托福听力之原文演讲听写(5)

　演讲听写训练 1

　　Before moving  on to a new topic, I want to finish up our unit on a rag nit, by looking at what may seem a very unusual aspect of spider behavior-a species where the young spiders actually consume the body of their mother. Unlike most other spiders this species lays one and only one-clutch of forty eggs in a life time. The young spiders hatch in mid-spring or early summer inside a nest of eucalyptus leaves. Their mother spends the warm summer months bringing home large insects, often ten times their weight for meals. The catch is always significantly more than her young spiders can eat. So the mother fattens herself up on this extra prey, and stores the nutrients in her extra unfertilized eggs. As the weather turns colder, there are fewer insect prey hunt. That’s when the nutrients stored in those extra eggs begin to seep into the mother’s blood stream. So when there are no more insects to feed to the young spiders, they attach themselves to the mother’s leg joints and draw nourishment by sucking the nutrient-rich blood. After several weeks, the mother is depleted of all nutrients and she dies. But then how do the young get nourishment? They start to feed on one another. Now if you recall our discussion of Darwin, you’ll see the evolutionary value of this. Only the strongest spiders of the clutch will survive this cannibalism. And the mother spider will ensure that her genes have an increased chance of survival through future generations.

　　演讲听写训练 2

　　Moving away from newspapers, let’s now focus on magazines. Now the first magazine was a little periodical called the Review, and it was started in London in 1704. It looked a lot like the newspapers of the time. But in terms of its content, it was much different. Newspapers were concerned mainly with news events, but the Review focussed on important domestic issues of the day, as well as the policies of the government. Now in England at the time, people could still be thrown in jail for publishing articles that were critical of the king. And that’s what happened to Dannial Defoe. He was the outspoken founder of the Review. Defoe actually wrote the first issue of the review from prison. You see, he had been arrested because of his writings that criticized the policies of the Church of England, which was headed by the king. After his release, Defoe continued to produce the Review and the magazine started to appear on a more frequent schedule, about three times a week, it didn’t take long for other magazines to start popping up. In 1709. a magazine called the Tattler began publication. This new magazine contained a mixture of news, poetry, political analysis, and philosophical essays.

　　演讲听写训练 3

　　There is an art exhibition here on campus which ties well with discussions we’ve had about folk art. It’s an exhibition of wild life art calendars from about a hundred years ago. Like most other folk art, the calendar pictures were not considered to be art in their own day. People just thought of them as a way of decorating a practical object. In fact. the calendar pictures were originally printed as advertising for various companies that made hunting or fishing products, like guns or fishing rods. The calendars were handed out free to customers to thank them for their business. Most people just hung the calendars on their walls where the picture faded in the sun and then tore the pictures off the calendar as each month passed. As a result, collectors today place a lot of value on calendars that are complete and in good condition. Even though the people who used the calendars didn’t regard them as art, the original paintings the prints were made for were often of good quality. In fact, many famous wild life painters created calendar art at some point in their lives. To them, it was a way of getting their work reproduced and shown around. One aspect of the exhibit that I find very interesting is the way these pictures reflect changing attitudes toward wild life. The pictures in the exhibit often portray the thrill and adventure of hunting rather than any particular concern for wild life preservation. But most of today’s wild life art shows animals in their natural surroundings without any humans in the scene. This modern wild life art appeals to large numbers of nature lovers, even those who oppose the practice of hunting.

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