托福口语是中国考生普遍低分的单项,而提分无他捷径,唯有多加练习反思。练习的过程中大家也要注意结合自身基础和备考阶段,选择适合的练习材料。下面的这篇托福独立口语真题难度较大,适合冲刺阶段或者英语基础较好的考生拿来做练习,大家可以结合参考答案和笔记大纲,做好备考训练。
Among the following types of books, which do you dislike the most? Romance, science fiction, or biography?
在下列类型的书中,你最不喜欢的是哪一类?爱情书籍、科幻小说或传记。
I rarely talk about my disdain for sci-fi because I know how much people love the genre.
I prefer fiction that portrays a more realistic world but sci-fi pulls the reader the furthest away from reality. Living in the world of cars, computers, and iPhones, I can’t relate to the horse and carriage world. Nor can I imagine zapping enemies. I am a realist, while science fiction is for dreamers who like the stark contrast that most sci-fi novels pose to reality.
I don’t like reading very many books. When I look at some of the major epic sci-fi series, they span thousands of pages. "The Sword of Truth" totals eleven books. "The ThreeBody Problem," with a meager three books, is positively svelte by comparison. Still, it's a big commitment. Some marriages don’t last as long as the time it takes to read one sci-fi series.
我很少谈论自己对科幻的蔑视因为我知道有多少人喜欢这种类型的书。
我更喜欢描写现实世界的小说,但科幻小说却把读者从现实中拉离了到了最远的地方。生活在汽车、电脑和iphone的世界里,我无法与马和马车世界联系在一起。我也不能想象消灭敌人。我是一个现实主义者,而科幻小说则是为那些喜欢科幻小说与现实形成鲜明对比的梦想家而设的。
我不喜欢看很多书。当我看到一些主要的史诗般科幻系列书籍,他们跨越数千页。《真理之剑》共有十一本书。《三体》,“微薄的三本书,比较下就非常的苗条。然而,读这样的书还是这是一个巨大的承诺。有些婚姻都无法像读科幻小说的时间那么长。
笔记
Outline
Dislike sci-fi the most 最不喜欢科幻小说 R1: cannot relate sci-fi to reality. Too far apart 科幻小说里生活太遥远 R2: sci-fi books usually too long. Hard to read 科幻小说一般太长
Vocabulary
disdain n. 蔑视 vt. 鄙弃例句:She watched me with disdain. 她鄙视地看着我。 genre n. 类型;种类例句: R&B is a particular genre of music that I like zapping 原形 zap 用电流快速攻击 这里指用电流把东西注入生命 类似于destroy meager adj. 贫乏的;瘦的 svelte adj. 苗条的;和蔼的 这里指即使短篇科幻小说《三体》也要3本书 太长了。
Romance novels aren’t everyone’s cup of tea but those who are attracted to reading them may be better at empathy than anyone realized.Psychologist Katrina Fong and her research team at York University wanted to pursue this theory so they asked 328 students, the vast majority of them women, if they recognized the names of various novelists.
Once that was established, the subjects were asked to guess the emotional states of actors in photographs by just viewing their eyes.
As it happened, the participants who recognized the names of romantic fiction authors did better at selecting the correct emotion than those who were more familiar with writers of other literary genres.
In trying to explain this phenomenon, the York University team wrote, “Romance is a genre of fiction that focuses on interpersonal relationships” so possibly reading these novels “helps to maintain and improve social skills.”
Then again, Fong and the others cautioned that it might just be the other way around, that those with keener interpersonal skills are more drawn to romantic fiction.