综合点评

考题重复情况：

Passage one

学科分类

题目

生物

北方狐

内容回忆

北方狐

参考阅读

Play is easier to define with examples than with concepts. In any case, in animals it consists of leaping, running, climbing, throwing, wrestling, and other movements, either along, with objects, or with other animals. Depending on the species, play may be primarily for social interaction, exercise, or exploration. One of the problems in providing a clear definition of play is that it involves the same behaviors that take place in other circumstance--dominance, predation, competition, and real fighting. Thus, whether play occurs or not depends on the intention of the animals, and the intentions are not always clear from behaviors alone.

Play appears to be a developmental characteristic of animals with fairly sophisticated nervous systems, mainly birds and mammals. Play has been studied most extensively in primates and canids (dogs). Exactly why animals play is still a matter debated in the research literature, and the reasons may not be the same for every species that plays. Determining the functions of play is difficult because the functions may be long-term, with beneficial effects not showing up until the animal's adulthood.

Play is not without considerable costs to the individual animal. Play is usually very active, involving movement in space and, at times, noisemaking. Therefore, it results in the loss of fuel or energy that might better be used for growth or for building up fat stores in a young animal. Another potential cost of this activity is greater exposure to predators since play is attention-getting behavior. Great activities also increase the risk of injury in slipping or falling.

The benefits of play must outweigh costs, or play would not have evolved, according to Darwin' s theory. Some of the potential benefits relate directly to the healthy development of the brain and nervous system. In one research study, two groups of young rats were raised under different conditions. One group developed in an "enriched" environment, which allowed the rats to interact with other rats, play with toys, and receive maze training. The other group lived in an "impoverished" environment in individual cages in a dimly lit room with little stimulation. At the end of the experiments, the results showed that the actual weight of the brains of the impoverished rats was less than that of those raised in the enriched environment (though they were fed the same diets). Other studies have shown that greater stimulation not only affects the size of the brain but also increase the number of connections between the nerve cells. Thus, active play may provide necessary stimulation to the growth of synaptic connections in the brain, especially the cerebellum, which is responsible for motor functioning and movements.

Play also stimulates the development of the muscle tissues themselves and may provide the opportunities to practice those movements needed for survival. Prey species, like young deer or goats, for example, typically play by performing sudden flight movements and turns, whereas predator species, such as cats, practice stalking, pouncing, and biting.

Play allows a young animal to explore its environment and practice skill in comparative safety since the surrounding adults generally do not expect the young to deal with threats or predators. Play can also provide practice in social behaviors needed for courtship and mating. Learning appropriate social behaviors is especially important for species that live in groups, like young monkeys that needed to learn to control selfishness and aggression and to understand the give-and-take involved in social groups. They need to learn how to be dominant and submissive because each monkey might have to play either role in the future. Most of these things are learned in the long developmental periods that primates have, during which they engage in countless play experiences with their peers.

There is a danger, of course, that play may be misinterpreted or not recognized as play by others, potentially leading to aggression. This is especially true when play consists of practicing normal aggressive or predator behaviors. Thus, many species have evolved clear signals to delineate playfulness. Dogs, for example, will wag their tails, get down their front legs, and stick their behinds in the air to indicate "what follows is just for play.

Passage two

学科分类

题目

天文

火星消失的大气层

内容回忆

火星消失的大气层

参考阅读

Running Water on Mars

Photographic evidence suggests that liquid water once existed in great quantity on the surface of Mars. Two types of flow features are seen: runoff channels and outflow channels. Runoff channels are found in the southern highlands. These flow features are extensive systems—sometimes hundreds of kilometers in total length—of interconnecting, twisting channels that seem to mergeinto larger, wider channels. They bear a strong resemblance to river systems on Earth, and geologists think that they are dried-up beds of long-gone rivers that once carried rainfall on Mars from the mountains down into the valleys. Runoff channels on Mars speak of a time 4 billion years ago (the age of the Martian highlands), when the atmosphere was thicker, the surface warmer, and liquid water widespread.

Outflow channels are probably relics of catastrophic flooding on Mars long ago. They appear only in equatorial regions and generally do not form extensive interconnected networks. Instead, they are probably the paths taken by huge volumes of water draining from the southern highlands into the northern plains. The onrushing water arising from these flash floods likely also formed the odd teardrop-shaped “islands” (resembling the miniature versions seen in the wet sand of our beaches at low tide) that have been found on the plains close to the ends of the outflow channels. Judging from the width and depth of the channels, the flow rates must have been truly enormous—perhaps as much as a hundred times greater than the 105 tons per second carried by the great Amazon river. Flooding shaped the outflow channels approximately 3 billion years ago, about the same times as the northern volcanic plains formed.

Some scientists speculate that Mars may have enjoyed an extended early Period during which rivers, lakes, and perhaps even oceans adorned its surface. A 2003 Mars Global Surveyor image shows what mission specialists think may be a delta—a fan-shaped network of channels and sediments where a river once flowed into a larger body of water, in this case a lake filling a crater in the southern highlands. Other researchers go even further, suggesting that the data provide evidence for large open expenses of water on the early Martian surface. A computer-generated view of the Martian north polar region shows the extent of what may have been an ancient ocean covering much of the northern lowlands. The Hellas Basin, which measures some 3,000 kilometers across and has a floor that lies nearly 9 kilometers below the basin’s rim, is another candidate for an ancient Martian sea.

These ideas remain controversial. Proponents point to features such as the terraced “beaches” shown in one image, which could conceivably have been left behind as a lake or ocean evaporated and the shoreline receded. But detractors maintain that the terraces could also have been created by geological activity, perhaps related to the geologic forces that depressed the Northern Hemisphere far below the level of the south, in which case they have nothing whatever to do with Martian water. Furthermore, Mars Global Surveyor data released in 2003 seem to indicate that the Martian surface contains too few carbonate rock layers—layers containing compounds of carbon and oxygen—that should have been formed in abundance in an ancient ocean. Their absence supports the picture of a cold, dry Mars that never experienced the extended mild period required to form lakes and oceans. However, more recent data imply that at least some parts of the planet did in fact experience long periods in the past during which liquid water existed on the surface.

Aside from some small-scale gullies (channels) found since 2000, which are inconclusive, astronomers have no direct evidence for liquid water anywhere on the surface of Mars today, and the amount of water vapor in the Martian atmosphere is tiny. Yet even setting aside the unproven hints of ancient oceans, the extent of the outflow channels suggests that a huge total volume of water existed on Mars in the past.

Where did all the water go? The answer may be that virtually all the water on Mars is now locked in the permafrost layer under the surface, with more contained in the planet’s polar caps.

Passage three

学科分类

题目

历史

美国公路

内容回忆

美国公路

参考阅读

　Railroads and Commercial Agriculture in Nineteenth-Century United States

　　By 1850 the United States possessed roughly 9,000 miles of railroad track;then years later it had over 30,000 miles,more than the rest of the world combined.Much of the new construction during the 1850s occurred west of the Appalachian Mountains–over 2,000 miles in the states of Ohio and Illinois alone.

　　The effect of the new railroad lines rippled outward through the economy.Farmers along the tracks began to specialize in corps that they could market in distant locations.With their profits they purchased manufactured goods that earlier they might have made at home.Before the railroad reached Tennessee,the state produced about 25,000 bushels(or 640 tons)of wheat,which sold for less than 50 cents a bushel.Once the railroad came,farmers in the same counties grew 400,000 bushels(over 10,000 tons)and sold their crop at a dollar a bushel.

　　The new railroad networks shifted the direction of western trade.??In 1840 most northwestern grain was shipped south down the Mississippi River to the bustling port of New Orleans.??But low water made steamboat travel hazardous in summer,and ice shut down traffic in winter.??Products such as lard,tallow,and cheese quickly spoiled if stored in New Orleans’hot and humid warehouses.??Increasingly,traffic from the Midwest flowed west to east,over the new rail lines.Chicago became the region’s hub,linking the farms of the upper Midwest to New York and other eastern cities by more than 2,000 miles of track in 1855.Thus while the value of goods shipped by river to New Orleans continued to increase,the South’s overall share of western trade dropped dramatically.

　　A sharp rise in demand for grain abroad also encouraged farmers in the Northeast and Midwest to become more commercially oriented.Wheat,which in 1845 commanded$1.08 a bushel in New York City,fetched$2.46 in 1855;in similar fashion the price of corn nearly doubled.Farmers responded by specializing in cash crops,borrowing to purchase more land,and investing in equipment to increase productivity.

　　As railroad lines fanned out from Chicago,farmers began to acquire open prairie land in Illinois and then Iowa,putting the fertile,deep black soil into production.

　　Commercial agriculture transformed this remarkable treeless environment.To settlers accustomed to eastern woodlands,the thousands of square miles of tall grass were an awesome sight.Indian grass,Canada wild rye,and native big bluestem all grew higher than a person.Because eastern plows could not penetrate the densely tangled roots of prairie grass,the earliest settlers erected farms along the boundary separating the forest from the prairie.In 1837,however,John Deere patented a sharp-cutting steel plow that sliced through the sod without soil sticking to the blade.Cyrus McCormick refined a mechanical reaper that harvested fourteen times more wheat with the same amount of labor.By the 1850s McCormick was selling 1,000 reapers a year and could not keep up with demand,while Deere turned out 10,000 plows annually.

　　The new commercial farming fundamentally altered the Midwestern landscape and the environment.Native Americans had grown corn in the region for years,but never in such large fields as did later settlers who became farmers,whose surpluses were shipped east.Prairie farmers also introduced new crops that were not part of the earlier ecological system,notably wheat,along with fruits and vegetables.

　　Native grasses were replaced by a small number of plants cultivated as commodities.Corn had the best yields,but it was primarily used to feed livestock.Because bread played a key role in the American and European diet,wheat became the major cash crop.Tame grasses replaced native grasses in pastures for making hay.

　　Western farmers altered the landscape by reducing the annual fires that had kept the prairie free from trees.In the absence of these fires,trees reappeared on land not in cultivation and,if undisturbed,eventually formed woodlots.The earlier unbroken landscape gave way to independent farms,each fenced off in a precise checkerboard pattern.It was an artificial ecosystem of animals,woodlots,and crops,whose large,uniform layout made western farms more efficient than the more-irregular farms in the East.

Passage

four

学科分类

题目

建筑史

埃及金字塔的结构

内容回忆

埃及金字塔的结构

参考阅读

Architecture

Architecture is the art and science of designing structures that organize and enclose space for practical and symbolic purposes. Because architecture grows out of human needs and aspirations, it clearly communicates cultural values. Of all the visual arts, architecture affects our lives most directly for it determines the character of the human environment in major ways.

Architecture is a three-dimensional form. It utilizes space, mass, texture, line, light, and color. To be architecture, a building must achieve a working harmony with a variety of elements. Humans instinctively seek structures that will shelter and enhance their way of life. It is the work of architects to create buildings that are not simply constructions but also offer inspiration and delight. Buildings contribute to human life when they provide shelter, enrich space, complement their site, suit the climate, and are economically feasible. The client who pays for the building and defines its function is an important member of the architectural team. The mediocre design of many contemporary buildings can be traced to both clients and architects.

In order for the structure to achieve the size and strength necessary to meet its purpose, architecture employs methods of support that, because they are based on physical laws, have changed little since people first discovered them—even while building materials have changed dramatically. The world’s architectural structures have also been devised in relation to the objective limitations of materials. Structures can be analyzed in terms of how they deal with downward forces created by gravity. They are designed to withstand the forces of compression (pushing together), tension (pulling apart), bending, or a combination of these in different parts of the structure.

Even development in architecture has been the result of major technological changes. Materials and methods of construction are integral parts of the design of architecture structures. In earlier times it was necessary to design structural systems suitable for the materials that were available, such as wood, stone, brick. Today technology has progressed to the point where it is possible to invent new building materials to suit the type of structure desired. Enormous changes in materials and techniques of construction within the last few generations have made it possible to enclose space with much greater ease and speed and with a minimum of material. Progress in this area can be measured by the difference in weight between buildings built now and those of comparable size built one hundred years ago.

Modern architectural forms generally have three separate components comparable to elements of the human body: a supporting skeleton or frame, an outer skin enclosing the interior spaces, and equipment, similar to the body’s vital organs and systems. The equipment includes plumbing, electrical wiring, hot water, and air-conditioning. Of course in early architecture—such as igloos and adobe structures—there was no such equipment, and the skeleton and skin were often one.

Much of the world’s great architecture has been constructed of stone because of its beauty, permanence, and availability. In the past, whole cities grew from the arduous task of cutting and piling stone upon. Some of the world’s finest stone architecture can be seen in the ruins of the ancient Inca city of Machu Picchu high in the eastern Andes Mountains of Peru. The doorways and windows are made possible by placing over the open spaces thick stone beams that support the weight from above. A structural invention had to be made before the physical limitations of stone could be overcome and new architectural forms could be created. That invention was the arch, a curved structure originally made of separate stone or brick segments. The arch was used by the early cultures of the Mediterranean area chiefly for underground drains, but it was the Romans who first developed and used the arch extensively in aboveground structures. Roman builders perfected the semicircular arch made of separate blocks of stone. As a method of spanning space, the arch can support greater weight than a horizontal beam. It works in compression to divert the weight above it out to the sides, where the weight is borne by the vertical elements on either side of the arch. The arch is among the many important structural breakthroughs that have characterized architecture throughout the centuries.

Passage

five

学科分类

题目

天文

行星的形成

内容回忆

planet的形成，粒子在disc上逐渐撞击形成planet around the sun；受到supernova发射的影响

参考阅读

Planets in Our Solar System

The Sun is the hub of a huge rotating system consisting of nine planets, their satellites, and numerous small bodies, including asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. An estimated 99.85 percent of the mass of our solar system is contained within the Sun, while the planets collectively make up most of the remaining 0.15 percent. The planets, in order of their distance from the Sun, are Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. Under the control of the Sun's gravitational force, each planet maintains an elliptical orbit and all of them travel in the same direction.

The planets in our solar system fall into two groups: the terrestrial (Earth-like) planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars) and the Jovian (Jupiter-like) planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune). Pluto is not included in either category, because its great distance from Earth and its small size make this planet's true nature a mystery.

The most obvious difference between the terrestrial and the Jovian planets is their size. The largest terrestrial planet, Earth has a diameter only one quarter as great as the diameter of the smallest Jovian planet, Neptune, and its mass is only one seventeenth as great. Hence, the Jovian planets are often called giants. Also, because of their relative locations, the four Jovian planets are known as the outer planets, while the terrestrial planets are known as the inner planets. There appears to be a correlation between the positions of these planets and their sizes.

Other dimensions along which the two groups differ markedly are density and composition. The densities of the terrestrial planets average about 5 times the density of water, whereas the Jovian planets have densities that average only 1.5 times the density of water. One of the outer planets, Saturn, has a density of only 0.7 that of water, which means that Saturn would float in water. Variations in the composition of the planets are largely responsible for the density differences. █The substances that make up both groups of planets are divided into three groups—gases, rocks, and ices—based on their melting points. █The terrestrial planets are mostly rocks: dense rocky and metallic material, with minor amounts of gases. █The Jovian planets, on the other hand, contain a large percentage of the gases hydrogen and helium, with varying amounts of ices: mostly water, ammonia, and methane ices.█

The Jovian planets have very thick atmospheres consisting of varying amounts of hydrogen, helium, methane, and ammonia. By comparison, the terrestrial planets have meager atmospheres at best. A planet's ability to retain an atmosphere depends on its temperature and mass. Simply stated, a gas molecule can "evaporate" from a planet if it reaches a speed known as the escape velocity. For Earth, this velocity is 11 kilometers per second. Any material, including a rocket, must reach this speed before it can leave Earth and go into space. The Jovian planets, because of their greater masses and thus higher surface gravities, have higher escape velocities (21-60 kilometers per second) than the terrestrial planets. Consequently, it is more difficult for gases to "evaporate" from them. Also, because the molecular motion of a gas depends on temperature, at the low temperatures of the Jovian planets even the lightest gases are unlikely to acquire the speed needed to escape. On the other hand, a comparatively warm body with a small surface gravity, like Earth's moon, is unable to hold even the heaviest gas and thus lacks an atmosphere. The slightly larger terrestrial planets Earth, Venus, and Mars retain some heavy gases like carbon dioxide, but even their atmospheres make up only an infinitesimally small portion of their total mass.

The orderly nature of our solar system leads most astronomers to conclude that the planets formed at essentially the same time and from the same material as the Sun. It is hypothesized that the primordial cloud of dust and gas from which all the planets are thought to have condensed had a composition somewhat similar to that of Jupiter. However, unlike Jupiter, the terrestrial planets today are nearly void of light gases and ices. The explanation may be that the terrestrial planets were once much larger and richer in these materials but eventually lost them because of these bodies' relative closeness to the Sun, which meant that their temperatures were relatively high.

Passage

six

学科分类

题目

动物

蜥蜴迁移

内容回忆

the migration of lizard in pacific island

lizard在太平洋上的孤岛怎么colonize

参考阅读

To South Americans, robins are birds that fly north every spring. To North Americans, the robins simply vacation in the south each winter. Furthermore, they fly to very specific places in South America and will often come back to the same trees in North American yards the following spring. The question is not why they would leave the cold of winter so much as how they find their way around. The question perplexed people for years, until, in the 1950’s, a German scientist named Gustave Kramer provided some answers and, in the process, raised new questions.

Kramer initiated important new kinds of research regarding how animals orient and navigate. Orientation is simply facing in the right direction; navigation involves finding one’s way from point A to point B.

Early in his research, Kramer found that caged migratory birds became very restless at about the time they would normally have begun migration in the wild. Furthermore, he noticed that as they fluttered around in the cage, they often launched themselves in the direction of their normal migratory route. He then set up experiments with caged starlings and found that their orientation was, in fact, in the proper migratory direction except when the sky was overcast, at which times there was no clear direction to their restless movements. Kramer surmised, therefore, that they were orienting according to the position of the Sun. To test this idea, he blocked their view of the Sun and used mirrors to change its apparent position. He found that under these circumstances, the birds oriented with respect to the new “Sun.” They seemed to be using the Sun as a compass to determine direction. At the time, this idea seemed preposterous. How could a bird navigate by the Sun when some of us lose our way with road maps. Obviously, more testing was in order.

So, in another set of experiments, Kramer put identical food boxes around the cage, with food in only one of the boxes. The boxes were stationary, and the one containing food was always at the same point of the compass. However, its position with respect to the surroundings could be changed by revolving either the inner cage containing the birds or the outer walls, which served as the background. As long as the birds could see the Sun, no matter how their surroundings were altered, they went directly to the correct food box. Whether the box appeared in front of the right wall or the left wall, they showed no signs of confusion. On overcast days, however, the birds were disoriented and had trouble locating their food box.

In experimenting with artificial suns, Kramer made another interesting discovery. If the artificial Sun remained stationary, the birds would shift their direction with respect to it at a rate of about 15 degrees per hour, the Sun’s rate of movement across the sky. Apparently, the birds were assuming that the “Sun” they saw was moving at that rate. When the real Sun was visible, however, the birds maintained a constant direction as it moved across the sky. In other words, they were able to compensate for the Sun’s movement. This meant that some sort of biological clock was operating–and a very precise clock at that.

What about birds that migrate at night. Perhaps they navigate by the night sky. To test the idea, caged night-migrating birds were placed on the floor of a planetarium during their migratory period. A planetarium is essentially a theater with a domelike ceiling onto which a night sky can be projected for any night of the year. When the planetarium sky matched the sky outside, the birds fluttered in the direction of their normal migration. But when the dome was rotated, the birds changed their direction to match the artificial sky. The results clearly indicated that the birds were orienting according to the stars.

There is accumulating evidence indicating that birds navigate by using a wide variety of environmental cues. Other areas under investigation include magnetism, landmarks, coastlines, sonar, and even smells. The studies are complicated by the fact that the data are sometimes contradictory and the mechanisms apparently change from time to time. Furthermore, one sensory ability may back up another.

Passage

Seven

学科分类

题目

商业

the trade in near east

内容回忆

the trade in near east

参考阅读

The Commercial Revolution in Medieval Europe

　　Beginning in the 1160s,the opening of new silver mines in northern Europe led to the minting and circulation of vast quantities of silver coins.The widespread use of cash greatly increased the volume of international trade.Business procedures changed radically.The individual traveling merchant who alone handled virtually all aspects of exchange evolved into an operation involving three separate types of merchants:the sedentary merchant who ran the“home office,”financing and organizing the firm’s entire export-import trade;the carriers who transported goods by land and sea;and the company agents resident in cities abroad who,on the advice of the home office,looked after sales and procurements.

　　Commercial correspondence,unnecessary when one businessperson oversaw everything and made direct bargains with buyers and sellers,multiplied.Regular courier service among commercial cities began.Commercial accounting became more complex when firms had to deal with shareholders,manufacturers,customers,branch offices,employees,and competing firms.Tolls on roads became high enough to finance what has been called a road revolution,involving new surfaces and bridges,new passes through the Alps,and new inns and hospices for travelers.The growth of mutual trust among merchants facilitated the growth of sales on credit and led to new developments in finance,such as the bill of exchange,a device that made the long,slow,and very dangerous shipment of coins unnecessary.

　　The ventures of the German Hanseatic League illustrate these advancements.The Hanseatic League was a mercantile association of European towns dating from 1159.■AThe league grew by the end of the fourteenth century to include about 200 cities from Holland to Poland.■B Across regular,well-defined trade routes along the Baltic and North seas,the ships of league cities carried furs,wax,copper,fish,grain,timber,and wine.These goods were exchanged for finished products,mainly cloth and salt,from western cities.■C At cities such as Bruges and London,Hanseatic merchants secured special trading concessions,exempting them from all tolls and allowing them to trade at local fairs.■D Hanseatic merchants established foreign trading centers,the most famous of which was the London Steelyard,a walled community with warehouses,offices,a church,and residential quarters for company representatives.By the late thirteenth century,Hanseatic merchants had developed an important business technique,the business register.Merchants publicly recorded their debts and contracts and received a league guarantee for them.This device proved a decisive factor in the later development of credit and commerce in northern Europe.

　　These developments added up to what one modern scholar has called“a commercial revolution.”In the long run,the commercial revolution of the High Middle Ages(AD 1000-1300)brought about radical change in European society.One remarkable aspect of this change was that the commercial classes constituted a small part of the total population—never more than 10 percent.They exercised an influence far in excess of their numbers.The commercial revolution created a great deal of new wealth,which meant a higher standard of living.The existence of wealth did not escape the attention of kings and other rulers.Wealth could be taxed,and through taxation,kings could create strong and centralized states.In the years to come,alliances with the middle classes were to enable kings to weaken aristocratic interests and build the states that came to be called modern.

　　The commercial revolution also provided the opportunity for thousands of agricultural workers to improve their social position.The slow but steady transformation of European society from almost completely rural and isolated to relatively more urban constituted the greatest effect of the commercial revolution that began in the eleventh century.Even so,merchants and business people did not run medieval communities,except in central and northern Italy and in the county of Flanders.Most towns remained small.The nobility and churchmen determined the predominant social attitudes,values,and patterns of thought and behavior.The commercial changes of the eleventh through fourteenth centuries did however,lay the economic foundation for the development of urban life and culture.

Passage

Eight

学科分类

题目

艺术史

the ornament of shell

内容回忆

the ornament of shell

参考阅读

Characteristics of Roman Pottery

The pottery of ancient Romans is remarkable in several ways. The high quality of Roman pottery is very easy to appreciate when handling actual pieces of tableware or indeed kitchenware and amphorae (the large jars used throughout the Mediterranean for the transport and storage of liquids, such as wine and oil). However, it is impossible to do justice to Roman wares on the page, even when words can be backed up by photographs and drawings. Most Roman pottery is light and smooth to the touch and very tough, although, like all pottery, it shatters if dropped on a hard surface. It is generally made with carefully selected and purified clay, worked to thin-walled and standardized shapes on a fast wheel and fired in a kiln (pottery oven) capable of ensuring a consistent finish. With handmade pottery, inevitably there are slight differences between individual vessels of the same design and occasional minor blemishes (flaws). But what strikes the eye and the touch most immediately and most powerfully with Roman pottery is its consistent high quality.

This is not just an aesthetic consideration but also a practical one. These vessels are solid (brittle, but not fragile), they are pleasant and easy to handle (being light and smooth), and, with their hard and sometimes glossy (smooth and shiny) surfaces, they hold liquids well and are easy to wash. Furthermore, their regular and standardized shapes would have made them simple to stack and store. When people today are shown a very ordinary Roman pot and, in particular, are allowed to handle it, they often comment on how modern it looks and feels, and they need to be convinced of its true age.

As impressive as the quality of Roman pottery is its sheer massive quantity. When considering quantities, we would ideally like to have some estimates for overall production from particular sites of pottery manufacture and for overall consumption at specific settlements. Unfortunately, it is in the nature of the archaeological evidence, which is almost invariably only a sample of what once existed, that such figures will always be elusive. However, no one who has ever worked in the field would question the abundance of Roman pottery, particularly in the Mediterranean region. This abundance is notable in Roman settlements (especially urban sites) where the labor that archaeologists have to put into the washing and sorting of potsherds (fragments of pottery) constitutes a high proportion of the total work during the initial phases of excavation.

Only rarely can we derive any “real” quantities from deposits of broken pots. However, there is one exceptional dump, which does represent a very large part of the site’s total history of consumption and for which an estimate of quantity has been produced. On the left bank of the Tiber River in Rome, by one of the river ports of the ancient city, is a substantial hill some 50 meters high called Monte Testaccio. It is made up entirely of broken oil amphorae, mainly of the second and third centuries A.D. It has been estimated that Monte Testaccio contains the remains of some 53 million amphorae, in which around 6,000 million liters of oil were imported into the city from overseas. Imports into imperial Rome were supported by the full might of the state and were therefore quite exceptional—but the size of the operations at Monte Testaccio, and the productivity and complexity that lay behind them, nonetheless cannot fail to impress. This was a society with similarities to modern ones—moving goods on a gigantic scale, manufacturing high-quality containers to do so, and occasionally, as here, even discarding them on delivery.

Roman pottery was transported not only in large quantities but also over substantial distances. Many Roman pots, in particular amphorae and the fine wares designed for use at tables, could travel hundreds of miles—all over the Mediterranean and also further afield. But maps that show the various spots where Roman pottery of a particular type has been found tell only part of the story. What is more significant than any geographical spread is the access that different levels of society had to good-quality products. In all but the remotest regions of the empire, Roman pottery of a high standard is common at the sites of humble villages and isolated farmsteads.

Passage

Nine

学科分类

题目

历史

外来文化对法老和当地国家的影响

内容回忆

外来文化对法老和当地国家的影响

参考阅读

The First Civilizations

　　Evidence suggests that an important stimulus behind the rise of early civilizations was the development of settled agriculture,which unleashed a series of changes in the organization of human communities that culminated in the rise of large ancient empires.

　　The exact time and place that crops were first cultivated successfully is uncertain.Many prehistorians believe that farming may have emerged independently in several different areas of the world when small communities,driven by increasing population and a decline in available food resources,began to plant seeds in the ground in an effort to guarantee their survival.The first farmers,who may have lived as long as 10,000 years ago,undoubtedly used simple techniques and still relied primarily on other forms of food production,such as hunting,foraging,or pastoralism.The real breakthrough took place when farmers began to cultivate crops along the floodplains of river systems.The advantage was that crops grown in such areas were not as dependent on rainfall and therefore produced a more reliable harvest.An additional benefit was that the sediment carried by the river waters deposited nutrients in the soil,thus enabling the farmer to cultivate a single plot of ground for many years without moving to a new location.Thus,the first truly sedentary(that is,non-migratory)societies were born.As time went on,such communities gradually learned how to direct the flow of water to enhance the productive capacity of the land,while the introduction of the iron plow eventually led to the cultivation of heavy soils not previously susceptible to agriculture.

　　The spread of this river valley agriculture in various parts of Asia and Africa was the decisive factor in the rise of the first civilizations.The increase in food production in these regions led to a significant growth in population,while efforts to control the flow of water to maximize the irrigation of cultivated areas and to protect the local inhabitants from hostile forces outside the community provoked the first steps toward cooperative activities on a large scale.The need to oversee the entire process brought about the emergence of an elite that was eventually transformed into a government.

　　The first clear steps in the rise of the first civilizations took place in the fourth and third millennia B.C.in Mesopotamia,northern Africa,India,and China.How the first governments took shape in these areas is not certain,but anthropologists studying the evolution of human communities in various parts of the world have discovered that one common stage in the process is the emergence of what are called“big men”within a single village or a collection of villages.By means of their military prowess,dominant personalities,or political talents,these people gradually emerge as the leaders of that community.In time,the“big men”become formal symbols of authority and pass on that authority to others within their own family.As the communities continue to grow in size and material wealth,the“big men”assume hereditary status,and their allies and family members are transformed into a hereditary monarchy.

　　The appearance of these sedentary societies had a major impact on the social organizations,religious beliefs,and way of life of the peoples living within their boundaries.■With the increase in population and the development of centralized authority came the emergence of the cities.■While some of these urban centers were identified with a particular economic function,such as proximity to gold or iron deposits or a strategic location on a major trade route,others served primarily as administrative centers or the site of temples for the official cult or other ritual observances.■Within these cities,new forms of livelihood appeared to satisfy the growing need for social services and consumer goods.■Some people became artisans or merchants,while others became warriors,scholars,or priests.In some cases,the physical division within the first cities reflected the strict hierarchical character of the society as a whole,with a royal palace surrounded by an imposing wall and separate from the remainder of the urban population.In other instances,such as the Indus River Valley,the cities lacked a royal precinct and the ostentatious palaces that marked their contemporaries elsewhere.

Passage

Ten

学科分类

题目

植物

Pollination

内容回忆

植物的进化来防止被吃，吸引传粉者。以及动物适应这些进化，比如白蚁自己培养食物

参考阅读

Microscopes The Beringia Landscape

　　During the peak of the last ice age, northeast Asia(Siberia)and Alaska were connected by a broad land mass called the Bering Land Bridge.This land bridge existed because so much of Earth’s water was frozen in the great ice sheets that sea levels were over 100 meters lower than they are today.Between 25,000 and 10,000 years ago, Siberia,the Bering Land Bridge,and Alaska shared many environmental characteristics. These included a common mammalian fauna of large mammals,a common flora composed of broad grasslands as well as wind-swept dunes and tundra, and a common climate with cold, dry winters and somewhat warmer summers.The recognition that many aspects of the modem flora and fauna were present on both sides of the Bering Sea as remnants of the ice-age landscape led to this region being named Beringia.

　　It is through Beringia that small groups of large mammal hunters,slowly expanding their hunting territories,eventually colonized North and South America.On this archaeologists generally agree,but that is where the agreement stops.One broad area of disagreement in explaining the peopling of the Americas is the domain of paleoecologists,but it is critical to understanding human history:what was Beringia like?

　　The Beringian landscape was very different from what it is today.■A Broad,windswept valleys;glaciated mountains;sparse vegetation;and less moisture created a rather forbidding land mass.■B This land mass supported herds of now-extinct species of mammoth,bison,and horse and somewhat modern versions of caribou,musk ox,elk,and saiga antelope.■C These grazers supported in turn a number of impressive carnivores,including the giant short-faced bear,the saber-tooth cat,and a large species of lion.■D

　　The presence of mammal species that require grassland vegetation has led Arctic biologist Dale Guthrie to argue that while cold and dry,there must have been broad areas of dense vegetation to support herds of mammoth,horse,and bison.Further,nearly all of the ice-age fauna had teeth that indicate an adaptation to grasses and sedges;they could not have been supported by a modern flora of mosses and lichens.Guthrie has also demonstrated that the landscape must have been subject to intense and continuous winds,especially in winter.He makes this argument based on the anatomy of horse and bison,which do not have the ability to search for food through deep snow cover.They need landscapes with strong winds that remove the winter snows,exposing the dry grasses beneath.Guthrie applied the term“mammoth steppe"to characterize this landscape.

　　In contrast,Paul Colinvaux has offered a counterargument based on the analysis of pollen in lake sediments dating to the last ice age.He found that the amount of pollen recovered in these sediments is so low that the Beringian landscape during the peak of the last glaciation was more likely to have been what he termed a"polar desert,"with little or only sparse vegetation,in no way was it possible that this region could have supported large herds of mammals and thus,human hunters.Guthrie has argued against this view by pointing out that radiocarbon analysis of mammoth,horse,and bison bones from Beringian deposits revealed that the bones date to the period of most intense glaciation.

　　The argument seemed to be at a standstill until a number of recent studies resulted in a spectacular suite of new finds.The first was the discovery of a 1,000-square-kilometer preserved patch of Beringian vegetation dating to just over 17,000 years ago—the peak of the last ice age.The plants were preserved under a thick ash fall from a volcanic eruption.Investigations of the plants found grasses,sedges,mosses,and many other varieties in a nearly continuous cover,as was predicted by Guthrie.But this vegetation had a thin root mat with no soil formation,demonstrating that there was little long-term stability in plant cover,a finding supporting some of the arguments of Colinvaux.A mixture of continuous but thin vegetation supporting herds of large mammals is one that seems plausible and realistic with the available data.

                          综合点评

今天有难度较大的天文学和艺术类，难度适中偏难

                         Conversation

话题分类

教科书内容讨论

内容回忆

男孩为弟弟找生物类教科书，老师教不同科目以及更高年级，但通过分析推断弟弟教科书的内容

                         Conversation

话题分类

图书馆

内容回忆

女生在图书馆工作被要求增加工作并聊具体的工作细节，女生不太同意并和上司讨论

                         Conversation

话题分类

停车

内容回忆

因学校举办活动占用学校停车位，学生无法停车和工作人员讨论如何上学，工作人员建议他乘坐学校同意通勤车，推掉停车票。

                         Conversation

话题分类

教学方法

内容回忆

实习生和老师讨论学校实践活动中的教学方法。

                               Lecture

话题分类

科学的历史

内容回忆

建立恐龙博物馆具体考虑科学性还是娱乐性，以及其中会出现的各种问题和细节的讨论，包括恐龙化石怎样确定是否完整等。

                               Lecture

话题分类

天文学

内容回忆

主要讨论两个星球。木星为什么那么大以及火星为什么那么小。一些宇宙变化和引力，慢慢改变了星球的位置和大小。

                              Lecture

话题分类

美术

内容回忆

毕加索的印象派，包括印象派的特征材质以及早期印象派的影响和声望。

                              Lecture

话题分类

歌剧

内容回忆

蝴蝶夫人，虽然现在很有名气，但开始的首演很失败。具体说了失败的原因，包括临时改剧本，观众本身很挑剔等等。

Task 1

内容回忆

Some people like to take a vacation in a big city, while others prefer to go to the countryside. Which do you prefer and why?

参考答案

I will definitely go to a big city due to 2 reasons. First of all, it’s much more convenient to live and travel in a city rather than in the countryside. Even we may have some traffic jam during the vocation, we can still easily go to any place by public transportation such as subway and buses . However, if we stay in the countryside, renting a car will be the only choice that might delay the traveling plan. What’s more, as a lover of delicious food, i could easily find wonderful meals from different countries combined with the most traditional local food in the city. I could plan my breakfast, lunch and dinner from the Yelp based on others reviews and comments, thus lead to a fabulous vocation.  

Task 2

阅读

students artwork on website把学生的作品在线上展览

听力

男生赞同

1.可以让更多人看到学生的作品；

2.可以让更多的学生参加他们的部门

Task 3

阅读

production co- creation

听力

一个卖衣服的公司让自己的顾客设计衣服、投票选出上架的衣服，顾客会买的更多

Task 4

话题

海底捕食

听力

海底生物捕食。一种动物Armone可以扎食物； 另一种有shell 吃seawter

综合点评

这次托福考试写作部分都是旧题，综合写作是2014年3月22日的旧题，独立写作是2016年的旧题。

其中，综合写作考查经济，生僻词汇较少，但理解起来困难。

独立写作比较抽象，想例子不容易，学生在备考过程需要重视这类考题，准备相关素材。

综合写作

话题分类

农业经济

考题回忆

总论点

讨论美国农业补贴(agriculture subsidies)有没有好处

阅读部分

好处一：稳定农产品价格，在农产品产量下降的时候，补贴可以弥补农民的收入，以防粮食产品价格飞涨。

好处二：农业补贴可以帮助贫困国家度过粮食缺乏的危机，解决贫困饥饿的问题。

好处三：农业上的补贴可以增加农业就业率，农业上的补贴可以吸引更多的人从事农业这一行业，弥补欠缺的人才。

听力部分

反驳一：虽然可以稳定价格，但这种价格减少的原因是政府投入了资金，这些资金来自税收，所以价格减少的这个幅度的买单者是人民。

反驳二：不能帮助弱国，当贫穷国家出现粮食危机需要进口的时候，他们会发现进口的价格低于本的粮食的价格，因而不能维护当地农民的利益。

反驳三：不能增加就业，农业补贴只用于一部分农作物如crop，当农业补贴加大，那么为了提高生产力，crop的生产方式会高度机械化，所以不用人工劳作，而且，种植其他农业品种的企业没有优势会倒闭，加深就业问题。

解题思路

阅读部分

　　1. 1. 稳定农产品价格;

　　2. 2. 解决贫困饥饿的问题;

　　3. 3. 增加农业就业率.

听力部分

　　1. 1. 资金来自税收;

　　2. 2. 不能维护贫困国家农民的利益;

　　3. 3. 农业企业一旦没有优势就会倒闭，加重了就业问题。

参考范文

范文:

The reading passage and the lecture are both talking about pros and cons of American agricultural subsidies. The reading passage asserts that providing subsidies is a great way to give farmers a financial out, while the lecture maintains that the three pros stated in the passage all have weaknesses and are not as useful.

To begin with, the lecture admits that agricultural subsidies can stabilize crop prices during poor seasons, otherwise prices would soar without government intervention. However,  the money paid to farmers to supplement their income actually comes from taxpayers. The seemingly cheaper products are an illusion, in reality, you still pay the same price.

Secondly, the lecture cast doubts on the passage’s argument that agricultural subsidies can solve poor countries’ food scarcity problem. When cheap foreign agricultural products, whose cheaper price is the result of government subsidies, are imported to poor countries, local farmers will discover that they cannot compete with them because their products are more expensive, so this may bankrupt them.

Thirdly, the lecture refutes that agricultural subsidies can attract talents to join this field. For one thing, agricultural subsidies only focus on certain crops. In order to improve productivity farmers will implement more automatic process to grow food, which will results in less labors and more machines. Also, products with no subsidies will lose advantages. As a result, farmers producing these products will lose jobs, which will make unemployment problems in agricultural industry even worse.

独立写作

话题分类

抽象类

考题回忆

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? It is better to use your own knowledge and experience to solve problems than to ask other people for advice.

用自己的经验和知识解决问题会比寻求别人的建议更好，你是否同意这种看法？

解题思路

写作思路：

要点：抽象类话题一般较难，不需要上升到哲学高度去讨论，托福写作也不是GRE逻辑写作，为了有效利用30分钟的考试时间，应快速选取一方观点，思考两个理由和两个例子。

观点：disagree

1.有时候需要在自己不擅长的范围做出决定

（1）自己的经验和知识具有一定局限性。

（2）寻求专业人士的帮助来解决专业问题。

2. 寻求帮助是走捷径的方式

1. 自己解决需要花很长时间，浪费时间和精力。

参考范文

范文：

When facing problems, some people insist on addressing problems alone, relying on one’s own experience and knowledge and do not want to trouble others. Although I admire their courage and determination,  personally, I would like to ask other people’s help if necessary. I feel this way for two reasons, which I will explore in the following essay.

To begin with, everyone has his or her limitations, you may excel in one area but ignorant in another. When addressing a problem that requires knowledge from a different field, you should rely on professional people. My uncle Tom is a compelling example of this. As an experienced banker, he is familiar with mortgage, hedge funds and other financial transactions but he has no experience in law. One day, he got a problem, he was set up by a gym employee and had to pay two thousand dollars for it. He tried to solve this problem by himself first. He spent a whole night arguing with the staff but received no positive feedback. Feeling exhausted, he called his lawyer friend. The following morning, they showed up together before the front door of the gym. The employee was indifferent at first, but when my uncle introduced his lawyer and present his business card, he turned pale immediately and, well, you get the idea, problems were fixed within half an hour. If my uncle insisted on solving problem by himself and not asking for professional people’s help, he may end up losing money.

Secondly, it is a wasting of energy and time to try to solve everything on your own. If you want to show people your ability to fix problems, then go ahead, solve it alone, but if you just want to get things done, asking other people’s advice saves you time and energy. When I was younger, my teacher used to tell me that if you couldn’t solve a math problem within 10 minutes, you should call your friend, all you need probably is a hint, but that hint saves you a lot of time. You know, teenagers’ time is valuable, especially when they are preparing for entrance examination. Now that I am working, I find my teacher’s suggestion still useful. Colleagues are not only your competitors, they can be your teachers as well, whenever I encounter a tough problem, I always humbly ask my colleagues for help and there are two benefits, for one thing, it strengthens your relationship with coworkers, for another thing, which is most importantly, it helps to solve problems efficiently and efficiency is a significant factor to companies.

In conclusion, asking other people’s advice is not to show your weakness, especially when other people are more professional than you, and it saves you energy and time as well.