托福口语task4听力文本汇总1-34,40-48

GroupthinkOne process by which groups may make bad or irrational decisions is known as groupthink. Individual members of a group attempt to conform their opinions to what they believe to be the group consensus even though the result may be negative. There are many reasons why groupthink happens. These include the desire to be liked, fear of losing a job, or even not wanting to be the one employee delaying a decision that seems inevitable. These kinds of implicit pressures to conform lead group members to ultimately make decisions that each, by himself or herself, might normally not make.Explain groupthink and its effects. Using the example of the computer company.Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a business management class.(male professor)So, let me tell you about my own experiences when I was working for a computer company a couple of years ago.So, one day a co-worker and I suggested we should give our computers a design make-over: make them look more up-to-date. Market research was showing that new customers said they would be more interested in buying our computers if they looked cooler. Our technology was advanced but the outside design looked really old-fashioned.At first, more than half the group supported us. There were a few senior managers there who didn’t support the design change. One of the senior manager said, “Our focus has always been on technology, changing the l ook is an unnecessary cost.”Almost immediately, some of our supporters changed their minds! Even myco-worker changed his mind! When I asked him why after the meeting, he told me he didn’t want to make a bad impression on the senior managers. He thought that disagreeing with them might jeopardize his chances of getting a promotion by notlooking like a team-player.What about me? I hate to admit it, but, after a few hours of discussion, I started wondering if it was worth everyone’s time to argue about thi s? As more people sided with the senior management, I started to feel that I was the only one holding up the vote. Everyone else seemed to think change wasn’t necessary. I voted against my own idea in the end.So we unanimously decided to stay with the current old-looking design. But this decision ended up costing us a lot of money. That same year, our competitor came out with a new design that attracted some of our customers and prevented us from profiting from new customers.Explain group think and its effects. Using the example of the computer company.Social InteractionPeople deal with each other every day. This interaction is at the heart of social life. The study of social interaction is concerned with the infl uence people have over one another’s behavior. People take each other into account in their daily behavior and in fact, the very presence of others can affect behavior. For example, one principle of social interaction, audience effects, suggests that indiv iduals’ work is affected by their knowledge that they are visible to others, that the presence of others tends to alter the way people behave or perform an activity.Explain how the example of tying shoes and learning to type demonstrate the principle of audience effects.Now listen to part of the talk in a Sociology class, the professor is discussing the audience effects. ProfessorOkay, so we said that the way we interact others has an impact on our behavior. In fact, there is some interesting research to suggest that in one type of interaction, when we are being observed, specifically, when we know we are being watched as we performed some activity, we tend to increase the speed at which we perform that activity. In one study, college students were asked to each put on a pair of shoes, shoes with laces they would have to tie. Now, one group of students was told that they would be observed. The second group, however, didn't know they were being observed. The students who were aware that they were being watched, actually tied their shoes much faster than the students who thought they were alone. Other studies confirm the same is true, even when we are learning new activities. Let's say someone is learning a new task, for example, learning how to type. When t hey are conscious of being observed, they’ll likely begin typing at a much faster rate than they would if they were alone. But and this is interesting, the study also showed that certain common behavior, things people typically do like making mistakes when you’re learning something new. That behavior pattern will also increase. So in other words, when we are learning to type, and we know we are being watched, we all type faster but we’ll also make more mistakes.Explain how the examples of tying shoes and learning to type demonstrate the principle of audience effects.TPO 3Cognitive DissonanceIndividuals sometimes experience a contradiction between their actions and their beliefs –between what they are doing and what they believe they should be doing. These contradictions can cause a kind of mental discomfort known as cognitive dissonance. People experiencing cognitive dissonance often do not want to change the way they are acting, so they resolve the contradictory situation in another way; they change their interpretation of the situation in a way that minimizes the contradiction between what they are doing and what they believe they should be doing.Using the example discussed by the professor, explain what cognitive dissonance is and how people often deal with itNow listen to part of a lecture about this topic in a Sociology class.Professor (male)This is a true story from my own life. In my first year in high school,I was addicted to video games. I played them all the time and I wasn’t study ing enough. I was failing Chemistry that was my hardest class. So this was a conflict for me because I wanted a good job when I grew up and I believed, I knew, that if you want a good career you gotta do well in school. But I just couldn’t give up video ga mes! I was completely torn. And my solution was to change my perspective. See, the only class I was doing really badly in was Chemistry. In the others, I was OK. So I asked myself if I wanted to be a chemist when I grew up? And the fact is I didn’t. I was pretty sure I wanted to be a sociologist. So I told myself my chemistry class didn’t matter, because sociologist don’t need to know chemistry. In other words, I changed my understanding of what it meant to do well in school. I reinterpreted my situation. I used to think that doing well in school meant doing well in all my classes. But now I decided that succeeding in school meant only doing well in the classes that related directly with my future career.I eliminated the conflict, at least in my mind.Using the example discussed by the professor, explain what cognitive dissonance is and how people often deal with it..Nonverbal LanguagesNonverbal language refers to human emotional expressions without involving verbal statements. Facial expressions and body movements are the two mostly attributed types of nonverbal languages. It is generally believed that nonverbal languages function as the enhancement of emotional expressions when they consist with verbal languages. Under the circumstances that nonverbal languages and verbal languages contradicts in the contents they express, nonverbal languages are more likely to release people’s true emotions.Explain how the examples from the professor’s lecture illustrate the relationship between verbal and nonverbal communicationTask 4：Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a psychology course.Professor (male)Last month, my favorite uncle paid me a surprise visit. I hadn’t seen him in many years. The door bell rang, I opened the door and there was uncle Pete.Now, I am sure when I saw him I said something like, “Uncle Pete, what a surprise!How nice to see you.” Anyway, my wife was standing next to me, and according to her, I wasn’t really aware of this, my eyes got really wide and I broke into a huge big smile, she said I was really jumping up and down like a little boy. Well, anyway, later that evening uncle Pete told me how very very good he felt when he saw how happy I was to see him.But compared that with this: my daughter, she’s six, we were building a bird house together last week, and I was showing her how to use a hammer and a nail. And, of course, stupi d me, I wasn’t being very careful when I smashed my thumb with the hammer. Boy, it hurt! I almost felt like screaming, but I didn’t want to upset my daughter, so I said, “Don’t worry, honey. It’s nothing.” Meanwhile, I was shaking my hand as if that would stop my thumb from hurting and my face was contorted in pain.My voice was trembling, too. So, even though I told my daughter I was OK, I am sure she didn’t believe me, because she kept asking me if I was OK.Explain how the examples from the professor’s l ecture illustrate the relationship between verbal and nonverbal communication.Read a passage about Target Marketing. You will have 45 seconds to read the passage.Begin reading now.Target MarketingAdvertisers in the past have used radio and television in an attempt to provide information about their products to large, general audiences; it was once thought that the best way to sell a product was to advertise it to as many people as possible. However, more recent trends in advertising have turned toward target marketing. Target marketing is the strategy of advertising to smaller, very specific audiences –audiences that have been determined to have the greatest need or desire for the product being marketed. Target marketing has proved to be very effective in reaching potential customers.Using the professor’s examples, explain the advertising technique of target marketing.Task 4：Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a marketing class.Professor(male)Nowadays something you notice more and more is television commercials that are made specifically for certain television programs. So, lets say,uh, a company wants to sell a telephone, a cell phone. Now during TV shows that young people watch, you know shows with pop music or teen serials, they create a commercial that emphasizes how fun the phone is. You know, the phone has bright colors and they show kids having a good time with their friends. And, well, the company wants the kids watching TV at this time to want to buy this phone, th is phone that’s made especially for them.But, the same company will make a different commercial to be shown during, say, a program about business or a business news show. Now, for this group of people, business people, the company will have to show how efficient their phone is, how it can handle all business easily and maybe even save money. And here is the thing: it’s basically the same phone. The company has just made two different commercials to appeal to different groups of people.Using the profess or’s examples, explain the advertising technique of target marketing.TPO 6You have 45 seconds to read a passage from a psychology textbook. Begin reading now.Explicit Memories and Implicit MemoriesIn everyday life, when people speak of memory, they are almost always speaking about what psychologists would call explicit memories. An explicit memory is a conscious or intentional recollection, usually of facts, names, events, or other things that a person can state or declare. There is another kind of memory that is not conscious. Memories of this kind are called implicit memories. An individual can have an experience that he or she cannot consciously recall yet still display reactions that indicate the experience has been somehow recorded in his or her brain.Using the example of the car advertisement, explain what is meant by implicit memory.Task 4：Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a psychology class.(male professor)OK, um, the first kind of memory, we’re all very familiar with this,right? You probably remember what you had for dinner last night. You have a conscious memory of last night’s dinner so, um, if I ask you what did you eat last night, you could tell me.But these other kinds of memories, implicit memories, they work differently. Let’s take an example from the world of advertising. When you are driving along a highway,you see plenty of billboards, you know, road side advertisements. You certainly don’t remember them all, but they still affect you. Marketing researchers have shown, well to be specific, let’s say there’s a billboard on the highway advertising, uh, a car called the Panther. The ad shows a big picture of the car and above the car, in huge letters, is the name of the car, Panther. A lot of people drive by the billboard, but ask those drivers later if they saw any advertisements for cars, and well, they’ll think about it and a lot of them will say no. They honestly don’t remember seeing any. They have no conscious memory of the Panther billboard.So, you ask these same people a different question. You ask, um, OK, you ask them to name an animal starting with a letter P. What do you think they’ll answer? Do they say Pig? Pig is the most common animal that starts with the letter P. But they don’t say Pig. They s ay Panther! The billboard had an effect, even though the drivers don’t remember ever seeing it.Using the example of the car advertisement, explain what is meant by implicit memory.Behavior ModificationIndividuals often modify their behavior based on what they have learned about the possible consequences of their actions. When an individual learns through experience that a certain behavior results in pleasant consequences, that behavior is likely to be repeated. An unpleasant consequence, on the other hand, discourages further repetition of the behavior. While behavior modification can be observed in experiments, it also occurs frequently in everyday settings, when individuals change their behavior based on what they have learned about the consequences of that behavior.Using the example from the lecture, explain what behavior modification is and how it works.Task 4：Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic in a Psychology class.(male)This happe ns all the time with kids in schools. Say there was a little boy or girl who’s just starting school. Well, they’re not really used to the rules about proper behaviors for classroom. So at the beginning they might, I don’t know, interrupt the teacher, walk around the classroom when they’re supposed to be sitting down. You know, just misbehaving in general.OK, but, what happens? Well, the teacher gets angry with them when they act this way. They might get punished. They have to sit at their desks when everyone else is allowed to go outside and play. And they certainly don’t like that. Soon, they’ll learn that this kind of behavior gets them in trouble. They’ll also learn that when they raise their hand to talk to the teacher and sit quietly and pay attention during class, they are rewarded.The teacher tells them she’s proud of them and maybe puts a little happy-face sticker on their homework. Now that their behavior gets a good reaction from the teacher, the kids learn to always act this way in class. And not behave the way they used to.Using the example from the lecture, explain what behavior modification is and how it works.Revealing ColorationMany animals use coloration to protect themselves from predators. One defensive strategy involving the use of coloration is what is known as revealing coloration. Animals employing this strategy have an area of bright color on some part of their body, this bright color is usually hidden from predators’view. When approached by a predator, the animal suddenly reveals the area of bright color, this unexpected display of color startles or confuses the predator and provides the would-be-prey with an opportunity to escape.Using the example of the Peanut Bug and the morpho butterfly, explain the concept of revealing coloration.Task 4：Now listen to part of a lecture from a biology class.(male)There’s a large tropical insect called the Peanut Bug. Yes, lik e the peanuts you eat. Um, and the Peanut Bugs front wings are colored so they blend in with their surroundings. But its back wings, which are usually closed and hidden, have these bright colorful spots on them. And when the Peanut Bugs are attacked, it suddenly opens its back wings and out pop these bright colors. And that surprises the predator and gives the Peanut Bug a chance to get away.Um, then you have a butterfly called the morpho butterfly. And parts of the morpho butterfly wings are very shiny. They reflect a lot of sunlight. When this butterfly is resting, this shiny part of its wings is hidden. Now morpho butterflies are often attacked by birds. So when a bird approaches, the morpho flies away. And when the morpho flaps its wings, all the bird can see are flashes of light reflected from the morpho’s wings. Those flashes of light make it very difficult for the bird to follow the morpho. And the morpho is usually able to get away.Using the example of the Peanut Bug and the morpho butterfly, explain the concept of revealing coloration.The Establishing ShotFilm directors use different types of camera shots for specific purposes. An establishing shot is an image shown briefly at the beginning of a scene, usually taken from far away, that is used to provide context for the rest of the scene. One purpose of the establishing shot is to communicate background information to the viewer, such as the setting – where and when the rest of the scene will occur. It also establishes the mood or feeling of the scene. Due to the context that the establishing shot provide, the characters and events that are shown next are better understood by the viewer.Using the professor’s example, explain what an establishing shot is and how it is used.Task 4：Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a film class.(male)The other day I went to this great new movie. And one of the scenes in particular I thought was really set up nicely. At the start of the scene, before the action and talking things started, you saw on the movie screen an image of a city. You could tell it was a big city. There were lots of buildings, tall ones, skyscrapers, and the cars and signs on the city streets looked old fashioned, like they were from the past, like the 1940s.The other thing I noticed right away from this first image, just when the scene started, was that the city seemed gloomy. You couldn’t see much because it was, well, it was mostly darkness rather than sunlight. And there was only just little bit of light from street lamps. On top of that, it was raining and kind of foggy.All of these details were together to create a dark, gloomy, mysterious feeling. So then, when the action started and it showed detectives talking to each other in the office, I already knew that the office was located in a tall building, in a big city, sometime in the 1940s. And I had a good idea that the events that’d be taking place would be pretty dark and mysterious because of the shot, the image I saw at the beginning of the scene.U sing the professor’s example, explain what an establishing shot is and how it is used.Read the passage from a marketing textbook. You have 50 seconds to read the passage. Begin reading now.Entertainment MerchandisingAn effective, widely used marketing practice in the entertainment industry is entertainment merchandising. Entertainment merchandising is a form of marketing in which the brand or image from one product is also used to sell another. The practice of entertainment merchandising often occurs in connection with movies and television shows, especially those associated with children. For example, the success of a popular children’s television show may result in the marketing of toys that are designed to look like c haracters in the show. Or the situ ation may be reversed when a children’s television show is written to include characters that are based on already-popular toys.Using the examples from the lecture, explain the concept of Entertainment Merchandising.Task 4：Now listen to a lecture from a marketing class.(male professor):OK, so I’ve actually got a few different examples of this. You know, uh, when I was a kid, a character named Action Hero was really popular with my friends and me. We would always watch the Action Hero program on television every week and played games pretending we were strong and powerful as he was. Then pretty soon we began seeing these small Action Hero figures in all the stores. And, well, we all just had to have them. I mean, we’ve been watching the t elevision show for so long that it seemed only natural to want to own toys, too.Well, I finally grew up and left Action Hero television program and toys behind. But, now, I have a 7-year-old daughter who watches television a lot and also like to play with her toys. And lately her favorite toy is a cute little baby doll with a big round face and lots of curly hair named Rosa. All my daughter’s friends have Rosa dolls, too. And they enjoy going to each other’s houses to play with them. Then a few weeks ago, my daughter came running up to me all excited because she just heard that there is going to be a new television program on every week with the doll, Rosa, as the main character. So naturally she and all her friends have begun watching the show. And it’s a lready very popular, as popular as the toy doll.Using the examples from the lecture, explain the concept of Entertainment Merchandising.Outsider ArtOutsider Art is a term used to describe art that is made by people who choose to live and work outside society. The artists who produce this kind of art – Outsider Artists –work in isolation from other artists and have little or no formal artistic training. Because they do not learn conventional artistic techniques from teachers or other artists, Outsider Artists must invent their own ways of doing things. As a result of the unconventional methods that Outsider Artists often use, their work can look strange and not at all like traditional art to the observer.Explain why Henry Dodger is considered an Outsider Artist.Task 4：Now listen to part of a lecture in an Art History class.(professor)All right, so let’s consider the works of outsider artist Henry Dodger. Dodger lived by himself in a tiny apartment in Chicago in the 1900s. He had no friends and spent all his spare time their alone creating hundreds of paintings and drawings. He had never formally studied art and kept his work completely private, so no one ever saw it or responded to it during his life time.And so, when you see Dodger’s work you notice how unique it is. It doesn’t remind you of anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s very much his own. For example, one piece, it’s a water-color painting, in this piece he illustrates a story, about the adventure of seven children. But see, Dodger had a really hard time drawing human figures. Yet he managed to come up with his own rather unique solution for the problem. He simply cut out pictures of children from newspapers and magazines and pasted them into his own painted illustrations of trees, flowers and grass.The results look, um, a little strange. Dodger’s picture looks more cluttered, more crowded with details than the pictures of other artists, because its entire surface is painted and there are no spaces left empty. It’s also a lot longer than pictures of most other artists, about nine feet long.Explain why Henry Dodger is considered an Outsider Artist.Subliminal PerceptionHumans are constantly perceiving visual and auditory stimuli. Sometimes our perception of these stimuli occurs consciously, we are aware of a stimulus and know that we are perceiving it. But our perception of a stimulus can also occur without our awareness: an image might appear and disappear before our eyes too quickly for us to notice that we saw it, or a sound might be too faint for us to realize that we heard it. This phenomenon –the perception of a stimulus just below the threshold of conscious awareness –is called subliminal perce ption. Experiments have shown that subliminally perceived stimuli can influence people’s thoughts and attitudes.Describe what subliminal perception is and explain how the experiment discussed by the professor illustrates this phenomenon.Task 4：Now, listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a psychology class.(male professor)Consider this experiment. Two groups of people were asked to watch TV and while they are watching a picture flashed on the screen less than a second, very quickly so it was barely noticeable.The picture was a boy with a birthday cake. Now, like I said, there were two groups and each group saw a slightly different version of the picture. One group got the boy looking angry, in fact, he was actually throwing the cake on the floor. The other group got a picture of the boy smiling, happy, holding up the cake like he was offering it . Same boy, same cake but different emotions expressed in each picture.Everyone was then asked to look at a different image. Now, this is a third image, right? Again, it’s the boy and the cake, but this time the image stayed on the screen. In this picture, the boy’s just holding the cake basically no emotion on his face, everything very neutral.Now, remember, nobody knew they’d already seen a picture o f this boy. After a minute, everyone was asked to describe the boy’s personality. Those who’d been exposed to the image of the angry boy, they generally described the boy’s personality negatively. Those who’d earlier seen the happy boy described him, well, positively.Describe what subliminal perception is and explain how the experiment discussed by the professor illustrates this phenomenon.Now read the passage from a psychology textbook. You have 50 seconds to read the passage.Perceptual ConstancyHow an object affects our senses depends in part on external conditions, and these conditions are always changing. An object viewed from one angle presents a different shapes to our eye than when viewed from another angle; similarly, as the distance from which we view an object changes, the object will appear larger or smaller. In spite of this, even as conditions change and we see objects differently, we still recognize that they remain the same. This is what is known as perceptual constancy. If not for perceptual constancy, we might have difficulty recognizing familiar objects if we viewed them in a new and different context. Explain what is meant by perceptual constancy using the examples provided by the professor.Task 4：Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic in a psychology class.(Male Professor)Let’s take an everyday example an ordinary round plate like you’d find in a kitchen. If you hold the plate directly in front of your face and look at it ,what shape do you see? A perfect circle, right?Suppose you tilt the plate to a different angle, to a horizontal position, like you’re planning to put food on it, still a perfect circle? No! The circle is now stretched out, flattened into an oval . Do you conclude the plate had actually cha nged shape? Or that it’s a different object, not the same plate? Of course not! It looks different, but we perceive it as still being the same.Here’s a different example. This classroom we’re in. It’s fairly large, right?Now, from up close, from the fr ont row, I appear to be relatively big, bigger than if you’re in the last row, right? But let’s say you’re sitting in the front row today but tomorrow you’re sitting in the back row. From back there I’m going to look smaller, but you don’t think I’ve actually gotten smaller. You don’t think you’re seeing a different professor, a guy who looks like me except he’s smaller. No matter where you are, up close or far away, you understand without even thinking about it, that I’m the same size, the same person. Explain what is meant by perceptual constancy using the examples provided by the professor.。