Listen to a Conversation Between a Student and a Professor

托福 TPO12 套听力真题（文本）

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TPO-12

TPO 12 – Listening Part

Part 1 - Script:

TPO 12 - Conversation1

Narrator

Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.

Student

So Professor Tibets,your notessaid that you want to see me about my heavy-weight paper. Ihave to say that grade wasn’t what I was expecting. I thought I’d done a prettygood job.

Professor

Oh, you did. But do you really want to settle for pretty good when you can do something verygood?

Student

You think it can be verygood?

Professor

Absolutely!

Student

Would that mean you’d…I could get a bettergrade?

Professor

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 Oh, sorry! It’s not for your grade. It's…Ithink you could learn a lot by revising it.

Student

You mean, rewrite the whole thing? I really swamped. There’re deadlines

whereverI turn and… and I don’t reallyknow how much time I could give it.

Professor

Well, it is a busy time,with spring breakcoming up next week.It’s your call.

But Ithink with all a littleextra effort,you could reallyturn this into a fine essay.

Student

No… yeah…I mean, afterI read your comments,I...Ican see how it triesto do too much.

Professor

Yeah. It’s just too ambitious for the scope of the assignment.

Student

So Ishould cut out the historical part?

Professor

Yes. Iwould just stick tothe topic. Anything unrelated to theuse ofnature

EMITRYhas no place in thepaper. All that tangentialmaterialjust distracted

from the main argument.

Student

Yeah, Inever know how much to include. You know…whereto draw the line?

Professor

Tellme about it! All writersstruggled without one. But it’s something you can

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 learn. That will becomemore clear with practice.But I think if you just cut out

the…emm…

Student

The stuff about history, but if Icut out those sections, won’t it be too short?

Professor

Well, bettera short well-structured paper than a long paper that

poorly-structured and wanders off topic.

Student

So allI have todo is to leave those sections?

Professor

Well, not so fast. Afteryou cut out those sections, you’ll have to go back and

revise the rest,to see how it all fits together.And of course,you’ll have to

revise the introduction too, to accuratelydescribe what you do in the body of

the paper.But that shouldn’t be too difficult. Just remember to keepthe

discussion focused. Do you thinkyou can getit to me by noon tomorrow?

Student

Wow…emm…I have so much…er…but I’ll try.

Professor

OK, good! Do try!But if you can’t,well, sure for after spring break, OK?

TPO12 – Lecture 1

Narrator

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 Listen to part ofa lecturein a Biology Class.

Professor

As we learn more about the DNA in human cellsand how it controls the growth

and development ofcells, then maybe we can explain a veryimportant

observation, that when we tryto grow most human cells in libratory, theyseem

programmed todivide only a certain number oftimesbefore theydie. Now this

differs with the type ofcell. Some cells, like nervecells, only divide seven to

nine times in their totallife. Others,like skin cells, will divide many,many more

times. Butfinally the cellsstop renewing themselvesand theydie. And in the

cellsof the human body itself,in the cellsof everyorgan, ofalmost everytype

of tissues in the body, the same thing will happen eventually.

OK, you know that allof persons’ geneticinformation is contained on verylong

piecesof DNA called Chromosomes. 46 ofthem are in thehuman cells that’s

23 pairs of these Chromosomes areof verylengths and sizes. Now if you look

at this rough drawing of one of them,one Chromosome is about to divide into

two. You see that it sort of looks like, wellactually it’s much more complex than

this but it reminds us a couple of springs linked togetherto coil up piecesof

DNA.And if you stretch them out you willfind theycontain certain genes,

certain sequences of DNAthat help to determine how the cells ofthe body will

develop. When researcherslook reallycarefully at the DNAin Chromosomes

though, theywere amazed,we all were,to find that only a fraction of it,maybe

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 20-30%, convertsinto meaningful genetic information. It’s incredible; at least it

was to me.But if you took awayall the DNA that codesfor genes, you still have

maybe 70% of theDNA left over. That’s the so-called JUNK DNA. Though the

word junk is used sort of towniescheek.

The assumption is that eventhese DNA doesn’t make up anyof the genesit

must serve some other purpose. Anyway, if weexamine these ends ofthese

coils of DNA,we will find a sequence of DNA at each end of everyhuman

Chromosome, called a telomere.Now a telomere is a highlyrepetitious and

geneticallymeaningless sequence of DNA,what we were calling JUNK DNA.

But it doeshave anyimportant purpose; it is sort of like the plastic tip on each

end of shoelace. Itmeans not help you tieyour shoe but that little plastic tip

keepsthe restof the shoelace, theshoe string from unraveling into weakand

useless threads. Well, the telomere at theend ofChromosomes seems todo

about thesame thing---protect thegenes thegenetically functional parts ofthe

Chromosome from being damaged. Everytimethe Chromosome divides,everytime one celldivides into two. Piecesof theends of the Chromosome,

the telomere,get broken off. So after each division, thetelomere getsshorter

and one of thethings that may happen after a while is that piecesof the genes

themselves getbroken off the Chromosomes. So the Chromosome is now

losing important genetically information and is no longer functional. Butas long

as the telomeresare at certain length theykeep this from happening. So it

seemsthat, when the,by looking at thelength ofthe telomeres on specific

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 Chromosomes we can actually predict prettymuch how long certain cells can

successfully go on dividing. Other some cellsjust seem to keepon dividing

regardless which mean not be always a good thing if it getsout ofcontrol.

But when we analyze the cellschemically we find something veryinteresting, a

chemicalin them,and an enzyme called telomerase. Asbits of thetelomere

breakoff from the end ofChromosome, this chemical, thistelomerase can

rebuild it,can help resemble the protectedDNA, the telomere that the

Chromosome is lost. Someday we may be able to take anycelland keep it

alive functioning and reproducing itselfessentially foreverthrough the use of

telomerase.And in the future we may have virtually immortal nerve cellsand

immortalskin cellsof whateverbecause ofthese chemical, telomerase can

keep thetelomereon the endsof Chromosomes from getting any shorter.

TPO12 – Lecture 2

Narrator

Listen to part ofa lecturein a Business Class

Professor

Ok, as we’ve talked about a keyaspect of running a successful business is

knowing, um, getting a good sense ofwhat thecustomer actually wants, and

how theyperceive your product. So with that in mind, I want to describe a very

simple method of researching customer preference,and it is becoming

increasingly common, it'scalled----MBWA----which stands for managing by

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 wandering around. Now,MBWA,that's not the most technicalsounding name

you've everheard, but it describes the processpretty accurately.Hereis how it

works.

Basically, Um, theidea is that business ownersor business managers just go

out and actually talkto their customers, and learn more about how wellthe

business is serving their needs,and tryto see what the customer experiences,

because that's a great wayto discover for yourself, how your product is

perceived,what the strengthsand weaknesses are,you know,how to you can

improved it that sort of thing, you know Dortans, theymake soup and can

vegetablesand such. Well, the head of thecompany, had Dortans’topped

executiveswalk around supermarkets, um, asking shoppers what theythought of Dortans’soup, and he use the data to make changes to the company's

product, Imean, when Dortans ofall the companies, embracessomething as

radical as MBWA, it reallyshow you how popular thetheoryhas become, yes,

Student A

But thisis dangerous to base decisions on information from a small sample of

people? Isit large scale marketresearch safer getting data on a lot ofpeople?

Professor

That's a good question, and wellI don't want topretend that W… MBWA is

some sort of,um, replacementfor othermethods of customerresearch. Now,

the marketresearch data definitely can give you a good idea of, um, ofthe big

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 picture,but MBWA is reallyuseful kind offilling in the blanks, you know, getting

a good underground sense of how you products you use, and how people

need respond to them,and Yes,the numbers ofopinion you getis small so you

do needto be careful, but, good business managers will tellyou that the big

fear theyhave an.. .and one of the most frequent problems theycome across

is wellbecoming out of touch with what their customersreally want and need,

you know surveys and marketresearch stuff like that,theycan only tellyou so

much about what the customersactually want in their day-to-day lives.

Managing bywandering around on the other hand, that get you in there give

you a good sense about what customersneedsso. So when use combination

then,MBWA and marketresearch werethe powerful tools. Oh, hereis another

example for you, um, see you executive for a clothing manufacture. It was, um,

Lken,Lken jeans you know, theywent in workin thestore for a few days,

selling Lken's cloths. Now that give thema verydifferent idea about their

product, theysaw how people responded to it; theycould go up to customers

in thestore asked questions about it, yes Mike?

Student B

Well, Iwould think that a lot ofcustomerswill be bothered by,you know, if I'm

shopping, I don't know if I want some business representativescoming up to

me and asking me questions, it's.. It'slike when I got phone callat home from

marketing researchers,I just hang up them

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 Professor

Oh, well, it'scertainly true that wellno one likes getting calls at home from

marketresearchersor people like that,but I will tellyou something. Most

customershave exact oppositereaction when theycomesto MBWA. Now,

don't ask me why,because I reallyhave no idea, but the fact is that customers

tend to respond really wellto MBWA,which is thekeyreason for a success. In fact,the techniquesof MBWA worksso well, theyhave actually been

extended to all kinds of different contactslike politics for instance, Um, a few

years back, the major of Botamore,Um..I can guess its name is Shapher or

something like that. Anyway,he decided that the best way to serve the people

of thecity,of his city, wasactually get out there in it and experience the things

that theyexperienced,so he right around the cityin, you know, allparts ofit,

and he see all theprattles; he see how thetrash was sometimes, um, not pick

up but off side the streetand then theygo back to the office and theywrite

these memos, and these memosto stuff about theproblems he had seen, and

how theyneeded to be fixed, you know that sort ofthing, but the thing is he got

all theinformation just by going around and seeing the different Botamore

neighborhoods and talking to thepeople in them, and he called it--- small

politics, we'd callit MBWA,or just, playing good customer service.

Part 2 - Script:

TPO12 – Conversation2

Narrator

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 Listen to a conversation between a student and a DepartmentSecretary.

Student

Hi. Miss Andrics.

Secretary

HiBret,how are you?

Student

I’m fine; exceptI have a question about my paycheck.

Secretary

Sure. What’up?

Student

Wellit’s already been severalweeksat the end of thesemester my

checkwas supposed togo directlyinto mybank accountbut there

haven’t been anydeposits.

Secretary

That’s odd.

Student

Yea,I thought graduate teaching a system for automatically put on

the payroll at the beginning of the semester.

Secretary

Theyare.Let’s see did you completeall the forms for the payroll?

Student

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 I filled in whatever theysent me,and Ireturned like the end of

August.

Secretary

Hum, well,you definitely should have been paid bynow. Atleast two

pay periods have passed since then

Student

I asked the bank and theydidn’t know anything. Who should I talkto

about this, payroll?

Secretary

I’m going tocontact them for you. There wasa problem in processing

some ofthe graduate students’ payroll paper work. ‘Cause their

computer program crashed afterall the information was processed.

And some people’s information couldn’t be retrieved.

Student

Hum. Butwhy didn’t anyone letme know?

Secretary

I don’t know how theyworkover there,‘cause theycouldn’t even

figure out whose information wasmissing. And thisisn’t thefirst time,

seemslike something like this happens everysemester.

Student

So how do Ifind out if my information was lost?

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 Secretary

I willcontact them tomorrowmorning to see if you’re in thesystem.

But you’re probably not.

Student

What then willlet me to do?

Secretary

Sorry but you willneed to fill out those forms again and then Iwill fax

them over the payroll office.

Student

And then what…Well, what I really need toknow is how long tillI get

the money,I’m already a month behind mybills and mytuitions due

Secretary

That’ll get you into the system the same day theyreceive your paper

works. So if you do that tomorrow,you’ll get paid nextFriday.

Student

That’s a long time from now. Will that pay checking include all the

moneyI am owed?

Secretary

Itshould. I will double checkwith the payroll department.

Student

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 And another thing, Isthereany wayI could getpaid sooner, Ihave

been teaching all these weeks…

Secretary

I know that’s not fair but I don’t think theycan do anything; all the

checksare computed automatically in the system.Theycan’t just

writechecks.

Student

But thereis another one to make mistakes. They’ve nevertold me!

I understand how you feeland if Iwere you, I’d be upset too.I’ll tell

you what: when I callthem, Iwill explain thesituation and ask them

if there is anyway you can be paid sooner.But Ihave to tell you that

base on past experiencesyou shouldn’t count on it.

Student

(Sigh) Iunderstand thanks. Iknow it’s’not your fault and that you’re

doing everything you can.

Secretary

Well, what I CAN do is make sure that your first checkfor totalamount

the university owesyou.

Student

That’ll be great! Thank you. I will be on campus about 10 tomorrow morning and Iwill come back to see you then.

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 TPO 12 – Lecture 3

Narrator

Listen to part ofa lecturein a music history class. Theprofessor has been

discussing Opera.

Professor

The word opera means work, actually it means works. It’s the plural of theword

opus from theLatin. And in Italian it refersin generalto works ofart. Opera

Lyric or lyric of opera refersto what we thinkof as opera, themusical drama.

Opera was commonplace in Italyfor almost thousands of yearsbefore it

became commercial as a venture.And during those years, severalthings

happened primarily linguistic or thematic and both involving secularization.

Musical drama started in thechurches. It was an educational tool. Itwas used

primarily as a vehicle for teaching religion and wasgenerally presented in the

Latin, the language ofthe Christian Church which had considerable influence

in Italyat that time. Butthe language of everyday life was evolving in Europe

and at a certain point in themiddle ages it was reallyonly merchants, Socratics

and clergywho can dealwith Latin. The vast majority ofthe population used

their own regional vernacular in all aspects totheir lives. And so in what is now

Italy, operasquit being presented in Latin and started being presented in

Italian. And once that happened, thethemesof the opera presentationsalso

startedto change. And musical drama moved from thechurch to theplaza right

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 outside thechurch. And the themes again, the themeschanged. And opera

was no longer about teaching religion as it was about satire and about

expressing the ideasof societyyour government without committing yourself

to writing and risking imprisonment or persecution, or what have you.

Opera, as we think of it,is of course a rather restive form. Itis themelodious

drama ofancient Greektheater,the term ‘melodious drama’being shortened

eventuallyto ‘melodrama’ because operas frequentlyare melodramatic, not to

say unrealistic. And the group that put thefirst operastogetherthat we have

todayeven, were,theywere…well…it was a group of men that included Gallo

Leo’s father Venchesil, and theymetin Florence he and a group of friends of

the countsof the partyand theyformed what is called the Camarola Dayir

Bardy.And theytookclassical theater and reproduced it in the Renaissance’s

time.This…uh…thisproduced some of the operasthat we have today.

Now what happened in the following centuriesis verysimple.Opera originated

in Italybut wasnot confined toItalyany more than the Italians were.And so as

the Italians migrated across Europe,theycarried theater with them and opera

specifically because it was an Italian form.What happened is that themajor

divide in opera that endurestoday tookplace. The French said opera

auto-reflect therhythm and Kevin ofdramatic literature,bearing in mind that

we are talking about the golden age in French literature. And so the music was

secondary, if you will, to the dramatic Kevin oflanguage, to the waythe rhythm

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 of language was used to expressfeeling and used to add drama and of course

as a result instead ofarias or solos, which would come to dominated Italian

opera. The French relied on that what is the Italian called French Word 1 or

French Word 2 in English. The lyrics werespoken, frequently to the

accomp**nt of a harpsichord.

The French said you really cannot talkabout realpeople who lived in opera

and theyrelied on mythology to give them theircharactersand their plots,

mythology, the past old traditions, the novels of chivalry or the epicsof chivalry

out of the middle Ages. The Italian said, no this is a greathistorical tooland

what a betterway to educatethe public about Neo or Attalla or anynumber of

people than to put them into a play theycan see and listen to. The English

appropriated opera afterthe French. Opera came late to England because all

theaters, public theaterswere closed, ofcourse, during their civil war.And it

wasn’t until therestoration in 1660 that public theaters again opened and

opera took off.The English made a major adjustment to opera and exported

what theyhad done to opera back to Italy.So that you have thiscircle of

musical influences, theItalians invented opera, theFrench adapted it,the

English adopted it,and the Italians took it back.

Itcame to America late and wasconsidered to elitesfor the generalpublic. But

Broadway musicals fulfilled a similar function for a great long while. George

Champon wrote about opera,“Ifan extraterrestrialbeing or two appear before

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 us and say,what is your societylike, what is this Earththing all about, you

could do worse than takethat creatureto an opera.” Because opera does, after

all, begin with a man and a woman and anymotion.

TPO12 – Lecture 4

Narrator

Listen to part ofa lecturein an environmentalscience class.

Professor

All right folks, let’s continue our discussion of alternative energysources and

move on to what’s probably the most well-known alternativeenergysource---

solar energy.The sun basically provides earth with virtually unlimited source of

energyeveryday,but theproblem has always been how do we tap this source

of energy.Can anyone think ofwhy it’s so difficult tomake use of solar energy?

Student A

Because it is hard to gather it?

Professor

That’s exactlyit. Solar energy is everywhere,but it’s also quite diffused. And

the thing is the dream of solar energy is not a new one. Humanity has been

trying touse the sun’s light as a reliable source of energyfor centuries.And

around the beginning of the20th centurythere wereactually some primitive

solar waterheaterson theconsumer market.Buttheydidn’t sellverywell. Any

of you wanna guess why?

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 Student A

Well, therewereother energychoiceslike oiland natural gas, right?

Professor

Yeah. And for better or for worse, we chose togo down that path as a society.

When you consider economic factors, it’s easyto see why.But then in the

1970s, there wasan interest in solar energyagain. Why do you thinkthat

happened?

Student B

Because oiland natural gas were...err...becamescarce?

Professor

Well, not exactly.The amount ofoil and naturalgas in the earth wasstill

plentiful, but there wereother reasons. It’s a political thing reallyand I’m gonna

get into that now.So what happened in the 1970s was oil and natural gas

became veryexpensive veryquickly, and that spurred people to start looking

into alternative forms ofenergy,solar energyprobably being the most popular.

But then in the 80s, this trend reversed itself when the price ofoil and natural

gas went down.

Alright let’s shift our focus now to some of thetechnologies that have been

invented to overcomethe problem of gathering diffused solar energy.The most

basic solution is simply to carefully place windows in a building, so the sun

shinesinto the building and then it’s absorbed and converted into heat. Can

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 anyone thinkof where thisis most commonly used?

Student A

Greenhouses.

Professor

Yep,greenhouses where plants are keptwarm and provided with sunlight

because the walls of the building are made entirelyof glass. But we do also

have more complex systems that are used for space heating and theyfall into

two categories,passive and active heating systems.

Passive systems takeadvantage of thelocation or design of a house. For

example,solar energy is gathered through large glass panels facing the sun.

The heat is then storedin water-filled tanks or concrete. No mechanical

devicesare used in passive heating systems. Theyoperatewith little or no

mechanical assistance.

With active systems, on the other hand, you collect the solar energy at one

location, and then you use pumps and fans to move heat from the collectors

through a plumbing system to a tank, where can be used toheat a home or to

just provide hot water.

Student B

Excuse me professor,but I’ve got to ask, how can solar energywork at night or

on cloudy days?

Professor

全国免费咨询电话：400-0123-267 That’s...Well...that is a reallygood question. Asa matter offacts, science is still

working on it,trying to find ways ofenhancing energystorage techniques so

that coming ofnight or cloudy days really wouldn’t matter.That is the biggest

drawback to solar energy. The problem of what do you do in cases where the

sun’s light is weak or virtually non-present.So the storage ofsolar energy,lots

of solar energy,is a really important aspect.

Student A

Doesthat mean that solar energycan only be used on a small scale,like

heating a home?

Professor

Wellactually, therehave been some attemptsto build solar energy power

plants. The world’s largest solar plant is located in Cremer Junction California.

Itcan generate 194 megawattsof electric power, but that’s just a drop in the

bucket.Right now theutility companies are interested in increasing the

capacityof Cremer Junction Plant, but only time will tell if it will ever develop

into a major source of power for that region, considering the economic and

political factorsinvolved.

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