TOEFL老托福听力PartC原文

为了让大家更好的准备托福考试，小编给大家整理老托福听力PartC原文，下面小编就和大家分享，来欣赏一下吧。

老托福听力PartC原文1

Scientists are always on the lookout for alternative sources of energy.

科学家总是在寻找替代能源。

Today we're going to discuss one that's so plentiful they say it could supply more energy than all the coal and oil in the world.

今天我们将探讨一种如此充足的，他们说能够提供比世界上所有的煤炭和石油更多的能量。

It's found in something called gas hydrate and, believe it or not, that's a kind of ice.

它被发现于某种叫做气体水合物(的东东)而且，信不信由你，那是一种冰。

That's right. But the water in this ice was way down below the Earth's surface when it was frozen, so it was under a lot of pressure.

是的，但是在这种冰里的水在当它结冰时会降到地球表面下很深(的地方)，所以它会在很大的压力之下(所以压力很大)。

And trapped inside the crystals of ice are individual molecules of methane --- that's what's in natural gas.

被困在冰的晶体中的是单个的甲烷分子——这就是天然气。

All this makes gas hydrate pretty strange stuff.

所有这些(状况)使得气体水合物(成为)很诡异的东西。

If you touch a match to a piece of this ice, it'll burst into flame.

如果你把一根火柴接触到这样的一块冰上，它将一下子燃烧起来。

And when geologists bring a chunk of it up to the surface to study at normal air pressure and temperature, gas hydrate begins to hiss and bubble, and in less than half an hour, the ice melts and the methane inside escapes into the air.

当地质学家把一大块这种冰带到(地球)表面上来研究时，在正常气压和温度下，气体水合物开始嘶嘶冒泡，在不到半个小时(的时间里)，冰就融化了，里面的甲烷逸入空气中。

Now, as you might guess, this can make gas hydrate kind of hard for miners to handle.

现在，像你们可能猜到的，这使气体水合物对于矿工来说有点难以处理。

And then there's the problem of where it's located in frozen arctic regions or in ocean waters off the Atlantic coast, and up to a mile down.

然后就是它所处的位置的问题，在冰冻的北极地区，或者在离开大西洋海岸达一英里的海水中。

Environmentalists warn that mining it could even be disastrous.

环境专家警告说开采它甚至可能是灾难性的。

Offshore drilling could allow seawater to seep down into the huge icy deposits and release tons of methane up into the atmosphere.

离岸钻探可能会然海水渗入庞大的冰冻沉积物，并且释放无数的甲烷上来进入空气中。

And methane, our listeners may recall, is a greenhouse gas that could really worsen the problem of global warming.

甲烷，咱们听众应该能想起来，是一种温室气体，真的可以使全球变暖的问题更加恶化。

So, gas hydrate may offer some interesting possibilities.

因此，气体水合物可能提供一些令人关注的发展可能性。

But, with all these drawbacks, I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for it to fuel my furnace.

但是，随着所有的这些缺点，我不会屏住我的呼吸来等待它燃烧我的炉子。

老托福听力PartC原文2

Today, I want to talk about the Cariboo gold rush of 1858, which began when gold was discovered in the frontier town of Quesnel Forks in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

今天，我想谈谈关于1858年Cariboo淘金热，它开始于黄金在加拿大英属哥伦比亚省的边境小镇Quesnel Forks被发现时。

By 1861 thousands of men had flocked to the region hoping to strike it rich.

到1861年，成千上万的人涌到这个地区，希望大发横财。

Naturally, as the town grew, supplies had to be brought in, and this was done with mules.

自然，随着镇子的成长，供应品必须被带进来，这是由骡子来做的。

Now the mules were quite reliable, but there were some drawbacks.

骡子是很可靠的，但却有些缺点。

For example, a mule carrying a heavy load could travel only 15 miles in a day, meaning that a typical trip into Quesnel could take as long as 20 days.

比如，一头负重的骡子一天只能走15英里，(这)意味着一段到Quesnel的典型的旅程会花上长达20天。

So, as the demand for supplies continued to grow, a group of merchants and packers decided to try a new approach, believe it or not, they shipped in a herd of camels.

因此，随着对供应品的需求持续增长，一群商人和赶牲口运货的人决定尝试一种新方法，信不信由你，他们用一群骆驼运货。

I know that sounds strange, but camel trains had been used quite effectively during the California gold rush some 10 years earlier.

我知道这听起来很奇怪，但是驼队在大约10年前的California淘金热期间使用的非常有效。

But the results in the Cariboo region weren't quite the same.

但是在Cariboo地区的结果并不完全一样。

In fact it was a disaster.

事实上这是个灾难。

The camels couldn't carry the heavier loads the merchants expected them to.

骆驼不像商人希望它们那般的能够负重。

Their two-toed feet were perfect for desert travel, but they weren't suited for Cariboo's rugged mountain terrain.

它们的双趾足对于沙漠行走来说是完美的，但是它们不能适应Cariboo崎岖的山岭地区。

To make matters worse, the mules became very agitated whenever they came across a camel and that caused a lot of accidents on the treacherous mountain trails.

更糟糕的是，骡子会变得非常暴躁，不论何时他们遇见骆驼，这在危险的山道上造成了很多事故。

The mulepackers went so far as to threaten the camel owners with a lawsuit.

赶骡子送货的人甚至用诉讼威胁骆驼主人。

But the reason the merchants finally got rid of the camels is because these animals simply weren't cut out for the job.

但是商人最终放弃骆驼的原因是因为这些动物胜任不了工作而已。

老托福听力PartC原文3

Look at our topographical map and you'll see that the middle third of the North American continent from the Rocky Mountains almost to the Mississippi River is pretty flat.

看看咱们的地形图，你将看到北美大陆的中间三分之一，从落基山脉差不多到密西西比河是相当的平。

This is the Great Plains.

这就是大平原。

This kind of area is sometimes called a prairie, sometimes a steppe. That's s-t-e-p-p-e.

这种区域有时被称作大草原，有时(被称作)干草原。那是s-t-e-p-p-e。

The defining features are level terrain, dry climate, and an absence of trees.

最典型的特征是水平的地势，干燥的气候，还有树木的缺乏。

The Great Plains are actually the former bed of a shallow inland sea.

大平原事实上是以前浅内陆海的海底。

Over millions of years, sediment left by glaciers, water, and wind smoothed out the dry sea bed.

数百万年以来，冰川留下的沉积物，水，和风把干燥的海底弄平了。

As I said, the Great Plaints are bordered on the west by the Rocky Mountains.

像我说过那样，大平原在西部同落基山脉接壤。

And it's really the Rockies that are responsible for the formation of the grasslands.

而且落基山脉真的是形成草原的原因。

The mountains are so high that they block the heavy moist air traveling eastward from the Pacific Ocean.

山脉是如此之高以至于它们挡住了来自太平洋的向东面行进的比重大的潮湿空气。

Lighter, drier air passes over the mountains.

轻一些，干燥一些的空气越过了山脉。

Until people intervened with irrigation and farms, only grass could grow on the dry, windy plain.

在人们用灌溉和农场干预之前，只有草能生长在干燥的，多风的平原。

In fact, we can divide the Great Plains into three zones.

事实上，我们能把大平原分成三个区域。

In the west, where it's driest and windiest, the grass is very short.

在西面，那里是最干燥并且风最多的，草是很矮的。

In the eastern zone, there's more rain and grass grows as high as 360 centimeters.

在东部地区，有更多的雨水，草长到高达360厘米。

In the middle third, there's a mix of grass species that grow to an intermediate height.

在中间的第三个(zone)，有一个长到中间高度的草地物种的混合体。

老托福听力PartC原文4

Did you know you can catch a mood?

你知道你会感染情绪吗?

A bad mood isn't spread by a virus like the flu is, but it can be contagious.

坏的情绪不会像流感那样通过病毒传播，但是它有传染性。

Moods sort of drift from person to person unconsciously.

情绪在一定程度上不知不觉的在人与人之间转移。

Slight, unintentional signals carry the mood.

轻微的，无意识的信号携带着情绪。

You've probably experienced it yourself.

你们可能自己都经历过。

You're around someone who's feeling down and showing it—slumped shoulders, downcast mouth, subdued voice—all that sort of thing.

你在某人身边，此人情绪消沉并且显示出来——低垂的肩膀，沮丧的嘴角，弱弱的声音——诸如此类的事。

Pretty soon you begin to feel depressed too.

很快你也会开始感觉压抑。

Of course, good moods are also catching, not just bad ones.

当然，好心情也会传染，并不只是不好的(内些)

Moods spread in steps.

情绪扩散(是)按步骤来的。

One person's facial expression or whatever is observed by another, who then unconsciously begins to mimic.

一个人的面部表情或者任何其他方面被另一个人观察到，这个人就会不知不觉地开始模仿。

The process is automatic—a split second mimicry.

这个过程是无意识的 —— 一刹那间的模仿。

The person isn't even aware of the copying.

这个人甚至没有注意到在模仿。

A full-blown case of mood transfer develops as this copying continues.

随着这个模仿继续，一个全面的情绪转移形成了。

Not everyone picks up moods to the same degree.

不是每个人都在同一个程度上感染情绪。

Those who're most susceptible often have strong physiological responses to what's going on around them.

那些最容易受影响的，通常是对他们周围发生的事有着强烈的生理反应的人。

You know, people who break out in a nervous sweat easily and whose stomachs churn.

你们知道的，容易突然紧张出汗和胃部翻腾的人

People don't all send moods equally well either.

人们也不会都传递同样的情绪。

The best mood senders are expressive people because mood contagion can't happen without signals.

最好的情绪传递者是有表现力的人，因为情绪传染不能在没有信号时发生。

If they aren't there—that is, the person gives no indication of the mood they're in—nobody will pick up the mood.

如果他们没有——也就是说，该人没有表露他们所处的情绪的迹象——没有人将会沾染该情绪。

老托福听力PartC原文5

We've probably all wondered how a new word gets into the dictionary.

我们可能都想知道一个新词是如何进入词典中的。

Take the word "doofus," for example, spelled d-o-o-f-u-s, meaning a stupid or incompetent person.

用单词“doofus”来举个例子，拼写是d-o-o-f-u-s，意思是愚蠢的或无能的人。

This word, which has been around since the late 1960's in a slang sense, made it into the Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary only in 1993.

这个单词，自二十世纪六十年代以来是以俚语的感觉存在的，到1993年才把它收入韦伯大学词典。

Why did it take so long? Well, first of all, dictionary editors like to wait at least three years to be sure a word is going to last, especially a slang word.

为什么花这么长时间?好，第一，词典编辑们喜欢等上至少三年来确定一个单词将会延续，尤其是一个俚语单词。

They don't want to put in a new word prematurely and then have to take it out in the next edition.

他们不愿意过早放入一个新词，然后不得不在下一版把它拿出来。

But even for words that aren't slang, getting into the dictionary isn't easy.

但是即使是非俚语单词，进入词典也并不容易。

New words have to pass a lot of editorial tests, including how difficult or easy they are to look up.

新单词必须通过许多编辑测试，包括查找他们的难易程度。

There's also a limit to how thick a dictionary can be or how small its type can get before people feel they don't want to use it.

还有一个限制，在人们感觉他们不想使用它之前，词典能达到的厚度或者它的类型能做到多小。

Some words have to come out before others can go in.

有些单词在其他的(单词)能放的进来之前必须得(弄)出来。

The Collegiate Dictionary adds about ten thousand words to every edition, but it takes out only a few hundred, so choices have to be made very carefully.