今天前程百利小编为大家分享的是托福听力新题材料来源-一夫一妻制。最近托福听力考试中出现了一些新题,那这些新题材料的来源是什么呢?大家都知道托福听力来源于学生的课堂内容和校园生活,所以小编特意为大家整理托福听力新题的材料来源,快来看一下吧!
原文:
During courtship, male black widow spiders snip and bundle up the female's web in their own silk, which discourages other suitors from stopping by.
Island View Beach, in British Columbia, has all the makings of a perfect summer outing: great views, seclusion, sand dunes and driftwood. There's just one minor detail: That driftwood? It hosts two to three black widow spider webs per square meter.
"To some people a beach full of black widows sounds like a nightmare, but to me it's awesome and it's not scary at all." Catherine Scott studies spider behavior at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. And in case you're wondering: "I've never been bitten by a black widow and I'm not at all concerned about being bitten by a black widow."
Scott's research brought her to Island View Beach, to study the mating habits of black widow spiders. The basics are this: "If you're a male black widow your goal in life is to find a female and mate with her and father as many of her offspring as possible."
Achieving that goal includes some architectural alterations by the males during their several hours of courtship—they snip the female's web to pieces, and then bundle the tattered web in their own silk. Scott and her colleagues found that webs treated this way don't attract other prowling males the same way an intact web does. Meaning "it's not so much the best male, but the first male to arrive that will win, if he's able to quickly find a female and reduce her web."
And the reason this tactic works? The researchers say females encode pheromones, like chemical "personal ads," in their webs, advertising their age, hunger level and mating status. And the first-arriving male's craftsmanship may obscure that information, causing other suitors to pass her by. The study is in the journal Animal Behaviour.
Wondering about the postcoital fate of the males? Scott says it's a common misconception that black widows always feast on their mates. Males can—and do—mate with multiple females. And besides, black widow females advertise right on their webs how hungry they are. So let no male claim that his desire caused him to lose his head.
疑难词汇:
Courtship n. 求爱;求婚;求爱期
bundle up使穿暖;把…捆扎
suitors n. 求婚者;请愿者;[法] 起诉人
sand dunes沙丘(sand dune的复数形式)
driftwood n. 浮木;流散板;废弃物adj. 漂流木的
black widow spider黑寡妇毒蛛
nightmare n. 恶梦;梦魇般的经历adj. 可怕的;噩梦似的
snip n. 剪;便宜货vt. 剪断vi. 剪
prowling vi. 徘徊,潜行
vt. 在…搜寻;潜行于n. 徘徊,潜行;悄悄踱步
tactic n. 策略,战略adj. 按顺序的,依次排列的
encode vt. (将文字材料)译成密码;编码,编制成计算机语言
pheromones n. [生化] 信息素(pheromone的复数形式)
postcoital adj. 性交后的
misconception n. 误解;错觉;错误想法
长难句解析:
1. Meaning "it's not so much the best male, but the first male to arrive that will win, if he's able to quickly find a female and reduce her web."
难句类型:
But引导的句子+If引导的条件状语从句
句子主干:
it's not so much the best male
难句拆分:
it's not so much the best male和 the first male to arrive that will win ,由but引导表示转折;if he's able to quickly find a female and reduce her web,if引导的条件状语从句修饰整个句子。
2. Achieving that goal includes some architectural alterations by the males during their several hours of courtship—they snip the female's web to pieces, and then bundle the tattered web in their own silk.
难句类型:
That引导的宾语从句
句子主干:
they snip the female's web to pieces和bundle the tattered web in their own silk
难句拆分:
Achieving that goal includes some architectural alterations by the males during their several hours of courtship,achieving引导的伴随状语,后面跟了个宾语从句;and引导两个并列的句子。
文本结构特点:
本篇文章主要讲的是黑寡妇蜘蛛很是专一。雌性蜘蛛和雄性蜘蛛进行交配之后,因雌性蜘蛛需要大量的能量,就会把雄性蜘蛛吃掉,这就是雌性蜘蛛所谓的“一夫一妻制“
好了,以上就是前程百利小编为大家整理的备考托福听力背景材料以及专业词汇的学习。希望能在备考托福的路上助大家一臂之力。最后,小编祝大家在托福考试中取得好成绩!
您还可能关注:

