托福考试听力部分：练习十一

　　Professor: OK. We’ve been discussing the planets in our solar system and how some of the ones farthest from the sun were discovered.

　　Well, today I’d like to turn to what are called exoplanets and how researchers detect them. Maria?

　　Student: Exoplanets are planets that orbit around a star other than our Sun, right?

　　They are not in our solar system.

　　Professor: Right. They have different...what are called host stars.

　　And the study of exoplanets have been getting more and more exciting, hundreds of them have been discovered so far.

　　This is quite remarkable in view of the fact that the discovery of the first exoplanet was confirmed only in the mid-1990s.

　　Now we’re finding new ones every few weeks or so.

　　Student: So, uh, exactly why are we interested in these exoplanets anyway? Is it to see if there’s life on them?

　　Because it seems to me like the only exoplanets we ever hear about are gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn that couldn’t possibly support carbon-based life.

　　Professor: OK.Well, let’s talk about that. First, as for discovering life. Well, I think that sort of discovery is pretty far in the future, but it is an eventual goal.

　　For now, the focus is on locating planets within a host star’s so-called habitable zone, a zone that’s a certain distance from its star because only planets within this zone could conceivably support carbon-based life.

　　教授：我们一直在讨论我们太阳系中的星球，以及一些离太阳最远的是如何被发现的。

　　那么，今天我想把话题转向外星星球，以及研究人员是如何探测到它们的。Maria?

　　学生：外星星球就是那些环绕着一颗不同于我们的太阳的恒星运行的星球，对吧?

　　它们不在我们的太阳系中。

　　教授：没错，它们有不同的寄主星。

　　对外星星球的研究正变得越来越令人兴奋，目前为止已经发现好几百个了。

　　鉴于二十世纪九十年代中期才确定发现了第一颗外星星球，这相当值得一提。

　　现在我们大约每几个星期就能发现新的。

　　学生：那么我们究竟为何对这些外星星球这么感兴趣呢?是为了看看上面是否存在生命吗?

　　因为在我看来，我们听说过的唯一几个外星星球比如木星和土星都是满是气体的庞然大物，根本不可能支持以碳为基础的生命。

　　教授：好的，我们来讲一下。首先关于发现生命。我想那种发现还要在很久之后的未来进行，不过它是一个最终目标。

　　就目前而言，焦点是在一个寄主星的所谓的适居带内定位星球，这个适居带离恒星有一段距离，因为只有在这个适居带内的星球才有可能支持以碳为基础的生命。

　　2016年托福考试考场模拟训练及答案1-10

　　2016年托福阅读预测模拟练习汇总