Irma

托福聽力測驗 Lecture (二)  

這兩篇托福聽力內容老實說真的滿難的，因為第一篇生物學課程中教授與學生來往互動的內容，主要在說明 mating ritual,redirecting,Disinhibition這個鳥類的生物行為，教授藉由mating ritual進而衍生出來一系列的解說，而且專有名詞算是非常多，如果對於這方面沒有相關概念的話真的是有點難理解做答的；另外一篇是文學課程的內容，針對的是拉爾夫·沃爾多·愛默生作者本身以及他的其中一本著作" 依靠自我"的相關內容；由此可知托福考試內容是多麼五花八門難以理解，只有多多接受新知識才有可能有辦法應付相關問題內容。

Lecture  

Narrator   

Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class. The class is discussing animal   behavior.  

Professor: Ok, the next kind of animal behavior I want to talk about might be familiar to you. You may have seen, for example, a bird that’s in the middle of a mating ritual, and suddenly it stops and preens, you know, takes a few moments to straighten its feathers, and then returns to the mating ritual. This kind of behavior, this doing something that seems completely out of place, is what we calla ‘Displacement Activity’. Displacement activities are activities that animal’s engaging in when they have conflicting drives. If we take our example from a minute ago, if the bird is afraid of its mate, it’s conflicted. It wants to mate but it’s also afraid and wants to run away. So, instead, it starts grooming itself. So, the displacement activity, the grooming, the straightening of its feathers, seems to be an irrelevant behavior. So, what do you think another example of a displacement activity might be?  

Karl: How about an animal that, um, instead of fighting its enemy or running away, it   attacks a plant or a bush?  

Professor: That’s really good suggestion, Karl. But that’s called ‘redirecting’. The animal is ing its behavior to another object, in this case, the plant or the bush.   But that’s not an irrelevant or inappropriate behavior. The behavior makes sense. It’s appropriate under the circumstances. But what doesn’t make sense is the object the behavior‘s directed towards. Ok, who else? Carol?  

Carol: I think I read in another class about an experiment where an object that the animal was afraid of was put next to its food – next to the animal’s food. And the animal, it was conflicted between confronting the object and eating the food, so instead, it just fell asleep. Like that?  

Professor: That’s exactly what I mean. Displacement occurs because the animal’s got two conflicting drives – two competing urges, in this case, fear and hunger. And  what happens is, they inhibit each other, they can cel each other out in a way and a third seemingly irrelevant behavior surfaces through a process that we call ‘Disinhibition’. Now in disinhibition, the basic idea is that two drives that seem to in habit, to hold back, a third drive. Or, well, they’re getting in a way of each in a„ in a conflict situation and somehow lose control, lose their inhibiting effect on that third behavior, which means that the third drive surfaces, it’s expressed in the animal’s behavior. Now, these displacement activities can include feeding, drinking, grooming, even sleeping. These are what we call ‘Comfort Behavior’. So why do you think displacement activities are so often comfort behaviors, such as grooming?  

Karl: Maybe because it’s easy for them to do? I mean, grooming is like one of the   most accessible things an animal can do. It’s something they do all the time, and they have the stimulus right there on the outside of their bodies in order to do the grooming, or if food is right in front of them. Basically, they don’t have to think very much about those behaviors.  

Carol: Professor, isn’t it possible that animals groom because they’ve got messed up a little from fighting or mating? I mean if a bird’s feathers get ruffled or an animal’s fur, maybe it’s not so strange for them to stop and tidy themselves up at that point.  

Professor: That’s another possible reason although it doesn’t necessarily explain other behaviors such as eating, drinking or sleeping. What’s interesting is that studies have been done that suggest that the animal’s environment may play a art in determining what kind of behavior it displays. For example, there’s a bird, the ‘wood thrush’, anyway, when the ‘wood thrush’ is in an attack-escape conflict, that is, it’s caught between the two urges to escape from or to attack an enemy, if it’s sitting on a horizontal branch, it’ll wipe its beak on its perch. If it’s sitting on a vertical branch, it’ll groom its breast feathers. The immediate environment of the bird, its immediate, um, its relationship to its immediate environment seems to play a part in which behavior will display.  

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Lecture  

Narrator   

Listen to part of a lecture in a literature class.  

Professor: All right, so let me close today’s class with some thoughts to keep in mind while you are doing tonight’s assignment. You will be reading one of Ralph  Waldo Emerson’s best-known essays ‘Self-Reliance’ and comparing it with his   poems and other works. I think this essay has the potential to be quite meaningful for all of you as young people who probably wonder about things like truth and where your lives are going - all sorts of profound questions. Knowing something about Emerson’s philosophies will help you when you read ‘Self-Reliance’. And basically, one of the main beliefs that he had was about truth. Not that it’s something that we can be taught, Emerson says it’s found within ourselves. So this truth, the idea that it’s in each one of us, is one of the first points that you’ll see Emerson ** in this essay. It’s a bit abstract but he’s very into„ah„into each person believing his or her own   thought, believing in yourself, the thought or conviction that’s true for you. But   actually, he ties that in with a sort of ‘universal truth’ – something that everyone   knows but doesn’t realize they know. Most of us aren’t in touch with ourselves in a way, so we just aren’t capable of recognizing profound truth. It takes geniuses, people like, say, Shakespeare, who’re unique because when they have a glimpse at this truth, this universal truth, they pay attention to it and express it and don’t just dismiss it like most people do. So Emerson is really into each individual believing in and trusting him or herself. You’ll see that he writes about, well, first, conformity. He criticizes that people of his time for abandoning their own minds and their own wills for the   sake of conformity and consistency. They try to fit in with the rest of the world   even though it’s at odds with their beliefs and their identities. Therefore, it’s best to be a non-conformist – to do your own thing, not worrying about what other people think. That’s an important point. He really drives this argument home throughout the essay.    When you are reading, I want you to think about that and why that kind of thought would be relevant to the readers of his time. Remember this is 1838,   ‘Self-Reliance’ was a novel idea at the time and the United State’s citizens were less secure about themselves as individuals and as Americans. The country as a whole was trying to define itself. Emerson wanted to give people something to really think about, help them find their own way and what it meant to be who they were. So that’s something that I think is definitely as relevant today as it was then, probably, um, especially among young adults like yourselves, you know, uh, college being a time to sort of really think about who you are and where you’re going. Now we already said that Emerson really emphasizes non-conformity, right, as a way to sort of not lose your own self and identity in the world, to have your own truth and not be afraid to listen to it. Well, he takes this a step further. Not conforming also means, uh, not conforming with yourself or your past. What does that mean? Well, if you’ve always been a certain way or done a certain thing, but it’s not working for you any more, or you’re not content, Emerson says that it’d be foolish to be consistent even with our own past. ‘Focus on the future,’ he says, “That's what matters more. Inconsistency is good. ”He talks about a ship’s voyage and this is one of the most famous bits of the    essay - how the best voyage is made up of zigzag lines. Up close, it seems a little all over the place, but from farther away, the true path shows and in the end it justifies all the turns along the way. So, don’t worry if you are not sure where you’re headed or what your long-term goals are. Stay true to yourself and it’ll make sense in the end. I mean, I can attest to that. Before I was a literature professor, I was an accountant. Before that, I was a newspaper reporter. My life is taking some pretty interesting turns and here I am, very happy with my experiences and where they’ve brought me. If you rely on yourself and trust your own talents, your own interest, don’t worry, your path will make sense in the end.