunters. It is conceivable that before going hunting the hunters would draw or study pictures of animals and imagine a successful hunt. Considerable support exists for this opinion because several animals in the pictures are wounded by arrows and spears. This opinion also attempts to solve the overpainting by explaining that an animal’s picture had no further use after the hunt.
A third opinion takes psychological motivation much further into the realm of tribal ceremonies and mystery: the belief that certain animals assumed mythical significance as ancient ancestors or protectors of a given tribe or clan. Two types of images substantiate this theory: the strange, indecipherable geometric shapes that appear near some animals, and the few drawings of men. Wherever men appear they are crudely drawn and their bodies are elongated and rigid. Some men are in a prone position and some have bird or animal heads. Advocates for this opinion point to reports from people who have experienced a trance state, a highly suggestive state of low consciousness between waking and sleeping. Uniformly, these people experienced weightlessness and the sensation that their bodies were being stretched lengthwise. Advocates also point to people who believe that the forces of nature are inhabited by spirits, particularly shamans* who believe that an animal’s spirit and energy is transferred to them while in a trance. One Lascaux narrative picture, which shows a man with a birdlike head and a wounded animal, would seem to lend credence to this third opinion, but there is still much that remains unexplained. For example, where is the proof that the man in the picture is a shaman? He could as easily be a hunter wearing a headmask. Many tribal hunters, including some Native Americans, camouflaged themselves by wearing animal heads and hides.
Perhaps so much time has passed that there will never be satisfactory answers to the cave images, but their mystique only adds to their importance. Certainly a great art exists, and by its existence reveals that ancient human beings were not without intelligence, skill, and sensitivity.
Shamans: holy people who act as healers and diviners