Colorado's water托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

Colorado's water托福聽力原文翻譯及問題答案

一、Colorado's water托福聽力原文：

NARRATOR:Listen to part of a lecture in an environmental science class.MALE PROFESSOR:I'd like to continue with the topic of managing water resources,but I want to focus on a particular case.Uh,um,an example of water management that's made us reconsider the methods we use when we make these decisions.So let's look at what's happening in the Colorado River basin.The Colorado River basin is a region in the Southwest United States.Seven states rely on the Colorado's water.And as you can imagine,as the populations of these states began to grow,it became clear that a system to distribute,uh,to make sure each state got its fair share of water,some kind of system had to be created.And in 1922,a water-sharing agreement was made.Elizabeth,you have a question?FEMALE STUDENT:Well,how exactly do you figure out how to share a river?I mean,you can't,like,cut it up into pieces.MALE PROFESSOR:Well,let's start with the first step.And that's trying to figure out how much water on average flows through the river each year.Now,researchers had started gathering data on water flow back in the late 1890s using instruments they placed in the river.When the 1922 water-sharing agreement was made,there were about twenty years of data on water flow available.The average annual flow was calculated.And,well,the agreement was based on that calculation.The same basic agreement is in effect today.

FEMALE STUDENT:Wait!That was all the data they had?And they based their decision on that?MALE PROFESSOR:Yes.And we'll why that was a bad decision in a moment.OK.As decades passed,it became clear that measuring river flow was much more complicated than we had thought.See,a river has periods of low flow and periods of high flow.And this wasn't taken into consideration when the 1922 agreement was made.In the 1970s,the population of the area was rising while the amount of water flowing through the river seemed to be falling.By this time,we had—what—a hundred years of recorded data to look at?That's still a pretty short time for an ancient river.To get more data,we looked at a different source...a source that was able to tell us about hundreds of years of the river's history.Tree rings.OK.Let me explain.

You probably know that we can determine a tree's age by counting the rings on a cross section of its trunk.Each ring represents one year of the tree's life.So if you know the year the tree was cut,you can count inwards and date each ring all the way back to the center.You can also tell how much moisture the tree got during each of those years by looking at the width of the rings.A wide ring means plenty of water while a narrow one indicates less.Fortunately for us,certain areas of the Colorado River basin are home to some very old trees,some 800 years old and older.Researchers can drill core samples,uh,basically get a cross section of a tree without having to kill it,look at the rings and get a picture of what the climate was like in the basin for each of the tree's years.Well,the results tell us something we wouldn't have known without this data,that over the past 500 years or so,the Colorado River basin has experienced severe droughts,some worse than any we've ever recorded.They also showed that the early to mid-1900s,when most of the data that led to the water-sharing agreement was collected—well,this was the wettest period in the past 400 years.Well,obviously,had water management officials known then what we know now,the 1922 agreement would have been handled differently.

But today we can use the past to help prepare us for the future.With the demand for water in the basin stays increasing and with the real likelihood of lower flows in the river,if history is our teacher,we can develop innovative methods of water conservation and reevaluate how water is distributed.

二、Colorado's water托福聽力中文翻譯：

旁白：在環(huán)境科學課上聽一部分講座。男教授：我想繼續(xù)討論水資源管理的話題，但我想集中討論一個特殊的案例。這是一個水資源管理的例子，它讓我們在做出這些決定時重新考慮我們使用的方法。讓我們看看科羅拉多河流域發(fā)生了什么。科羅拉多河流域是美國西南部的一個地區(qū)。七個州依靠科羅拉多州的水資源。你可以想象，隨著這些州的人口開始增長，很明顯，為了確保每個州都能獲得公平的水資源，必須建立某種系統(tǒng)。1922年，雙方達成了水資源共享協(xié)議。伊麗莎白，你有問題嗎？女學生：那么，你到底是怎么知道如何共享一條河的呢？我是說，你不能把它切成碎片。男教授：好吧，讓我們從第一步開始。這是為了計算每年平均有多少水流過這條河?，F在，研究人員在19世紀90年代末開始使用他們放置在河里的儀器收集水流數據。1922年簽訂水資源共享協(xié)議時，已有大約20年的水流數據。計算了平均年流量。協(xié)議就是基于這個計算得出的。同樣的基本協(xié)議今天生效。

女學生：等等！這就是他們所有的數據？他們的決定是基于這個嗎？男教授：是的。我們會馬上解釋為什么這是一個糟糕的決定。好的，幾十年過去了，很明顯測量河流流量比我們想象的要復雜得多?？?，河流有低流量和高流量兩個時期。1922年協(xié)議簽訂時，這一點沒有考慮在內。在20世紀70年代，該地區(qū)的人口在增加，而流經該河的水量似乎在下降。到這個時候，我們有什么-一百年的記錄數據要看？對于一條古老的河流來說，這仍然是相當短的時間。為了獲得更多的數據，我們研究了另一個來源…一個能夠告訴我們這條河數百年歷史的來源。樹木年輪。好的，讓我解釋一下。

你可能知道，我們可以通過計算樹干橫截面上的年輪來確定一棵樹的年齡。每個年輪代表樹的一年壽命。因此，如果你知道這棵樹被砍伐的年份，你可以向內數數，并將每個年輪的日期追溯到中心。你還可以通過觀察年輪的寬度來判斷樹木在這些年中每年獲得了多少水分。寬環(huán)表示水充足，窄環(huán)表示水不足。對我們來說幸運的是，科羅拉多河流域的某些地區(qū)是一些非常古老的樹木的家園，大約有800多年的歷史。研究人員可以鉆取巖芯樣本，呃，基本上不需要殺死一棵樹就可以得到它的橫截面，看看年輪，就能得到這棵樹每一年盆地的氣候狀況。結果告訴我們，如果沒有這些數據，我們是不會知道的，在過去500年左右的時間里，科羅拉多河流域經歷了嚴重的干旱，比我們記錄的任何一次都要嚴重。他們還表明，20世紀初至中期，導致水資源共享協(xié)議的大部分數據都收集得很好，這是過去400年來最潮濕的時期。很明顯，如果當時的水管理官員知道我們現在知道的，1922年的協(xié)議會得到不同的處理。

但今天，我們可以利用過去幫助我們?yōu)槲磥碜龊脺蕚?。隨著流域對水的需求持續(xù)增加，河流流量降低的可能性越來越大，如果歷史是我們的老師，我們可以開發(fā)創(chuàng)新的節(jié)水方法，并重新評估水的分配方式。

三、Colorado's water托福聽力問題：

Q1:1.What is the lecture mainly about?

A.The use of tree rings to measure water usage rates

B.Collecting data that are useful for planning water distribution

C.Investigating the history of water use in the Colorado River basin

D.The need for more government involvement in water distribution

Q2:2.What does the student find surprising about the 1922 water-sharing agreement?

A.It was based on only twenty years of data.

B.It was approved by all seven states in the region.

C.It was meant to remain in effect for more than 100 years.

D.It was based on data from outside the Colorado River basin.

Q3:3.According to the professor,what was the problem with the data recorded before the 1970s?

A.The data were recorded on old instruments.

B.The recorded data and human observation did not match.

C.There were gaps in the recorded data.

D.The data did not reflect the historical changes in the flow of the Colorado River.

Q4:4.What assumption did researchers use to draw conclusions about the Colorado River basin?

A.Ancient tree ring data can only be obtained from dead trees.

B.The climate in an area tends to remain constant over time.

C.Rainfall has a limited impact on water flowing in rivers.

D.Width of tree rings can correspond to the amount of moisture in an area.

Q5:5.What does the professor imply when he describes the early to mid-1900s as the wettest period for the Colorado River in 400 years?

A.The climate in the Colorado River basin will become wetter in the future.

B.The 1922 agreement was based on overestimated average river flows.

C.Water flowing in the Colorado River rises and falls at a predictable rate.

D.Human activity caused climate change in the Colorado River basin.

Q6:6.What is the professor’s attitude toward future water-management plans in the Colorado River basin?

A.He believes better methods for collecting data need to be developed.

B.He does not believe water management will be a concern in the immediate future.

C.He is optimistic that new data will lead to better planning.

D.He is not certain all scientists understand the current condition of the Colorado River.

四、Colorado's water托福聽力答案：

A1:正確答案：B

A2:正確答案：A

A3:正確答案：D

A4:正確答案：D

A5:正確答案：B

A6:正確答案：C

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