【正文】 Over the next couple hundred years, a lot of hypotheses were tossed around. The spots were mountains or holes in the solar atmosphere through which the dark surface of the Sun could be seen. Then in 1843, an astronomer named Heinrich Schwabe, made an interesting claim. Schwabe had been watching the Sun every day that it was visible for 17 years, looking for evidence of a new planet. And he started keeping tracks of sunspots, mapping them, so he wouldn’t confuse them with any potential new planet. （9）In the end, there was no planet, but there was evidence that the number of sunspots increased and decreased in a pattern, a pattern that began repeating after 10 years, and that was a huge breakthrough. Another astronomer named Wolf kept track of the Sun for an even longer period, 40 years actually. （10）So Wolf did 40 years of research, and Schwabe did 17 years of research. I think there is a lesson there. Anyway, Wolf went though all records from various observatories in Europe and put together a history of sunspot observations going back about 100 years. From this information, he was able to confirm the existence of a pattern, a repeating cycle. But Wolf detected an 11year cycles not a 10year circle. 11year cycles? Dose that sound familiar to anyone? No? Well, geomagnetic activity, the natural variations in Earth’s magnetic field, it fluctuates in 11year cycles. Well, we’ll cover this later in this semester, but for now, well, scientists in the late 19th century were aware of geomagnetic cycles, so when they heard that the sunspots’ cycle was also 11 years, well, they just had to find out what was going on. （11） Suddenly, everyone was doing studies of the possible relationship between the Sun and the Earth. Did the sunspots cause the geomagnetic fields or did the geomagnetic fields cause the sunspots? Or is there some other thing that caused both? And astronomers did eventually figure out what sunspots had to do with magnetic fields. Actually they are magnetic fields. And the fact that sunspots are magnetic fields accounts for their dark appearance. That’s because magnetic fields reduce the pressure exerted on the gases inside of them, making the spots cooler than the rest of the Sun’s surface. And since they are cooler, they are darker.詞匯：sunspots n. 太陽黑子heavenly body 天體flaw n. 缺陷；裂縫blemish n. 瑕疵；缺點(diǎn)hypothesis n. 假設(shè)prevailing adj. 流行的；盛行的square n. 正方形lopsided adj. 不平衡的feature n. 特色；特征random adj. 隨機(jī)的；任意的toss v. 投擲visible adj. 明顯的；看得見的keep tracks of 記錄；與保持聯(lián)系map v. 繪制地圖geomagnetic adj. 地磁的fluctuate v. 波動；漲落題目：6. What is the lecture mainly about?解析：主旨題，文章按照時間順序介紹，主要講人們對太陽黑子的科學(xué)認(rèn)知的進(jìn)程。答案：The progression of scientific knowledge about sunspots7. Why did European astronomers before the time of Galileo not believe sunspots were on the Sun39。s surface?解析：細(xì)節(jié)題，定位not believe sunspots were on the Sun39。s surface，注意That’s because of后面的內(nèi)容。文中說人們認(rèn)為天體都是完美的，沒有瑕疵，與太陽表面有太陽黑子的想法違背。答案：The idea was contrary to their beliefs about objects in space.8. Which hypothesis regarding sunspots did Galileo challenge?解析：細(xì)節(jié)題，定位hypothesis和Galileo，注意文中教授自問自答部分。文中說伽利略提出太陽黑子的形狀不是圓的，而如果太陽黑子是太陽的影子，太陽黑子形狀應(yīng)該是圓的。所以他懷疑太陽黑子不是太陽的影子。答案：Sunspots are shadows of planets crossing the Sun9. What was the importance of Schwabe39。s observations?解析：細(xì)節(jié)題，定位Schwab. 原文中說證據(jù)說明太陽黑子的數(shù)量以10年為周期出現(xiàn)或消失，所以太陽黑子循環(huán)出現(xiàn)。答案：They established that sunspots appear in cycles.10. What is the professor’s attitude toward Schwabe39。s and Wolf39。s research?解析：意圖推測題。文中教授放慢語氣強(qiáng)調(diào)Wolf做了40年的研究，Schwabe17年，將2個人的研究時間對比說明他被這個長時間的研究感動。答案：He is impressed by how many years were spent on the research.11. Why does the professor imply about the discovery of a relationship between the sunspot cycle and Earth39。s geomagnetic cycle?解析：推斷題，注意but后面的內(nèi)容。文中提出一系列針對太陽黑子周期和地球地磁周期關(guān)系的假設(shè)，為了證實(shí)它們的關(guān)系，做了一系列科學(xué)研究得出最終結(jié)論。答案：It led to a period of intense scientific research.Lecture 2（學(xué)科分類——藝術(shù)史）Narrow：Listen to part of a lecture in an art history class.Professor:Today we’ll continue our examination of ancient Roman sculpture. We’ve already looked at portrait sculpture which are busts created to memorate people who had died, and we’ve looked at relief sculpture, or sculpting on walls. And today we’ll look at yet another category of sculpture——copies. Roman’s sculptors often made copies of famous Greek sculptures.Girl Student:Why did they do that?Professor:Well, no one knows for sure. You see, in the late 4th century ., the Romans began a campaign to expand the Roman Empire, and in 300 years they had conquered most of the Mediterranean area and parts of Europe. You know the saying, “To the victor belong the spoils”? Well, the Roman army returned to Romewith many works of Greek art. It’s probably fair to say that the Romans were impressed by Greek art and culture and they began making copies of the Greek statues. (13)Now the dominant view in traditional art history is that Roman artists lacked creativity and skill, especially pared to the Greek artists who came before them. （17）Essentially, the traditional view, a view that’s been prevalent for over 250 years, is that the Romans copied Greek sculptures because they couldn’t create sculpture of their own. But finally some contemporary art historians have challenged this view. One is Elaine Gazda. Gazda says that there might be other reasons that Romans made copies. She wasn’t convinced that it was because of a lack of creativity. Can anyone think of another possible reason?Boy student:Well, maybe they just admired these sculptures. You know, they liked the way they looked.Professor:Yes. That’s one of Gazda’s points. Another is that while nowadays reproduction is easy, it was not so easy in Roman times. Copying statues required a lot of skill, time and effort. （14）So Gazda hypothesizes that copying didn’t indicate a lack of artistic imagination or skill on the part of Roman artists, but rather the Romans made copies because they admired Greek Greek statues represented an idealiz