托福机经2015.09.19口语

Task 1

Describe an occasion in your country where people give gifts to each other and a kind of gift that’s common.

Sample response

An occasion in China where people give gifts to each other is the Chinese New Year. And what we give varies from family to family. Take mine for example, the elders give red packets that contain lucky money. Although the amount differs from one another, the notes inside invariably symbolize good fortune and prosperity for the youths.
　　Another tradition is that parents would take their children shopping before and during the break. Each household stores tons of goods and food we eat for the upcoming new year. Besides, parents buy brand new clothes for kids from head to toe. In the past, people prefer red, but nowadays the color doesn’t seem that important any more.

Task 2

Do you agree or disagree with the statement that bicycles will be less and less popular in modern society?

Sample response

I agree with the statement that bicycles will be used less and less.
　　First of all, modern transportation like cars and motorcycles are so much faster. As the urbanization becomes more and more common and cities grow bigger and bigger, it’s hard to get around in a metropolis like Shanghai with bikes, which are painfully slow and take a lot of energy.
　　Second, it isn’t safe riding bicycles around. In the urban construction, most of our road are dedicated for traffic like buses and automobiles. Take Beijing for example, the lanes for non-motor vehicles are getting increasingly narrower. And there’s no room for bikes at all in some areas. So it’s insanely dangerous riding them with the racing cars passing by.

Task 3

【提议】学生建议要在一个艺术楼的大厅里修一个咖啡厅

 好处1，因为平时课间学生想吃东西没地方去

           2，可以挂一些艺术生的作品

【学生议论】女生同意

理由1：因为唯一的 买吃的的地方在student center要走十分钟学生 课又很多如果去了的话就要吃饭。

2. 理由2：而且挂的作品可以吸引更多的人欣赏。

Sample response

The student suggests that the university should open a coffee shop in the fine art building due to two reasons. The first reason is that students can have a place to buy snacks and drink between classes. The second reason is to encourage students to come to the fine art building to appreciate the artworks of students. In the conversation, the woman agrees with the suggestion. In the first reason, she mentions that now the closest coffee shop is in the student center, which is 10 minutes' walk, and students will be late for the next class if they go there to buy stuff. As for the second reason, the woman points out that it would be really fun to hang out in the fine art building and see some of the students' works.

Task 4

【名词解释】人们会因为自己的预期来影响结果

【教授举例】有个公司的人他们平时很累工作很多研究人员就 说会给他们一种维他命吃可以提高他们的效率。

但是其实这种药片里什么成分都没有。公司的人每天吃,吃了两周，觉得自己的工作效率变高了可以做更多工作，而且觉得很有能量。

Sample response

　In the lecture, the professor talks about the concept of subject-expectancy effect which means the tendency for the subjects of the study to let their expectations affect the outcome. He offers us an example to illustrate it. Some workers from a company always complain that they feel fatigue, so researchers offered them some vitamin pills and claimed that the pills were very helpful to increase people's energy, after taking the vitamin for a while, these workers felt they were indeed more energetic than before and it significantly improved their work efficiency. The truth is, the vitamin didn't really have that effect on people, it was simply the workers' expectation of the vitamin that worked.

Task 5

【学生困难】男生借他室友的computer写paper，第二天要交，结果computer突然坏了。论文明天要交。

方案一：回去找他室友。

 评价：但是已经很晚了，室友应该睡了。而且他也不一定会修。

方案二：第二天早起去computer lab重写paper。

 评价： /

Sample response

The man's problem is that the computer he borrowed from his roommate broke while he was writing up his history paper, and his paper is due tomorrow. There are two possible solutions. The first one is ask his roommate to fix it up. And the second solution is to switch to a different computer to finish his paper. If I were in his shoes, I would go for the second solution because the man did say in the conversation that he would still be able to remember what he wrote in the paper even if it's a different computer. I personally don't recommend the other solution because his roommate goes to bed pretty early and there's no reason to mess up with his routine. He might be upset with the man and that could jeopardize their relationship.

Task 6

【讲课要点】

In the lecture, the professor talks about two ways plants attract protective insects

方法1：release a kind of chemical

例子：The first kind of plants can release a kind of chemical and use this chemical as a signal to attract lady ants when under attack, and lady ants can then kill the harmful insects for the plants.

方法2：plants on the other hand can provide food for protective insects.

例子: some cactuses can release a kind of juice which happens to be the perfect food source for their protective insects.