下面就让小编来为大家介绍一下托福听力TPO8原文中Lecture 3的文本内容吧，大家要好好把握，这些都是非常有价值的材料，同时，大家也可以登录前程百利论坛进行TPO练习辅导，希望能够给准备托福听力的同学带来帮助。
TPO 8 Lecture 3
History
Pro: So we’ve been talking about the printing press, how it changed people’s lives, making books more accessible to everyone. More books meant more reading, right? But, as you know, not everyone has perfect vision. This increase in literacy, um, in reading, led to an increase in demand for eyeglasses. And here’s something you probably haven’t thought of. This increased demand impacted societal attitudes towards eyeglasses.
But, first let me back up a bit and talk about vision correction before the printing press. And, um, what did people with poor vision do, I mean, especially those few people who were actually literate? What did they do before glasses were invented? Well, they had different ways of dealing with not seeing well. If you think about it, poor vision wasn’t their only problem. I mean, um, think about the conditions they lived in: houses were dark, sometimes there weren’t any windows; candles were the only source of light. So in some places, um, like ancient Greece for example, the wealthiest people with poor vision could have someone else read to them- easy solution if you could afford it.
Another solution was something called a “reading stone”. Around 1000 C.E. European monks would take a piece of clear rock, often quartz, and place it on top of the reading material. The clear rock magnified the letters, making them appear larger, um, well, it’s like what happens when a drop of water falls on something, whatever’s below the drop of water appears larger, right? Well, the “reading stone” works in a similar way.
But rocks like quartz, well, quartz of optical quality weren’t cheap. Late in the 13th century, glass makers in Italy came up with a less expensive alternative. They made reading stones out of clear glass. And these clear glass reading stones evolved into the eyeglasses we know today. So we’re pretty sure that glasses were invented about the late 1200’s, well, over a hundred years before the printing press. But it’s not clear who exactly invented them first or exactly what year. But record shows that they were invented in both Europe and China at about the same time. By the way, we call this “independent discovery”. Independent discovery means when something is invented in different parts of the world at the same time and it’s not as unusual as it sounds. You can look at the timeline charts in the back of your textbook to see when things were invented in different cultures at about the same time to see what I’m talking about.
So now let’s tie this to what I’ve said before about societal attitudes towards glasses. Initially in parts of Europe and in China, glasses were a symbol of wisdom and intelligence. This is evident in the artwork from the period. European paintings often portrayed doctors or judges wearing glasses. In China, glasses were very expensive. So in addition to intelligence, they also symbolize affluence, um, wealth. In 14th-century Chinese portraits, the bigger the glasses, the smarter and wealthier the subject was. So glasses were a status symbol in some parts of the world.
Now let’s get back to the invention of the painting press in 1440. What happened? Suddenly, books became readily available and more people wanted to read. So the need, oh well, actually not only the need but the demand for more affordable glasses rose drastically. Eventually, inexpensive glasses were produced, and then glasses were available to everyone. People could purchase them easily from a traveling peddler.
《历史学》
独白：听一段历史学课堂讲座
教授：我们一直在谈论印刷术，它是如何改变了人们的生活，使得每个人都可以读书，更多的书，就意味着有更多的阅读，对吧。但是正如你所知道的那样，不是每个人都有很好的视力。通过阅读，文化层次变得更高，也增加了对眼镜的需求。有一些事情你们之前可能从来没有想过。对眼镜需求的增加也影响了对眼镜的社会态度。让我们先回顾下在印刷术之前的视力矫正是什么样的。那些视力弱的人怎么办呢，我是指那些少数的有文化的人。在眼镜发明之前他们做些什么?他们有很多不同的方法来对付看不清东西。 你想想就知道，视力弱不是他们唯一的问题。我是指，考虑到他们所生活的时代的条件，那时候房子暗， 有的还没窗户，蜡烛是唯一的灯光来源。所以在有些地方，例如古希腊，富有的人们可以让别人读给他们听，只要能付得起钱，这很好解决。
另外的一种解决办法是一种被称之为“阅读石头”的东西。大概在公元 1000 年左右，欧洲僧侣们会拿一块清澈的石头，一般都是拿石英，放在阅读材料的上面，这个石头能放大字体，让字看起来大一些，嗯，就像有一滴水落在上面，水下面不管是什么都看起来要大一些，对吧?这跟阅读石头的工作原理是一样的。但是像石英这样的石头，具有光学性能的石英并不便宜。13 世纪后期。眼镜制造商有了一种更便宜点的选择。他们用玻璃做阅读石头，这些玻璃的阅读石头演变成了今天我们所知道的眼镜。所以我们很明确的知道眼镜是在 12 世纪后期才发明出来的，比印刷术早了一百多年。但是不知道到底是谁发明的眼镜，也不知道具体是哪年发明的。但是有记录表明欧洲和中国同时发明出了眼镜。顺便说一下，我们称它为独立的发明。独立的发明的意思是说某个东西在不同的地方同时被发明出来，而且它并不像它听起来那么特别。
你们可以看看教科书后面的时间表，看看不同文化背景下同一时间发明的东西，就知道我所说的了。现在我们把这个跟我之前所说的对眼镜的社会态度结合起来看看，起初在中国和欧洲的某些部分，眼镜被视为智慧和聪明的象征。这个从那个时期的艺术品中就能看出来。欧洲的画作中医生或者法官通常是带着眼镜的。在中国，眼镜以前很昂贵，因此，眼镜除了代表智慧，也代表了财富。14 世纪的中国，描绘对象戴的眼镜越大，就代表他越有钱也越聪明。所以在世界上的某些地方眼镜一直是地位的象征。现在我们回头来说一下 1440 年印刷术的发明。当时发生了什么事呢?突然，很多人都有书看了，而且更多的人想看书。因此，对眼镜的需求，特别是对能买得起的眼镜的需求，极大的增加。最后，便宜的眼镜生产出来了，后来，人人都能用得上眼镜了，人们可以很容易就从小贩那儿买到眼镜。
以上就是托福听力TPO8原文中Lecture 3的文本内容，希望大家能够用心体会，更多TPO文本内容小编稍后为您呈现。最后，小编祝大家在托福考试中取得好成绩！
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