龙驾马的托福备考日记 Long Gamma

龙驾马

Day7

1月12日

TPO 28 听力

对话

生物论文 错1对4
毕业论文 错0对6

讲座
镜像 错1对5
基础论  错3对3
植物 错2对4
中亚文明 错2对4

哲学这篇其实基本没听懂，但还连蒙带猜对了3题。开头如果听不懂，就不知道在讨论什么，后面的内容会收到很大影响。要一边处理新内容，一边才这个听力到底说的是啥，严重降低答题质量。

复习词汇

philosophicalmethodology
illuisions
champanzee
cognitive
jay
magpy
concentration



一周总结：

1 题目做了4套TPO，听力阅读也就16-19分水平，还需要很大努力才行。

2 阅读基本功薄弱，其中单词马马虎虎，还需背诵。句子的阅读准开始用《GRE GMAT阅读长难句》一书来练习。总结题是自己的弱项，解决方法虽然是弄清全文主体脉络，但本质是要提高阅读速度和质量。

3 听力方面，目前主要是精听，把听不懂的词汇标注出来，一些看得懂，可听到却反应不出来的词组，也要复习。

4 阅读和听力有一些是常见考点，比如校园对话里的学生遇到了神么问题，老师给了什么建议。阅读的话，弄清全文主体结构，对总结题非常有帮助。

龙驾马

Day 8

1月13日

TPO 24

阅读

湖水流向 错2对8
词汇题错1 细节题错1

古人迁徙 错3对7

细节题错2 总结题错1

睡眠中的呼吸 错6对4

细节题错5 总结题错1


这三篇都有大量的事件描述，比如湖水的流入流出，蒸发过程。古印第安人生活状态的演化过程，以及睡眠时器官如何工作。如果能读懂这些过程，和过程发生时的具体特征，题目就比较容易做。前两篇做的还可以，但到了睡眠呼吸这篇，可能是一些生物学词汇的不熟悉，加之描述的内容比较陌生，实现有限的情况下，只读懂了大概。做题时，各种细节一知半解，错了恨得。而且有趣的是，呼吸这篇其实没什么长难句，但就是没有读懂。

需复习的长难句：

Changes in lake level not explained by river flows plus exchanges with the atmosphere must be due to the net difference between what seeps into the lake from the groundwater and what leaks into the groundwater.

Once all this information has been gathered, it becomes possible to judge whether a lake’s flow is mainly due to its surface inputs and outputs or to its underground inputs and outputs.

Few of the cultural traditions and rules that today allow us to deal with dense populations existed for these people accustomed to household autonomy and the ability to move around the landscape almost at will.

Archaeologists find that even the most isolated residences during the eleventh and twelfth centuries obtained some pottery, and probably food, from some distance away, while major ceremonial events were opportunities for sharing food and crafts.

需复习的单词：
seapage
discharge
exchange
seep
fluctuate
communal
dwelling
traumatic
autonomy
chore
aggregate
diverse
sensible
arable
elevation
respiratory
diaphragm
exclusive
irritation

今日总结：

1 长难句练习可以帮助自己面对复杂的句子时，提升阅读速度和质量。但一些学科的背景知识也很重要。2 当面对大量细节还没搞懂时，可以试试先看题再读文章。
3 词汇往往有两三种不太一样的解释，都需要认真对待。

龙驾马

Day9

1月14日

TPO 24 听力

对话

地理作业 错3对2
书店买书 错0对5

讲座
舞蹈 错1对5
鳄鱼声波  错1对5
远古大象 错3对3
金星火山 错4对2

回顾：这次的几篇听力，比较极端。听懂的可以全对，比如书店的那个。听不懂的错的厉害，尤其是讲座里的金星，对话里的水循环。

但仔细分析了原文后，这两篇的情况又有不同，水循环那篇，其实没有什么陌生单词，用常用词汇讲了水是如何蒸发，编程积云，然后降雨这一个过程。但就是单词听懂了，句子没听懂。关键是没听懂这个水变化的物理过程。而金星那篇，有一些还不太熟悉的天文学，物理学词汇，而且也描述了比较具体的物理运动过程。就更没听懂了。看来有必要加强科学文章的听力，甚至可能是阅读训练。

复习词汇（词组）：
all of that
all term
vapor
crocodile
alligator
hatchling
reassurance
meteoric
molten
magma
clustered
tectonic
grant
reproduction


今日总结：
1 单词听懂句子没听明白，其实很容易发生，感觉是大脑对抽象的描述比较陌生，如果是熟悉的场景，比如买书就很容易处理。需要多联系科学美国人。
2 动词的时态变化，会引起发音的变化，尤其是加上连读，就可能面目全非了。还是要多听，熟悉这种变化。
3 师生对话的考点似乎比较明显。讲座的考点还不清楚，可以要找些资料研究下。

龙驾马

Day 10

1月15日

TPO 22

阅读

植物米草 错2对8
词汇题错1 推理题错1

摄影的诞生 错5对5
作者观点相关错2 词汇题错2 总结题错1

Allende流星 错3对7
细节题错1 词汇题错1 总结题错1

这三篇的结果比较两级分化，植物那篇可能读的比较顺，做的结果也不错。流星那篇，面对天文题材可能注意力比较集中，做的比较仔细，结果还好。但到了摄影历史那篇（其实不是太难）但感觉是自己轻视了，更有时间的因素（还是前面太慢了），做题时太赶，错了不少。

需复习的长难句：

When broken open, Allende stones are revealed to contain an assortment of small, distinctive objects, spherical or irregular in shape and embedded in a dark gray matrix (binding material), which were once constituents of the solar nebula—the interstellar cloud of gas and dust out of which our solar system was formed.

Since practically all the solar system's mass resides in the Sun, this similarity in chemistry means that chondrites have average solar system composition, except for the most volatile elements; they are truly lumps of nebular matter, probably similar in composition to the matter from which planets were assembled.

The images produced by the camera obscura, a boxlike device that used a pinhole or lens to throw an image onto a ground-glass screen or a piece of white paper, were already familiar—the device had been much employed by topographical artists like the Italian painter Canaletto in his detailed views of the city of Venice.

The new candid photography—unposed pictures that were made when the subjects were unaware that their pictures were being taken—confirmed these scientific results, and at the same time, thanks to the radical cropping (trimming) of images that the camera often imposed, suggested new compositional formats.

As the seaweed and marsh grass leaves die, bacteria break down the plant material, and insects, small shrimplike organisms, fiddler crabs, and marsh snails eat the decaying plant tissue, digest it, and excrete wastes high in nutrients.

Even with a massive effort, it is doubtful that complete eradication of Spartina from nonnative habitats is possible, for it has become an integral part of these shorelines and estuaries during the last 100 to 200 years.

Leaving its insect predators behind, the cordgrass has been spreading slowly and steadily along Washington’s tidal estuaries on the west coast, crowding out the native plants and drastically altering the landscape by trapping sediment.

Along the east coast Spartina is considered valuable for its ability to prevent erosion and marshland deterioration; it is also used for coastal restoration projects and the creation of new wetland sites.




需复习的单词：
perennial
cordgrass
tidal
gravel
salinity
cobble
mudflat
estuary
meteorite
lump
volatile
compositional
chondrite
chondrule
sulfide
calotype
daguerreotype
reluctantly

今日总结：1 今天可能是阅读速度上出了问题，两篇读的慢的质量尚可，一篇赶时间的错了很多。在保证质量的前提下，还是需要提升阅读速度，而且要训练不回视。
2 单词方面，今天还是有些做错，但在阅读时发现，很多词汇的变体没有及时看出来，影响了阅读速度。这在词汇整理时要更加注意。
2 复习了一些GRE长难句后，对托福的句子读起来更顺了些。下一步需要抽时间，按照长难句书里的分类，对自己总结的句子也进行分类，然后复习

龙驾马

Day11

1月16日

TPO 22 听力

对报道提异议 错2对3
音乐论文讨论 错0对5

听力内容有些小惊喜，听到了一个从前没见过的场景，对新闻报道的异议。学生去校刊编辑室，找到顾问，对某篇报道提出了异议。然后校刊顾问和她进行了一些讨论并建议她可以找编辑发表她的不同观点。另一个对话里的确遇到了点口音的问题，老师说了extra week，但extra没听出来，她的发音更像是extry。好在做题的时候猜老师会延长dead iine，运气比较好。

古生物灭绝 错5对1
国家诞生 错1对5
音乐人 错1对5
黯淡太阳 错2对4

古生物那篇几乎就没听懂在讨论什么问题，只是听到一大堆证据啊，古代大象繁殖啊什么的，结果错的一塔糊涂，连主旨题的错了。其他三篇都基本能听懂在说什么，主旨题都能做对。但还是有些关键细节没听进去，做题的时候出错。

复习单词（词组）
statue
extra week
pebble
ammonia
predict
tribe
chiefdom
spectrum
intensify
hirerachy
fertile
inhabite
astound
fragmentation
stretch from
megafauna
refuge
presumably
conceivable


总结

1 口音，连读等特殊语音现象的确会造成一些内容听不懂，遇到了就要复习。但做题时，万一真没听懂，也可以通过对内容整体把握去猜。
2 科学题材的确是难点，多背相关的单词，多听sss。
3 很多相对冷门的学科名词，比如某种生物的名称，某种特定的科学名词，其实不用太担心，老师都要么会后面做解释（比如古生物里听到冰河时代，先用了专业名词，然后解释说是ice age），或者老师仅仅拿来举例，听到关键词 （比如as），就拿它当做xx东西就行。尽量不要慌乱。

龙驾马

Day 12
1月17日

TPO 21 阅读

自传记忆 错4对6
农业起源 错2对8
地热能 错4对6

记忆那篇做的最糟糕，虽然生词和句子都不是很难，但题材比较陌生，里面的抽象内容读起来很吃力。农业起源和地热能两篇，长句子非常多，这几天看的GRE长难句很有帮助，句子结构清楚了，读起来就不那么吃力了。但地热能错的还是有些多，时间不够用了。还是基本功不够，要继续练。

要复习的长难句

It is archaeologist Steven Mithen's thesis, brilliantly developed in his book The Prehistory of the Mind (1996), that approximately 40,000 years ago the human mind developed cognitive fluidity, that is, the integration of the specializations of the mind: technical, natural history (geared to understanding the behavior and distribution of natural resources), social intelligence, and the linguistic capacity.


The fact that some societies domesticated animals and plants, discovered the use of metal tools, became literate, and developed a state should not make us forget that others developed pastoralism or horticulture (vegetable gardening) but remained illiterate and at low levels of productivity; a few entered the modern period as hunting and gathering societies.


Geothermal energy becomes available in a practical form when underground heat is transferred by water that is heated as it passes through a subsurface region of hot rocks (a heat reservoir) that may be hundreds or thousands of feet deep.

Geothermal energy is in a sense not renewable, because in most cases the heat would be drawn out of a reservoir much more rapidly than it would be replaced by the very slow geological processes by which heat flows through solid rock into a heat reservoir.

Geothermal energy becomes available in a practical form when underground heat is transferred by water that is heated as it passes through a subsurface region of hot rocks (a heat reservoir) that may be hundreds or thousands of feet deep.

Although the potential is enormous, it is likely that in the near future geothermal energy can make important local contributions only where the resource is close to the user and the economics are favorable, as they are in California, New Zealand, and Iceland. Geothermal energy probably will not make large-scale contributions to the world energy budget until well into the twenty-first century, if ever.

A final suggestion is that children must begin to develop a "theory of mind"—an awareness of the concept of mental states (feelings, desires, beliefs, and thoughts), their own and those of others—before they can talk about their own past memories.

需要复习的单词

radioactivity

geothermal

continental

structurally

domesticated

pastoralism

horticulture

amnesia

interactions

intertwined

总结

1 抽象事物的理解能力，需要阅读时耐心锻炼才能提高，着急没用。
2 长难句的关键在于区分句子结构，难点在对确实成分的把握。
3 文章有层级，句子也有结构，掌握好了对解题有帮助。

龙驾马

Day 13

1月18日

TPO 21 听力

对话

校园问路 错0对6
选课 错0对5

讲座

软件开发 错0对6
地心说 错1对5
蛇的进化 错1对5
女画家 错2对4

这是目前做的最好的一次听力 总共只错了4个 三篇全对 其实还是有好几题是猜的，但运气也比较好。有意思的是，两个对话完全听懂不说，还自己瞎猜会考什么细节，结果自己好像想的太多，一些觉得有重要的细节都没有考。看了猜题的功夫其实还比较差，尽管题目能作对。不知道这一套题目是不是ETS在搞平衡，阅读比较难，听力却很容易。女画家内篇，设计的事情比较杂，的确有不少地方没听懂，靠猜作对了两题，本来以为要错很多。

需要复习的长难句
Of course, today we know that this appearance of backward motion is caused by the fact that Earth as well as other planets all move in their own orbits around the Sun, and the relative movements of the planets with respect to each other can get quite complex.


需要复习的单词

stationary
epicycle
their own orbits
literally
mentality
exaggerat
prestigious
venomous
ancestor
insufferably

1 如果是比较简单的听力音频，遇到了也不用太兴奋，认真去听每一个环节，争取对所有的内容都有正确的印象。
2 猜题应该是个高深的技艺，目前还差得很远。
3 遇到简单的题，不能以为自己水平肯定提高，回头做些难题看看。

龙驾马

1月19日

TPO23 阅读

城市气候 错2对8
荷兰农业 错4对6
澳洲古岩画 错2对8

这次的三篇文章不是很难，基本上都读懂，做题时也没有出现时间够用的情况。虽然有些长句，但不是太难。其实看了GRE长难句以后，才发现，句子成分中出现省略和倒装的才比较难懂，长句子如果结构工整的话，不难读，关键是要多读以提升处理这些信息的脑容量。荷兰农业那一篇，还是选项没有细看，或者说错看了选项里的关键信息，从而选错。

Dutch agriculture was modernized and commercialized new crops and agricultural techniques raised levels of production so that they were in line with market demands, and cheap grain was imported annually from the Baltic region in large quantities.

As the demand for agricultural produce from both consumers and industry increased, agricultural land became more valuable and people tried to work the available land more intensively and to reclaim more land from wetlands and lakes.

Forty-three windmills powered the drainage pumps so that they were able to lease the reclamation to farmers as early as 1612, with the investors receiving annual leasing payments at an interest rate of 17 percent.

The frequency with which certain simple motifs appear in these oldest sites has led rock-art researchers to adopt a descriptive term—the Panaramitee style—a label which takes its name from the extensive rock pavements at Panaramitee North in desert South Australia, which are covered with motifs pecked into the surface.

Lesley Maynard, the archaeologist who coined the phrase “Panaramitee style,”suggested that a sequence could be determined for Australian rock art, in which a geometric style gave way to a simple figurative style (outlines of figures and animals), followed by a range of complex figurative styles that, unlike the pan-Australian geometric tradition tended to much greater regional diversity.

While accepting that this sequence fits the archaeological profile of those sites, which were occupied continuously over many thousands of years a number of writers have warned that the underlying assumption of such a sequence—a development from the simple and the geometric to the complex and naturalistic—obscures the cultural continuities in Aboriginal Australia, in which geometric symbolism remains fundamentally important.

skyscraper
friction
turbulence
discern
incomprehensible
figurative
geometric
creation
motif



总结
1 长句要划分结构，顺着结构去理解句子中哪些成分是主干，哪个修饰哪个，哪些部分可能被省略没出现，会对理解句子内容有较大帮助。
2 阅读不仅要给读文章留出时间和精力，题目和选项也一样
3 看清文章的结构，理解全文的关键信息，做主旨题会有帮助。

龙驾马

Day 15

1月20日

TPO23 听力
学生发布声明 错1对4
学生选课 错0对5

海豚导航 错1对5
屏幕舞蹈 错4对2
古代机械 错3对3
气候生态 错1对5


两个校园对话做的还可以。四个讲座里面，3个讲座大致都能听懂，但古代机械装置那篇涉及一些具体的细节，一边听一边还要琢磨机械装置的原理，外形等，做起来比较吃力。而另一篇屏幕舞蹈，几乎都没听懂说的是什么，尽管没太多生词。直到重听了两遍，才明白讲的是在计算机上进行虚拟编舞的事情。这篇做的很差，对了的两题其实也是猜的。

需复习的长难句：

Well, the current hypothesis is that these microorganisms produce a chemical, dimetho sulfide that interacts with the oxygen in the air, creating conditions that lead to the formation of the low thick clouds we observed.

Then in the editing room, you can digitally manipulate these images, like you might put five or ten or twenty copies of that same dancer meeting himself in the middle of the screen, to make it look like he is dancing with himself.

需复习单词：
consciousness
chronologically
melon
choreography
vibrations
symbolic
eclipses

总结：
1 又是抽象事物和陌生题材，成了难点。需要补一些背景知识。
2 长句子，尤其是从句对听力来说有些挑战，但如果拿出来多听几遍，感觉会容易适应
3 试着听写了两个句子，出现好几个语法错误，语法基础要好好补一下。

龙驾马

Day 16

1月21日

TPO 20阅读
西南亚定居点 错2对8
西迁移民 错2对8
化石保护 错4对6

两篇历史类的文章，结构很清晰，看起来很舒服。化石那篇，其实结构还好，就是长句比较多，看得有点吃力。然后还是遇到了老问题，时间不够，只好猜了，错的有些多。

需要复习的长难句：

Although aragonite has the same composition as the more familiar mineral known as calcite, it has a different crystal form, is relatively unstable, and in time changes to the more stable calcite.

Water containing dissolved silica, calcium carbonate, or iron may circulate through the enclosing sediment and be deposited in cavities such as marrow cavities and canals in bone once occupied by blood vessels and nerves.

Although it is certainly true that the possession of hard parts enhances the prospect of preservation, organisms having soft tissues and organs are also occasionally preserved.

The European ancestors of some Americans had for centuries lived rooted to the same village or piece of land until some religious, political, or economic crisis uprooted them and drove them across the Atlantic.

The West had plenty of attractions: the alluvial river bottoms, the fecund soils of the rolling forest lands, the black loams of the prairies were tempting to New England farmers working their rocky, sterile land and to southeastern farmers plagued with soil depletion and erosion.

Two other developments presaged the end of the era of turnpikes and started a transportation revolution that resulted in increased regional specialization and the growth of a national market economy.

The climatic changes in southwestern Asia were more subtle, in that they involved shifts in mountain snow lines, rainfall patterns, and vegetation cover.

Pollen samples from freshwater lakes in Syria and elsewhere tell us forest cover expanded rapidly at the end of the Ice Age, for the southwestern Asian climate was still cooler and considerably wetter than today.

These people exploited the landscape intensively, foraging on hill slopes for wild cereal grasses and nuts, while hunting gazelle and other game on grassy lowlands and in river valleys.

Thanks to extremely fine-grained excavation and extensive use of flotation methods (through which seeds are recovered from soil samples), we know a great deal about the foraging practices of the inhabitants of Abu Hureyra in Syria's Euphrates valley.

For the next 1,500 years, its inhabitants enjoyed a somewhat warmer and damper climate than today, living in a well-wooded steppe area where wild cereal grasses were abundant.

They were no longer a series of small bands but lived in a large community with more elaborate social organization, probably grouped into clans of people of common descent.

The flotation samples from the excavations allowed botanists to study shifts in plant-collecting habits as if they were looking through a telescope at a changing landscape.

Many complex factors led to the adoption of the new economies, not only at Abu Hureyra, but at many other locations such as 'Ain Ghazal, also in Syria, where goat toe bones showing the telltale marks of abrasion caused by foot tethering (binding) testify to early herding of domestic stock.

需要复习的单词：

adoption

drought

vicinity

excavation

elaborate

gazelle

sizable

intercommunity

forage

turnpike

thereafter

deprivation

总结：

1 GRE长难句里，开头就提到不要回视，目前阅读速度的瓶颈和我经常回看有关，需要戒掉。

2 有些单词稍稍变了样子就认不出来了，或者背诵过的不同意思回想不起来（forage觅食的意思就忘记了），单词还是需要反复复习，尤其是不同的意思都要看

3 单项练习还要加强，比如语法，特别是从句的句子结构。