简单的不好意思，没碰上生词，没碰上在文章中选单词，共三道插入题。 记得的有 enter--go into constraint--restriction endue---follow rich---high (eg: fuel rich in ) 顺便唠叨一下插入题。 toefl 文章写得很规范，跟要求我们写的作文一样，只是没有那么明显的开头结尾，每段的第一句基本上是中心，后面是主体。在主体里可能有几个小论点，每个后头跟论据。所以作插入题，根据内容找段落或小位置，再根据连词、语气（on the other side, they（主语）, but there are other aspects) 等确定。提高阅读能力的重要一点，把文章脉络理一理。
2月7日
城市规划，redevelopment。因为人们认为城市在腐烂decaying，就业在下降，人口在减少，办公费的占有率在降低。所以美国各城市兴起了改造城市运动，尤其是不是 18xx年颁布了house of act 后。因为国家提供三分之二的钱。但重新发展的反对声随着时间与日增加。最后突然停止。
6, 讲森林的生长到自然毁灭的循环过程。词汇：circle周期＝process变化过程，catastrophic＝extreme（？不确定）， mysterious（在选项中出现，但我没选它），decomposition分解，腐烂，rot＝decay，herb草本植物，herd牧群，accumulate，energy，lightning闪电， 考题： 森林着火的原因，要你从文章中找，原因是那一大堆木头中即使有一两块干木头遭雷击，也能引起森林着火。 考到一个倒装句不太好了解，形式大体是这样：Now, decades after 一个政策(用A暂时代替)，has the significance of 一大长段（用B暂时代替），become evident. 问这句话隐含的意思是什么。隐含的意思是过了这么多年，人们才认识的到B的重要意义。大家要分析清楚句子成分。 最后有一句话，结构大体如此：…..forest……. such density as 草drop了百分之多少，什么drop了百分之多少。意思是说森林太密了不好，导致草下降了百分之多少。这句不是考题。
Coal is formed by the physical and chemical alteration of peat (coalification) by processes involving bacterial decay, compaction, heat, and time. Coal is an agglomeration of many different complex hydrocarbon compounds, some of which owe their origin to the original constituents in the peat. Peat deposits are actually quite varied and contain everything from pristine plant parts (roots, bark, spores, etc.) to decayed plants, decay products, and even to charcoal if the peat caught fire. Peat deposits typically form in a waterlogged environment where plant debris is accumulated; peat bogs and peat swamps are examples. In such an environment, the accumulation of plant debris exceeds the rate of bacterial decay of the debris. The bacterial decay rate is reduced because the available oxygen in organic-rich water is completely used up by the decay process. Anaerobic (without oxygen) decay is much slower than aerobic decay.
In order for the peat to become coal, it must be buried by sediment. Burial causes compaction of the peat and, consequently, much water is squeezed out during the first stages of burial. Continued burial and the addition of heat and time cause the complex hydrocarbon compounds in the deposit to start to break down and alter in a variety of ways. The gaseous alteration products (methane is one) are typically expelled from the deposit and the deposit becomes more and more carbon-rich (the other elements drop out). The stages of this trend proceed from plant debris, peat, lignite, sub-bituminous coal, bituminous coal, anthracite coal, to graphite (a pure carbon mineral).
Because of the amount of squeezing and water loss that accompanies the compaction of peat after burial, it is estimated that it took vertical 10 feet of original peat material to produce one vertical foot of bituminous coal in eastern and western Kentucky. The peat to coal ratio is variable and dependent on the original type of peat the coal came from and the rank of the coal.
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