老托福听力93篇-Look at our简介

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　　73

　　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. This is the Great Plains. This kind of area is sometimes called a prairie, sometimes a steppe. That's s-t-e-p-p-e. The defining features are level terrain, dry climate, and an absence of trees. The Great Plains are actually the former bed of a shallow inland sea. Over millions of years, sediment left by glaciers, water, and wind smoothed out the dry sea bed. As I said, the Great Plaints are bordered on the west by the Rocky Mountains. And it's really the Rockies that are responsible for the formation of the grasslands. The mountains are so high that they block the heavy moist air traveling eastward form the Pacific Ocean. Lighter, drier air passes over the mountains. Until people intervened with irrigation and farms, only grass could grow on the dry, windy plain. In fact, we can divide the Great Plains into three zones. In the west, where it's driest and windiest, the grass is very short. In the eastern zone, there's more rain and grass grows as high as 360 centimeters. In the middle third, there's a mix of grass species that grow to an intermediate height.

　　【生词摘录】

　　1. topographical: adj. 地形学的

　　2. prairie: n. [C]大草原，牧场

　　3. steppe: n. [C]大草原，干草原

　　4. level: adj. 平坦的

　　5. terrain: n. 地形

　　6. sediment: n. [C]沉淀物

　　7. glacier: n. [C]冰川

　　8. smooth out: v. 消除，使平滑

　　9. moist: n. [C]潮湿的

　　10. intervene: v. 介入，干预

　　11. windy: adj. 多风的

　　12. intermediate: adj. 中间的

　　74

　　Did you know you can catch a mood? A bad mood isn't spread by a virus like the flu is, but it can be contagious. Moods sort of drift from person to person unconsciously. Slight, unintentional signals carry the mood. You've probably experienced it yourself. You're around someone who's feeling down and showing it—slumped shoulders, downcast mouth, subdued voice—all that sort of thing. Pretty soon you begin to feel depressed too. Of course, good moods are also catching, not just bad ones. Moods spread in steps. One person's facial expression or whatever is observed by another, who then unconsciously begins to mimic. The process is automatic—a split second mimicry. The person isn't even aware of the copying. A full-blown case of mood transfer develops as this copying continues. Not everyone picks up moods to the same degree. Those who're most susceptible often have strong physiological responses to what's going on around them. You know, people who break out in a nervous sweat easily and whose stomachs churn. People don't all send moods equally well either. The best mood senders are expressive people because mood contagion can't happen without signals. If they aren't there—that is, the person gives no indication of the mood they're in—nobody will pick up the mood.

　　【生词摘录】

　　1. virus: n. [C]病毒

　　2. contagious: adj. 传染性的

　　3. unconsciously: adv. 无意地，不知不觉

　　4. slight: adj. 微小的

　　5. unintentional: adj. 不是故意的，无心的，无意识的

　　6. slumped: adj. 耷拉着的

　　7. downcast: adj. 气馁的，沮丧的

　　8. subdued: adj. 被抑制的

　　9. catching: adj. 能传染的

　　10. mimic: v. 模仿，仿效

　　11. a split second: 一瞬间

　　12. mimicry: n. [C]模仿

　　13. full-blown: adj. 全面的

　　14. susceptible: adj. 易受影响的

　　15. physiological: adj. 生理学的

　　16. sweat: v. 出汗

　　17. churn: v. 产生剧烈搅动

　　18. contagion: n. [C]传染

　　19. indication: n. [C]迹象，指示，暗示

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