考试日期：2014年3月1日

Reading Passage 1

Title:

测算地球真正年龄

Question types:

文章内容回顾：

主题：地理类话题

主要讲述人们对于地球的实际年龄非常有兴趣，在19世纪的时候，有一个人通过化石记录来进行测定，但是化石是断断续续的，并不完整。后来，又有人想通过沉积岩来测定，但由于沉积岩有腐蚀，所以也不可行。最后，有一个人想通过测定海水里的盐分来测定地球的实际年龄，测出来的结果虽然有误差，但是还是非常地有参考价值的，很多科学家后来也同意他所测定的结果。

难度分析：

地理类话题，文章结构是对比结构，框架结构清晰，但是由于文章中专业术语很多，所以考生在备考期间还是需要注意学术词汇的积累。

相关背景内容：

The age of the Earth is 4.54 ± 0.05 billion years (4.54 × 109 years ± 1%). This age is based on evidence from radiometric age dating of meteorite material and is consistent with the ages of the oldest-known terrestrial and lunar samples. Following the scientific revolution and the development of radiometric age dating, measurements of lead in uranium-rich minerals showed that some were in excess of a billion years old.

The oldest such minerals analyzed to date – small crystals of zircon from the Jack Hills of Western Australia – are at least 4.404 billion years old. Comparing the mass and luminosity of the Sun to those of other stars, it appears that the solar system cannot be much older than those rocks. Calcium-aluminium-rich inclusions  – the oldest known solid constituents within meteorites that are formed within the solar system – are 4.567 billion years old, giving an age for the solar system and an upper limit for the age of Earth.

It is hypothesised that the accretion of Earth began soon after the formation of the Ca-Al-rich inclusions and the meteorites. Because the exact amount of time this accretion process took is not yet known, and the predictions from different accretion models range from a few millions up to about 100 million years, the exact age of Earth is difficult to determine. It is also difficult to determine the exact age of the oldest rocks on Earth, exposed at the surface, as they are aggregates of minerals of possibly different ages.

Reading Passage 2

Title:

威尼斯水资源短缺问题

Question types:

文章内容回顾：

主题：环境类话题

文章先是讲述威尼斯虽然是水上城市，但是那里的人们却非常缺水。在十四世纪初，政府的政策规定禁止污染运河，规定周边的染坊不能向河流排污，但是人们不听，便把染坊签到了城市的外围。

后来，人口开始增长，井里的水已经无法满足人们对于水资源的需求，开始建立雨水收集器，富人们都有自己的雨水收集器，但是那些穷人们只能使用集中在城市的公用的雨水收集器。在十四世纪末，因为疾病的出现，人口开始停止增长，到了十五世纪，人们开始对雨水收集器进行修复。旱季，政府想通过去附近的河流取一些淡水来建管道，但是由于成本太大，此项任务就搁浅了。

难度分析：

环境类话题

考生需要根据文章的时间线索掌握威尼斯水资源短缺的问题。

相关背景内容：

Venezia is a city of small islands, enhanced during the Middle Ages by the dredging of soils to raise the marshy ground above the tides. The resulting canals encouraged the flourishing of a nautical culture which proved central to the economy of the city. Today those canals still provide the means for transport of goods and people within the city.

The maze of canals threaded through the city requires the use of more than 400 bridges to permit the flow of foot traffic. In 2011, the city opened Ponte della Costituzione, the fourth bridge across the Grand Canal, connecting the Piazzale Roma bus terminal area with the Stazione Ferroviaria (train station), the others being the original Ponte di Rialto, the Ponte dell'Accademia, and the Ponte degli Scalzi.

Reading Passage 3

Title:

motion camera

Question types:

文章内容回顾：

主题历史艺术类素材

文中讲述了一个人通过自己的想法激励了连环画的诞生，一系列的图片通过连续运动形成动作。于是，他的一个朋友跟他打赌马跑起来离地，为了证明这个，他用24个相机来进行连续拍摄。不过这也只是一个早期的想法。后来爱迪生和他的助手对这个很感兴趣，但爱迪生并没有发明出第一步，后来他的助手通过针孔相机做出了camera. 后来爱迪生心心念念他的留声机，想用同样的想法，后来为了竞争，爱迪生也对机器进行了改良。

难度分析：

历史艺术类素材在托福阅读中比较多见，，其中，大多是以时间顺序展开叙述的，学生平时需要注意历史类常识的积累。

相关背景内容：

A motion camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in experimental broadcasts through the 1930s. All-electronic designs based on the cathode ray tube, such as Vladimir Zworykin's Iconoscope and Philo T. Farnsworth's Image dissector, supplanted the Baird system by the 1940s and remained in wide use until the 1980s, when cameras based on solid-state image sensors such as CCDs (and later CMOS active pixel sensors) eliminated common problems with tube technologies such as image burn-in and made digital video workflow practical.

Video cameras are used primarily in two modes. The first, characteristic of much early broadcasting, is live television, where the camera feeds real time images directly to a screen for immediate observation. A few cameras still serve live television production, but most live connections are for security, military/tactical, and industrial operations where surreptitious or remote viewing is required. In the second mode the images are recorded to a storage device for archiving or further processing; for many years, videotape was the primary format used for this purpose, but optical disc media, hard disk, and flash memory in tapeless camcorders are all increasingly used. Recorded video is used in television and film production, and more often surveillance and monitoring tasks where unattended recording of a situation is required for later analysis.