TOEFL iBT 模擬考 Mock 5 — 混合主題（實戰級）
難度：實戰級 Exam-Level（最難） 建議時間：約 2 小時完整練習 主題方向：混合（人類學、經濟學、天文物理學、生態學、語言學、公共衛生）
威威老師的話：Mock 5 是最接近真實 TOEFL 考試難度的模擬考。如果你能順利完成這份考題並達到目標分數，你就可以信心滿滿地上考場了。這份考題的詞彙、推理深度和跨領域混合度都調到了實戰等級。慢慢來，細心思考——真正的實力在壓力下才會顯現！
📖 READING Section
時間限制：35 分鐘 | 20 題 | 2 篇文章
Passage 1: The Evolution of Human Bipedalism — Competing Hypotheses
Directions: Read the passage below and answer the questions. You have 18 minutes for this passage.
The emergence of habitual bipedal locomotion — walking upright on two legs — is widely recognized as the defining adaptive shift that launched the hominin lineage on a trajectory toward modern humans. All other uniquely human traits — large brains, tool use, language — emerged in creatures that were already bipedal. Understanding WHY our ancestors adopted this peculiar mode of locomotion, which exposes the vulnerable underbelly, makes climbing more difficult, and complicates childbirth, has been a central preoccupation of paleoanthropology for over a century. The difficulty is not a shortage of hypotheses — there are many — but rather the challenge of testing them against a fossil record that preserves only a fraction of the relevant evidence.
The oldest and most persistent hypothesis, associated with Charles Darwin himself, is the “savanna hypothesis.” Darwin proposed that as East African forests contracted during the late Miocene and Pliocene epochs, our ancestors were forced to adapt to more open, grassy environments. In such landscapes, upright posture would have conferred several advantages: the ability to see over tall grasses to spot predators and prey, reduced exposure to solar radiation (a vertical body presents less surface area to the midday sun than a horizontal one), and the freeing of the hands to carry food, tools, and infants across open terrain. For decades, this narrative was so dominant that bipedalism was effectively equated with the “exit from the forest.”
In the 1990s and 2000s, however, the savanna hypothesis encountered serious empirical challenges. The discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus — a 4.4-million-year-old hominin from Ethiopia that was clearly a facultative biped yet lived in a wooded, forested environment — undermined the notion that bipedalism evolved specifically for open-country living. If the earliest known bipeds inhabited woodlands, then bipedalism must have originated in a context quite different from the one Darwin envisioned. This finding was complemented by paleoecological reconstructions suggesting that the East African landscape of the late Miocene was more heterogeneous than previously thought — a mosaic of forest, woodland, and grassland rather than a uniform savanna.
An alternative hypothesis that has gained considerable traction is the “postural feeding” model. Originally proposed by Kevin Hunt in the 1990s, this model suggests that bipedalism evolved not for walking but for feeding. Observations of chimpanzees — our closest living relatives — reveal that they frequently stand upright on two legs when reaching for fruit on small, flexible branches that cannot support their full weight in a quadrupedal posture. Over evolutionary time, this feeding-related bipedal posture, employed initially for short durations, could have been extended into a habitual mode of locomotion. The postural feeding model has the advantage of explaining bipedalism’s origin in a wooded, food-rich environment of the type indicated by the Ardipithecus evidence.
A more recent entrant into the debate is the “carrying hypothesis,” which emphasizes the selective advantage conferred by freeing the hands. Proponents argue that provisioning — males carrying food to females and offspring — would have improved reproductive success by reducing the time nursing mothers spent foraging and by strengthening pair bonds. This hypothesis is particularly appealing to some researchers because it links bipedalism to the evolution of human social organization and cooperative behavior, giving locomotion an explicit reproductive and social logic rather than treating it as a purely mechanical adaptation.
The debate remains unresolved, which is in fact a sign of intellectual health. The most plausible resolution may be that multiple selective pressures — predator detection, thermoregulation, feeding, and carrying — operated simultaneously or sequentially, with their relative importance shifting as environments changed and as bipedalism itself opened new adaptive possibilities. As with many evolutionary transitions, asking “what caused bipedalism?” may be less productive than asking “what suite of conditions made bipedalism the best available option for our lineage at a particular time and place?”
Glossary:
- bipedalism: 雙足行走
- hominin: 人亞科（人類演化分支）
- facultative biped: 兼性雙足動物（可行雙足但非專性的）
- Paleoecological: 古生態學的
- thermoregulation: 體溫調節
Questions 1–10: Passage 1
Question 1 — Factual Information According to paragraph 1, which of the following is cited as a disadvantage of bipedal locomotion? (A) Reduced running speed (B) Exposure of the vulnerable underbelly and complications for childbirth (C) Inability to use tools (D) Increased energy consumption compared to quadrupedal movement
Question 2 — Vocabulary The word “conferred” in paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to: (A) removed (B) conferred (C) provided (D) denied
Question 3 — Factual Information According to paragraph 2, what advantage does upright posture provide in open environments? (A) The ability to run faster than quadrupedal predators (B) Reduced solar radiation exposure due to smaller sun-exposed surface area (C) Improved sense of smell for detecting food (D) Enhanced ability to swim across rivers
Question 4 — Inference What can be inferred from the discovery of Ardipithecus ramidus? (A) Bipedalism evolved exclusively in savanna environments (B) Bipedalism was already present in hominins that lived in wooded environments (C) Ardipithecus could not actually walk upright (D) The savanna hypothesis was completely correct
Question 5 — Rhetorical Purpose Why does the author discuss chimpanzee feeding behavior in paragraph 4? (A) To argue that chimpanzees are directly ancestral to humans (B) To provide a modern analog supporting the postural feeding model of bipedalism’s origin (C) To suggest that bipedalism offered no advantages for feeding (D) To prove that chimpanzees will eventually evolve into bipeds
Question 6 — Negative Factual Information All of the following hypotheses for the origin of bipedalism are discussed in the passage EXCEPT: (A) The savanna hypothesis (B) The postural feeding model (C) The aquatic ape hypothesis (D) The carrying hypothesis
Question 7 — Sentence Simplification Which of the following best expresses the essential information of the highlighted sentence in paragraph 3? “If the earliest known bipeds inhabited woodlands, then bipedalism must have originated in a context quite different from the one Darwin envisioned.” (A) Darwin was correct that bipedalism evolved in savannas (B) The woodland habitat of early bipeds challenges Darwin’s open-savanna model (C) Woodlands are essentially the same as savannas (D) The earliest bipeds did not actually live in forests
Question 8 — Insert Text Look at the four squares [A], [B], [C], [D] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to paragraph 5.
“This would have represented a fundamental departure from the chimpanzee pattern, in which males rarely share food with females or young.”
A more recent entrant into the debate is the “carrying hypothesis,” which emphasizes the selective advantage conferred by freeing the hands. [A] Proponents argue that provisioning — males carrying food to females and offspring — would have improved reproductive success by reducing the time nursing mothers spent foraging and by strengthening pair bonds. [B] This hypothesis is particularly appealing to some researchers because it links bipedalism to the evolution of human social organization and cooperative behavior, giving locomotion an explicit reproductive and social logic rather than treating it as a purely mechanical adaptation. [C]
Where would the sentence best fit? (A) A (B) B (C) C
Question 9 — Factual Information According to paragraph 6, what does the author suggest about the resolution of the bipedalism debate? (A) One hypothesis has been definitively proven (B) Multiple selective pressures likely operated in combination, making single-cause explanations insufficient (C) The fossil record provides no useful information at all (D) Bipedalism was an accidental mutation with no adaptive function
Question 10 — Prose Summary Directions: Select the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage.
- (A) Bipedalism is the foundational adaptation of the human lineage, but explaining its origin has proven challenging due to limits of the fossil record.
- (B) The savanna hypothesis, once dominant, has been challenged by fossil evidence showing early bipeds lived in wooded environments.
- (C) Ardipithecus ramidus was discovered in Ethiopia and dates to 4.4 million years ago.
- (D) Alternative models — postural feeding and the carrying hypothesis — propose that bipedalism evolved for specific foraging or social purposes rather than for open-country walking.
- (E) The current consensus favors a multi-causal explanation in which several selective pressures operated in combination.
- (F) Chimpanzees are currently evolving bipedalism as a response to deforestation.
Passage 2: Microfinance — Promise, Performance, and Reassessment
Directions: Read the passage below and answer the questions. You have 17 minutes for this passage.
In 2006, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering the concept of microfinance — the provision of small loans, savings accounts, and other financial services to poor individuals who lack access to conventional banking. The award represented the culmination of decades of advocacy for the idea that access to credit could serve as a powerful tool for poverty alleviation. Yunus argued that the poor are fundamentally entrepreneurial and that the primary barrier they face is not a lack of skills, ambition, or market opportunities but a lack of capital. With small loans — often as little as 100 — borrowers could invest in income-generating activities, lift themselves out of poverty, and repay their loans at high rates. The model appeared to align the logic of markets with the goals of social justice in an almost elegant fusion.
The subsequent growth of microfinance was explosive. By the late 2000s, microfinance institutions, or MFIs, were operating in virtually every developing country, with tens of millions of borrowers worldwide. The model was also attracting substantial commercial investment. Between 2004 and 2008, foreign capital flowing into microfinance grew at an estimated annual rate of 65 percent, and several large MFIs launched initial public offerings, transforming themselves from donor-dependent nonprofits into profit-seeking enterprises with shareholders to satisfy.
This financialization of the sector generated a series of controversies that ultimately prompted a fundamental reassessment of microfinance’s impact. In India’s Andhra Pradesh state, which had one of the highest concentrations of microfinance activity in the world, aggressive lending practices by multiple MFIs led to widespread over-indebtedness among poor borrowers. Reports emerged of coercive collection practices and, tragically, of borrower suicides. In 2010, the Andhra Pradesh government effectively shut down microfinance operations in the state, citing predatory lending and borrower harassment.
The Andhra crisis catalyzed a more rigorous empirical scrutiny of microfinance. The results of randomized controlled trials, or RCTs — the gold standard for causal inference in development economics — began to accumulate and painted a more modest picture than the early advocacy had suggested. A series of influential studies published between 2009 and 2015 found that while microcredit did increase business investment among some borrowers, it did not, on average, produce transformative increases in household income, consumption, or measures of well-being such as health and education. A six-country synthesis of RCT results published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics in 2015 concluded that microcredit’s effects were “modest, not transformative.”
The reassessment, however, has not been entirely negative. More recent research has begun to identify the conditions under which microfinance does produce meaningful benefits. Loans appear to be most effective when combined with other interventions — skills training, market linkages, health services — rather than offered as a standalone product. The poorest of the poor, who are often risk-averse and lack viable business opportunities, tend to benefit least from standard microcredit, while slightly better-off “entrepreneurial poor” benefit more. These findings suggest not that microfinance is useless but that its original conception was oversimplified: credit alone, without capabilities and opportunities, is insufficient to generate sustained poverty reduction.
The evolution of the microfinance debate offers a cautionary tale about the relationship between development interventions and rigorous evidence. The initial enthusiasm was driven more by compelling anecdotes and moral conviction than by systematic data. It took a crisis to motivate the kind of careful empirical evaluation that should ideally precede, not follow, widespread adoption. As the sector continues to evolve — toward digital finance, mobile money, and integrated service models — the lesson is that good intentions are no substitute for good evidence.
Questions 11–20: Passage 2
Question 11 — Factual Information According to paragraph 1, what did Muhammad Yunus identify as the primary barrier facing poor entrepreneurs? (A) A lack of business skills (B) Insufficient market demand for their products (C) A lack of access to capital (D) Poor infrastructure and transportation
Question 12 — Vocabulary The word “align” in paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to: (A) separate (B) harmonize (C) contradict (D) ignore
Question 13 — Factual Information According to paragraph 2, what was the annual growth rate of foreign capital flowing into microfinance between 2004 and 2008? (A) About 15 percent (B) About 35 percent (C) An estimated 65 percent (D) Over 100 percent
Question 14 — Inference What can be inferred about the impact of microfinance “financialization” mentioned in paragraph 3? (A) It improved lending practices by introducing market discipline (B) The pursuit of profit may have contributed to predatory lending and over-indebtedness (C) It led to better regulation of microfinance institutions (D) It made microfinance more accessible to the poorest borrowers
Question 15 — Rhetorical Purpose Why does the author mention the Andhra Pradesh crisis? (A) To depict a success story of microfinance implementation (B) To illustrate the negative consequences that prompted rigorous evaluation of microfinance (C) To compare Indian microfinance with that of other countries (D) To argue that the government should not regulate financial services
Question 16 — Negative Factual Information According to the passage, the RCT studies found all of the following EXCEPT: (A) Microcredit increased business investment for some borrowers (B) Microcredit produced transformative increases in household income on average (C) Microcredit had modest rather than transformative effects overall (D) Standard microcredit was less beneficial for the poorest of the poor
Question 17 — Sentence Simplification Which of the following best expresses the essential information of the highlighted sentence in paragraph 5? “These findings suggest not that microfinance is useless but that its original conception was oversimplified: credit alone, without capabilities and opportunities, is insufficient to generate sustained poverty reduction.” (A) Microfinance has been proven completely ineffective and should be abandoned (B) Microfinance works best as a standalone intervention without additional services (C) The original model was too simple — credit must be combined with skills and opportunities to produce lasting effects (D) Skills training is more important than access to credit for poverty reduction
Question 18 — Insert Text Look at the four squares [A], [B], [C], [D] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to paragraph 6.
“In this sense, the microfinance story mirrors a broader pattern in development economics.”
The evolution of the microfinance debate offers a cautionary tale about the relationship between development interventions and rigorous evidence. [A] The initial enthusiasm was driven more by compelling anecdotes and moral conviction than by systematic data. [B] It took a crisis to motivate the kind of careful empirical evaluation that should ideally precede, not follow, widespread adoption. [C] As the sector continues to evolve — toward digital finance, mobile money, and integrated service models — the lesson is that good intentions are no substitute for good evidence. [D]
Where would the sentence best fit? (A) A (B) B (C) C (D) D
Question 19 — Factual Information According to paragraph 5, which type of borrowers tends to benefit most from microcredit? (A) The poorest of the poor (B) Slightly better-off “entrepreneurial poor” with viable business opportunities (C) Large-scale business owners (D) Urban professionals with formal employment
Question 20 — Prose Summary Directions: Select the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage.
- (A) Microfinance was founded on the idea that small loans could empower the poor to escape poverty through entrepreneurship, a concept that won the Nobel Peace Prize.
- (B) The sector grew rapidly and attracted commercial investment, leading to a financialization that contributed to predatory practices and a crisis in Andhra Pradesh.
- (C) Muhammad Yunus founded the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh.
- (D) Rigorous RCT evidence revealed that microcredit has modest rather than transformative effects, and works best combined with other interventions.
- (E) The microfinance story illustrates the broader lesson that development interventions should be evaluated rigorously before widespread adoption.
- (F) Randomized controlled trials are not useful for evaluating poverty reduction programs.
🎧 LISTENING Section
時間限制：36 分鐘 | 28 題
Lecture 1: Astrophysics — The Fermi Paradox
Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an astrophysics class.
Professor: Sometime in the summer of 1950, the physicist Enrico Fermi was walking to lunch with colleagues at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The conversation turned to a recent spate of UFO reports and then, more broadly, to the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. Fermi, characteristically, did a quick mental calculation. Given the vast number of stars in the Milky Way — roughly 100 to 400 billion — many of them billions of years older than our sun, it seemed statistically inevitable that intelligent civilizations had arisen elsewhere. And given billions of years of head start, some of those civilizations should have developed interstellar travel and colonized the galaxy. Yet we see no evidence of them. Fermi’s question was deceptively simple: “Where is everybody?” That question has come to be known as the Fermi Paradox, and it remains one of the most provocative unsolved puzzles in science.
The standard approach to the Fermi Paradox is through the Drake Equation, formulated by Frank Drake in 1961. The equation multiplies a series of factors: the rate of star formation in the galaxy, the fraction of stars with planets, the number of habitable planets per star system, the fraction on which life emerges, the fraction that develop intelligent life, the fraction that develop detectable technology, and the average lifetime of such technological civilizations. When Drake and his colleagues first plugged in what seemed like reasonable estimates, they got a number in the thousands — thousands of communicating civilizations in our galaxy alone. This apparent contradiction between high probability and zero evidence is the paradox in formal dress.
Resolutions to the Fermi Paradox fall into several categories. One possibility is that the Drake Equation overestimates some factors. Perhaps the origin of life, while chemically plausible, is astronomically improbable. Perhaps the transition from single-celled to complex life — which took over two billion years on Earth — is an extraordinarily rare event. Perhaps intelligent, technological life tends to destroy itself — through war, environmental collapse, or the unintended consequences of its own technology — before it can colonize the stars. This is sometimes grimly referred to as the “Great Filter” hypothesis: something prevents life from reaching the point of galactic-scale colonization, and the terrifying question is whether that filter lies behind us or ahead of us.
Another category of resolution is that the evidence exists but we are not recognizing it. Perhaps alien civilizations communicate through means we have not thought to look for — not radio waves but neutrino beams, gravitational waves, or something completely beyond our current physics. Or perhaps they are deliberately avoiding contact — what’s called the “zoo hypothesis,” the idea that advanced civilizations are observing us but have agreed not to interfere, the way we might observe animals in a nature reserve.
A third, more unsettling possibility is that we are genuinely alone — that Earth harbors the only intelligent life in the galaxy, or perhaps the universe. While this resolution fits the evidence perfectly — no signs of alien life because there is none — most scientists find it deeply unsatisfying on philosophical grounds. It would mean that of the hundreds of billions of planets in the Milky Way, only one produced beings capable of asking the question.
Questions 21–26: Lecture 1
Question 21 — Gist What is the lecture mainly about? (A) The biography of Enrico Fermi (B) The Fermi Paradox — the contradiction between high probability of alien life and the absence of evidence — and possible resolutions (C) How to build a radio telescope to search for extraterrestrial signals (D) The history of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Question 22 — Detail According to the professor, roughly how many stars are in the Milky Way? (A) 1 to 4 million (B) 10 to 40 billion (C) 100 to 400 billion (D) 1 to 4 trillion
Question 23 — Detail What is the “Great Filter” hypothesis? (A) A theory that the universe is filtered by gravitational waves (B) Something that prevents life from reaching the point of galactic colonization, with the scary question being whether it lies behind or ahead of humanity (C) A method for filtering radio signals to detect alien communications (D) A hypothesis that explains why Earth is uniquely suited for life
Question 24 — Function Why does the professor say the Fermi Paradox is “one of the most provocative unsolved puzzles in science”? (A) To suggest that no one has seriously tried to solve it (B) To emphasize the depth and philosophical importance of the question (C) To criticize Fermi for asking an unscientific question (D) To argue that the paradox has been definitively solved
Question 25 — Organization How does the professor structure the lecture? (A) Chronologically, following Fermi’s career (B) By presenting the paradox, explaining the Drake Equation, and categorizing possible resolutions (C) By comparing different galaxies in the local group (D) By refuting each resolution to show the paradox cannot be solved
Question 26 — Inference What can be inferred about the professor’s view of the “zoo hypothesis”? (A) He believes it is the most likely resolution (B) He presents it as one possibility among several, without endorsing it (C) He dismisses it as nonsensical (D) He believes there is direct evidence supporting it
Lecture 2: Ecology — Keystone Species and Trophic Cascades
Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in an ecology class.
Professor: In the 1960s, a young ecologist named Robert Paine conducted an experiment that would fundamentally reshape how ecologists think about community structure. Paine was studying the rocky intertidal zone on the coast of Washington state, and he noticed that a particular species — the ochre sea star, Pisaster ochraceus — seemed to have an influence on the ecosystem disproportionate to its abundance. To test this, Paine did something that today would be difficult to get approved: he systematically removed all the Pisaster from a section of the intertidal zone and observed what happened.
The results were dramatic. Within a year, the mussel Mytilus californianus, which the sea star preyed upon, expanded explosively into space previously occupied by a diverse assemblage of barnacles, limpets, and algae. Species diversity in the sea-star-removal plot dropped from about 15 species to roughly 5. The sea star, by preying on the competitively dominant mussel, had been preventing that single species from monopolizing the habitat and thereby maintaining conditions that allowed many other species to coexist. Paine coined the term “keystone species” to describe this phenomenon — a species whose impact on its ecosystem is vastly greater than its biomass or abundance would suggest.
The concept of keystone species leads directly to the idea of a trophic cascade. A trophic cascade occurs when changes at one trophic level — say, the removal of a top predator — propagate down through the food web, producing effects at multiple levels. The classic terrestrial example comes from Yellowstone National Park. In the 1920s, wolves were extirpated from Yellowstone. Over the following decades, elk populations, released from wolf predation, expanded dramatically. The elk over-browsed young aspen, willow, and cottonwood trees along streams, which reduced habitat for beavers and songbirds, altered stream morphology by destabilizing banks, and shifted the entire riparian ecosystem. When wolves were reintroduced in 1995, ecologists observed what they called a “recovery cascade” — elk behavior and numbers changed, vegetation began to recover, and stream ecosystems showed signs of returning to a more natural state.
Keystone species don’t have to be predators. Ecosystem engineers — species that physically modify the environment — can play keystone roles. Beavers, by building dams that create ponds and wetlands, dramatically alter hydrology, nutrient cycling, and habitat availability for dozens of other species. Their removal from a landscape produces effects that cascade through the ecosystem as profoundly as the removal of a top predator.
The practical conservation implications are significant. Traditional conservation tended to focus on protecting individual endangered species. The keystone species concept suggests that protecting certain species — not necessarily the most charismatic or visible — can protect entire ecosystems. It shifts the focus from saving species one by one to identifying and preserving the functional relationships that maintain ecological integrity. In a world of limited conservation resources, this is not just elegant theory — it is essential strategy.
Questions 27–32: Lecture 2
Question 27 — Gist What is the lecture mainly about? (A) The biology of sea stars (B) The concepts of keystone species and trophic cascades, their discovery through field experiments, and their conservation implications (C) A history of Yellowstone National Park (D) How to design a marine biology experiment
Question 28 — Detail According to the professor, what happened after Robert Paine removed sea stars from his study plot? (A) Species diversity increased from 5 to 15 species (B) The mussel population expanded and species diversity dropped from about 15 to 5 (C) Nothing significant changed (D) Sea stars quickly recolonized the area
Question 29 — Detail What is described as the “terrestrial example” of a trophic cascade in the lecture? (A) Desert ecosystems in the southwestern United States (B) The extirpation of wolves from Yellowstone and its cascading effects on elk, vegetation, and streams (C) Tropical rainforest food webs in the Amazon (D) Agricultural ecosystems and their pest management
Question 30 — Function Why does the professor discuss beavers? (A) To provide an example of a species that causes environmental damage (B) To illustrate that keystone species can be ecosystem engineers, not just predators (C) To argue that beavers are more important than wolves (D) To compare North American beavers with European beavers
Question 31 — Attitude What is the professor’s attitude toward the keystone species concept for conservation? (A) Skeptical — he doubts its practical value (B) Enthusiastic — he considers it “essential strategy” for effective conservation with limited resources (C) Neutral — he presents it without any evaluation (D) Critical — he believes it has harmed conservation efforts
Question 32 — Inference What can be inferred about why Paine’s sea star removal experiment “would be difficult to get approved” today? (A) Sea stars are now an endangered species (B) Modern ethical and regulatory standards for ecological experiments are more stringent (C) The intertidal zone is now a protected area (D) The experiment was scientifically flawed
Lecture 3: Linguistics — The Puzzle of the Voynich Manuscript
Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture in a linguistics class.
Professor: Today I want to tell you about one of the most intriguing unsolved problems in the history of linguistics and cryptography: the Voynich Manuscript. This is a 240-page illustrated codex, carbon-dated to the early fifteenth century, written in an unknown script that has resisted every attempt at decipherment for over a century. It has been called “the world’s most mysterious manuscript,” and it has attracted everyone from professional cryptographers to amateur sleuths.
The manuscript is named after Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish book dealer who acquired it in 1912 from a Jesuit college in Italy. The text is written in a flowing script from left to right, with approximately 25 to 30 distinct characters, some resembling Latin letters, others Arabic numerals, and many that look like nothing else known. The text is organized into sections based on the illustrations: there are sections that appear to depict botanical specimens — plants that don’t match any known species — astronomical diagrams, biological illustrations of nude figures in pools or baths connected by elaborate networks of tubes, and pharmaceutical drawings of herbs and containers.
Now, linguistically, there’s something fascinating about this manuscript: the text exhibits statistical properties characteristic of real languages. Zipf’s law, which states that in any natural language, the frequency of a word is inversely proportional to its rank in the frequency table, applies to the Voynich text as well as it does to English or Chinese. The word length distribution follows patterns typical of natural languages. These features make it unlikely — though not impossible — that the manuscript is a random sequence of characters or a simple hoax. If it’s a hoax, it’s an extraordinarily sophisticated one, created by someone who understood the statistical structure of language.
Over the decades, numerous decipherment claims have been made and subsequently debunked. In the 1940s, a prominent cryptographer claimed it was written by Roger Bacon using a complex code. In the 1970s, another researcher proposed it was a Cathar religious text. In 2014, a British linguist claimed to have decoded ten words. In 2019, a scholar argued it was a women’s health manual in a proto-Romance language. Each claim has been met with skepticism from the broader scholarly community, and none has yielded a translation that makes consistent sense across substantial portions of the text.
The most recent development came from computational linguists applying machine learning techniques. In 2018, researchers at the University of Alberta used algorithms trained on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 380 languages to analyze the Voynich script. Their system identified Hebrew as the most likely source language, with the text possibly encoded by rearranging the order of letters within words. While intriguing, this finding remains controversial — other linguists have pointed out methodological issues — and the manuscript remains, for now, stubbornly unread.
What makes the Voynich Manuscript so compelling isn’t just the mystery itself but what it represents: the limit case of our ability to recover lost knowledge. If this manuscript truly encodes meaningful content, it demonstrates that information can be preserved perfectly — we have the pages, the ink is legible — yet be rendered completely inaccessible by the loss of its code. It’s a humbling reminder that the survival of a text and the survival of its meaning are two very different things.
Questions 33–38: Lecture 3
Question 33 — Gist What is the lecture mainly about? (A) Medieval European manuscript illumination techniques (B) The Voynich Manuscript — its characteristics, attempted decipherments, and what it reveals about the limits of recovering lost knowledge (C) The biography of Wilfrid Voynich (D) How to use machine learning to decode ancient languages
Question 34 — Detail According to the professor, what evidence suggests the Voynich text may be a real language rather than random characters? (A) It can be read by native speakers of Latin (B) It follows Zipf’s law and other statistical patterns characteristic of natural languages (C) It has been fully translated by professional cryptographers (D) It uses exactly the same character set as medieval Italian
Question 35 — Detail What did the University of Alberta researchers conclude from their machine learning analysis? (A) The manuscript is definitely a sophisticated hoax (B) Hebrew was identified as the most likely source language, possibly encoded by rearranging letters within words (C) The manuscript was written in a proto-Romance language (D) The text cannot be analyzed by any computational method
Question 36 — Function Why does the professor say: “the survival of a text and the survival of its meaning are two very different things”? (A) To argue that ancient texts are not worth studying (B) To articulate the central insight that physical preservation does not guarantee understanding (C) To suggest that the Voynich Manuscript should be physically destroyed (D) To emphasize that modern technology can decode any ancient text
Question 37 — Organization How does the professor structure the lecture? (A) By discussing each illustration in the manuscript in order (B) By introducing the manuscript, describing its physical and statistical properties, reviewing attempted decipherments, and reflecting on broader implications (C) By comparing the Voynich Manuscript with other medieval manuscripts (D) Chronologically through the history of cryptography
Question 38 — Inference What can be inferred about the multiple “successful decipherment” claims made over the decades? (A) All of them have been widely accepted by the scholarly community (B) None has produced a consistent translation of substantial portions of the text that has gained broad scholarly acceptance (C) The manuscript was actually decoded in the 1940s but the results were suppressed (D) The claims were all made by the same researcher
Conversation 1: Professor Meeting — Grad School Recommendations
Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.
Professor: Hi, Ryan. Come on in. You mentioned you wanted to talk about graduate school?
Student: Yes, Professor Martinez. Thanks for making time. I’m starting to prepare my PhD applications in neuroscience, and I was hoping you might be willing to write me a letter of recommendation. I took two of your courses — Cognitive Neuroscience and Neurobiology of Learning — and I really valued the experience.
Professor: Of course, Ryan. I’d be happy to write for you. But before I commit, let me ask you a few questions. Strong letters require specific detail, and I want to make sure I can write you a genuinely supportive letter rather than a generic one.
Student: That’s completely fair. What do you need to know?
Professor: First, tell me about your research experience. PhD programs are fundamentally research training programs, and admissions committees weigh research experience more heavily than anything else — more than grades, more than test scores.
Student: Right. I’ve been working in Dr. Kowalski’s lab for the past year and a half — she does memory reconsolidation research with rodent models. I’ve been running behavioral experiments independently, and I contributed to a paper that’s currently under review at the Journal of Neuroscience. I’m listed as second author.
Professor: Excellent. That’s exactly the kind of experience committees want to see. Second question: why neuroscience, specifically? There are many ways to study the brain. What’s your particular intellectual question?
Student: I’m interested in the mechanisms by which emotional experiences modulate memory strength — why we remember some events vividly for decades while others fade in weeks. I think this has implications for understanding both healthy cognition and disorders like PTSD.
Professor: Good — that’s a specific and viable research question. Third, which programs are you targeting? I want to make sure I can tailor my letter appropriately.
Student: I’m applying to about eight programs, including Stanford, MIT, Columbia, and UCSD. I’d also be very happy with our own program here — I think the neuroscience community here is really strong.
Professor: It is. Alright, Ryan, I can write you a strong letter. Here’s what I need from you: send me your CV, your statement of purpose draft, the list of programs with deadlines, and a brief reminder of any specific projects or papers from my courses that you’d like me to highlight. Give me at least three weeks’ lead time.
Student: Absolutely. I’ll get all of that to you by the end of the week. Thank you so much, Professor Martinez.
Questions 39–43: Conversation 1
Question 39 — Gist Why does the student meet with the professor? (A) To discuss a grade in a recent course (B) To request a letter of recommendation for PhD applications (C) To ask about transferring to a different university (D) To dispute a research finding
Question 40 — Detail According to the professor, what do PhD admissions committees weigh most heavily? (A) Grades and GPA (B) Standardized test scores (GRE) (C) Research experience (D) Extracurricular activities and community service
Question 41 — Detail What is the student’s specific research interest? (A) The anatomy of the visual cortex (B) The mechanisms by which emotional experiences modulate memory strength (C) Brain-computer interface technology (D) Neuropharmacology and drug development
Question 42 — Function Why does the professor ask: “why neuroscience, specifically”? (A) To question whether the student is genuinely committed to the field (B) To ensure the student has a specific intellectual question that will make for a compelling application (C) To suggest the student should consider a different field (D) To fill time in the conversation
Question 43 — Inference What can be inferred about the professor’s approach to writing recommendation letters? (A) She writes generic letters for all students who ask (B) She carefully evaluates whether she can write a genuinely strong, detailed letter before agreeing (C) She refuses most students who request letters (D) She only writes letters for her own graduate students
Conversation 2: Health Services — Stress Management Resources
Narrator: Listen to a conversation between a student and a counselor at the university’s Health and Wellness Center.
Counselor: Hi, I’m Dr. Reyes. What brings you in today?
Student: Hi. I’m… I’m not really sure if this is the right place. I’m not in crisis or anything. I’ve just been feeling really overwhelmed lately, and a friend suggested I talk to someone.
Counselor: You’re absolutely in the right place. Overwhelm is actually one of the most common things students come in for. Tell me more about what’s been going on.
Student: It’s my junior year and everything feels like it’s building up — I’m taking five courses, I’m working part-time at the library, I’m supposed to be applying for summer internships, and I feel like I’m barely keeping my head above water. I’m sleeping okay, mostly, but I wake up anxious. My concentration during study sessions has dropped off — I’ll sit at my desk for two hours but get maybe 30 minutes of actual work done. And I’ve stopped going to the gym, which I used to do regularly.
Counselor: That’s a lot on your plate. And I want to normalize this for you: what you’re describing is very common, especially among juniors. The transition from foundational coursework to upper-division expectations, plus thinking about life after graduation — it creates a pressure that many students feel.
Student: It helps to hear that, actually. I was worried I was just not handling things as well as everyone else seems to be.
Counselor: A couple of things. First, I want to mention that we offer individual counseling sessions — you’re eligible for six free sessions per semester. It sounds like you might benefit from some cognitive-behavioral strategies for managing anxiety and improving focus. Second, we have a stress management workshop series — four sessions, once a week, covering time management, mindfulness techniques, sleep hygiene, and study strategies. The next series starts in two weeks.
Student: The workshop series sounds appealing because it’s not a huge commitment, and I feel like if I just had better systems in place, a lot of this would feel more manageable. Do I need a referral or anything?
Counselor: No referral needed. I can register you right now. And I’d recommend booking at least one individual session as well — even if you ultimately don’t feel you need ongoing counseling, a single session can help you clarify what’s most stressful and identify targeted strategies.
Student: Okay. Let’s do both — sign me up for the workshop series and let’s book an individual session. Thank you, Dr. Reyes. I honestly feel better just having a plan.
Questions 44–48: Conversation 2
Question 44 — Gist Why does the student visit the Health and Wellness Center? (A) For treatment of a physical injury (B) Because he is feeling overwhelmed by academic and life pressures (C) To request a medical leave of absence (D) To get a prescription for sleep medication
Question 45 — Detail What specific symptoms or difficulties does the student describe? (A) Complete insomnia and inability to eat (B) Morning anxiety, poor concentration during study sessions, and having stopped going to the gym (C) Severe headaches and vision problems (D) Difficulty making friends in his classes
Question 46 — Detail What are the two resources the counselor recommends? (A) Academic tutoring and career counseling (B) Individual counseling sessions and a stress management workshop series (C) Medication and dietary changes (D) Dropping courses and taking a semester off
Question 47 — Function Why does the counselor say: “I want to normalize this for you”? (A) To minimize the student’s concerns (B) To reassure the student that his experience is common and not a sign of personal failure (C) To suggest that the student’s problems are not serious (D) To imply that most students need medication for stress
Question 48 — Inference What can be inferred about the student’s attitude at the end of the conversation? (A) He remains skeptical and unconvinced that the resources will help (B) He feels relief from having taken concrete steps and having a plan (C) He is angry that the counselor recommended ongoing sessions (D) He has decided to leave the university
🗣️ SPEAKING Section
時間限制：約 16 分鐘 | 4 題
Task 1: Independent Speaking — Agree/Disagree
Directions: Prepare 15 sec. Speak 45 sec.
Question: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? “It is better to have a small number of close friends than a large number of acquaintances.” Use specific reasons and examples.
Model Response (45 seconds):
I strongly agree that having a small number of close friends is better than having many acquaintances. My first reason is rooted in the depth of support that close friendships provide. When I went through a difficult period during my sophomore year — my parents were divorcing and my grades were slipping — it was my two closest friends who noticed something was wrong and actively supported me. The dozens of casual acquaintances I had in classes and clubs had no idea anything was going on. Only people who really know you can recognize when you’re not yourself and offer meaningful help. My second reason is that maintaining a large social network consumes enormous time and emotional energy that could go toward deeper connections. Research actually supports this: studies on social networks suggest that humans have a cognitive limit — sometimes called Dunbar’s number — of roughly 150 meaningful relationships we can maintain, and truly intimate friendships are limited to about 5. Instead of spreading ourselves thin across dozens of superficial connections, investing deeply in a small number of friendships yields richer emotional rewards and more reliable support when life gets difficult.
Task 2: Campus Situation — Integrated
Directions: Read (45 sec), listen. Prepare 30 sec. Speak 60 sec.
Reading Passage (45 seconds):
Announcement: Implementation of a “Common Read” Program
Starting next academic year, all incoming first-year students will be required to read a designated “Common Read” book over the summer before arriving on campus. During orientation week, students will participate in small-group discussions of the book led by faculty facilitators. The university administration states that the goals of the program are to introduce students to the intellectual culture of the university, to create a shared experience that builds community among new students, and to signal the importance of critical thinking and discussion from the very beginning of the college experience. The selected book for the inaugural year is Svetlana Alexievich’s Voices from Chernobyl, an oral history of the 1986 nuclear disaster. Some students have expressed concern that adding a required summer reading assignment creates an unnecessary burden on incoming students, many of whom are already anxious about the transition to college.
Listening — Conversation:
Narrator: Now listen to two students discussing the announcement.
Woman: What do you think of this Common Read thing? I’m honestly a little jealous — I wish they’d had this when we started.
Man: Really? You don’t think it’s just busywork? College is supposed to be your fresh start, and they’re already assigning homework before you even get here.
Woman: I see why you’d feel that way, but I think you’re missing the value. First of all, orientation week was awkward for everyone. You’re meeting hundreds of new people and most conversations are painfully superficial — “What’s your major?” “Where are you from?” The Common Read gives everyone something substantive to talk about immediately. That shared intellectual experience can actually build community faster than icebreaker games.
Man: I guess. But Voices from Chernobyl seems like a really heavy choice for incoming freshmen.
Woman: That’s exactly why I think it’s a good pick. It shows students, from day one, that the university takes them seriously as thinkers. This isn’t a high school summer reading assignment about a novel — it’s a complex work of journalism and oral history that raises genuine ethical, political, and scientific questions. The message it sends is: “You’re here to engage with difficult ideas.” I think that’s exactly the right tone.
Man: When you put it that way, I can see the value. It’s more about signaling expectations than about the book itself.
Woman: Right. It sets a cultural norm. And honestly, incoming freshmen have plenty of free time over the summer. Reading one book is not an unreasonable burden.
Question: The woman expresses her opinion about the Common Read program. State her opinion and explain the reasons she gives for holding that opinion.
Model Response (60 seconds):
The woman strongly supports the Common Read program and provides several thoughtful reasons. First, she argues that the program addresses a real social challenge: orientation week is often awkward, with students stuck in superficial conversations about majors and hometowns. The Common Read gives everyone a substantive, shared topic to discuss immediately, which she believes builds community more effectively than forced icebreaker activities. Second, she addresses a potential objection by defending the book selection — Voices from Chernobyl. Rather than seeing the book as too heavy, she interprets its difficulty as a deliberate signal. The university is telling incoming students that they are serious thinkers who will be engaging with complex ethical, political, and scientific questions from day one. This raises expectations and establishes a culture of intellectual seriousness that she thinks is appropriate for a university. Third, she dismisses the concern about burden, pointing out that incoming freshmen typically have considerable free time during the summer before college, and reading a single book is a very modest requirement. For her, the program is not just about the book — it is about establishing norms of intellectual engagement and creating the conditions for meaningful community from the very beginning of the college experience.
Task 3: Academic — Integrated
Directions: Read (45 sec), listen. Prepare 30 sec. Speak 60 sec.
Reading Passage (45 seconds):
Optimal Foraging Theory
Optimal foraging theory (OFT) is a behavioral ecology model that predicts how an animal should behave when searching for food. The theory assumes that natural selection favors foraging strategies that maximize net energy gain per unit of time spent foraging. In other words, animals should make decisions — about which food items to pursue, how long to stay in a particular patch, and how far to travel between patches — that provide the highest ratio of energy obtained to energy and time expended. A key concept within OFT is the “marginal value theorem,” which predicts that a forager should leave a food patch when the rate of energy gain in that patch drops below the average rate for the environment as a whole.
Listening — Lecture:
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on this topic.
Professor: Optimal foraging theory provides a powerful framework for explaining a lot of animal behavior that might otherwise seem puzzling. Let me give you a classic example that illustrates the marginal value theorem — the decision about when to leave a food patch.
Imagine a bee foraging for nectar in a field of flowers. When the bee first arrives at a patch of flowers, it can gather nectar very quickly — there are full flowers easily accessible. But as the bee continues to forage in this same patch, the rate of nectar collection declines. The most accessible flowers have already been drained, and the bee has to spend more time searching for the remaining nectar-filled flowers. At some point, it would make more sense for the bee to leave this patch and fly to a new one, even though flying takes time and energy, because the net rate of energy gain in the new patch, once the travel cost is accounted for, would be higher.
This is exactly what the marginal value theorem predicts, and it’s what researchers have actually observed. In experiments with bumblebees foraging on artificial flowers, scientists can manipulate the nectar content and distribution and measure how long bees spend in each patch. The bees adjust their patch-leaving decisions remarkably closely to what the model predicts. If the flowers are richer — more nectar per flower — the bees stay longer. If the travel distance between patches is longer, the bees also stay longer, because the cost of moving to a new patch is higher.
But here’s a nuance that’s important to understand. Optimal foraging theory is a model — a simplification. Real foraging decisions are more complex. Bees also consider predation risk — a patch with rich nectar but lots of spiders might not be worth it. They consider competition from other bees. And they have information limitations — they don’t have perfect knowledge of all available patches. The theory doesn’t predict perfectly, but it provides a baseline that helps us identify when and why animals deviate from energy-maximizing behavior, and those deviations are often where the most interesting biology lives.
Question: Using the example of bees foraging for nectar, explain the marginal value theorem within optimal foraging theory.
Model Response (60 seconds):
The professor uses bees foraging for nectar to illustrate the marginal value theorem, which the reading describes as a key concept within optimal foraging theory. According to the theory, animals should maximize their net energy gain per unit of foraging time. The marginal value theorem specifically predicts that a forager should leave a food patch when the rate of energy gain in that patch drops below the average for the environment. In the bee example, when a bee first arrives at a flower patch, it collects nectar rapidly from full, accessible flowers. But as it continues foraging, the easiest flowers are depleted, and the collection rate declines. Eventually, it becomes more profitable to leave the patch and fly to a new one, even though flying costs energy, because the net gain in the new patch will be higher. The professor explains that experiments with bumblebees on artificial flowers confirm this: bees adjust their patch-leaving time based on nectar richness and travel distance between patches, matching the model’s predictions closely. However, the professor adds an important nuance: OFT is a simplified model. Real bees also factor in predation risk, competition, and information limitations. The theory provides a baseline, and deviations from it — when animals DON’T maximize energy gain — often reveal other important biological factors shaping behavior.
Task 4: Academic Lecture Summary
Directions: Listen. Prepare 20 sec. Speak 60 sec.
Listening — Lecture:
Narrator: Listen to part of a lecture from a public health class.
Professor: Alright, let’s talk today about a concept in public health that sounds almost paradoxical, but understanding it is essential for anyone working in epidemiology or health policy: the prevention paradox. This concept was articulated by the British epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose in the 1980s, and it describes a situation where a preventive measure brings large benefits to the community but offers little to each participating individual.
To understand the prevention paradox, we need to grasp the distinction between a high-risk strategy and a population strategy in public health. A high-risk strategy identifies individuals with elevated risk — people with very high blood pressure, very high cholesterol, extreme obesity — and intervenes intensively with those individuals. This approach is intuitive: you treat the people who are obviously sick or at obvious risk. The individuals benefit significantly, and they’re usually grateful for the intervention.
The population strategy, by contrast, aims to shift the entire distribution of risk in a population — for instance, reducing the average salt intake across the whole population by a small amount. Now, for most individuals, reducing their salt intake slightly makes almost no perceptible difference to their personal risk. They weren’t at high risk to begin with, and the small reduction barely changes their odds of a heart attack or stroke. So for any given individual, participating in this population-wide intervention offers minimal benefit.
And this is the paradox: the intervention that seems worthless to the individual can, when applied across an entire population, prevent far more cases of disease than the high-risk strategy. Why? Because while the risk reduction per person is tiny, the number of people exposed to a small risk is enormous. Most cases of common diseases like heart attacks don’t occur in the small group of very-high-risk individuals — they occur in the large group of medium-risk individuals, because there are simply so many more of them. Reducing salt intake slightly across an entire population can prevent more heart attacks than aggressively treating the small number of people with extreme hypertension.
Rose argued that the prevention paradox creates a significant political and communication challenge. People are motivated to act when they perceive a clear personal benefit. Telling someone “this intervention probably won’t help you, but if millions of people do it, thousands of anonymous strangers won’t have heart attacks” is a very difficult message to sell. It’s why high-risk medical interventions tend to be popular and well-funded, while population-wide strategies — taxing sugary drinks, regulating food labeling, building walkable cities — face constant political resistance, even though the population strategies would actually save more lives overall.
Question: Using points and examples from the lecture, explain Geoffrey Rose’s concept of the prevention paradox and why it creates a challenge for public health policy.
Model Response (60 seconds):
The professor explains the prevention paradox, a concept developed by epidemiologist Geoffrey Rose that describes how preventive measures can bring large community benefits while offering little to individual participants. The professor first contrasts two public health strategies. The high-risk strategy identifies people with severe risk factors — very high blood pressure or extreme obesity — and treats them intensively. These individuals benefit significantly, and the approach is intuitive. The population strategy, however, aims to shift the entire risk distribution slightly — like reducing everyone’s salt intake by a small amount. For most individuals, this change barely affects their personal risk, so the perceived benefit is minimal. The paradox is that this population-wide approach actually prevents far more disease than the high-risk strategy. The reason is that most heart attacks don’t occur in the small high-risk group but in the large population of medium-risk people, simply because there are so many more of them. Slightly reducing risk across millions prevents more cases than aggressively treating a few hundred high-risk patients. This creates a political problem: it’s extremely difficult to motivate people to accept an intervention that probably won’t help them personally but would save thousands of anonymous strangers. The professor notes this is why medical high-risk interventions are popular and well-funded, while population-wide measures like soda taxes or food labeling face constant resistance, even though they would save more lives.
✍️ WRITING Section
時間限制：29 分鐘 | 2 題
Task 1: Integrated Writing
Directions: Read (3 min), listen, write ~150-225 words (20 min).
Reading Passage (3 minutes):
In recent years, several major technology companies have implemented permanent remote-work policies, allowing employees to work from home or other locations indefinitely rather than returning to physical offices. Proponents argue that remote work offers substantial benefits for workers, employers, and the environment.
First, remote work dramatically increases employee flexibility and autonomy. Workers can structure their days around their own peak productivity periods and family obligations, rather than conforming to a rigid 9-to-5 office schedule. Surveys consistently show that employees who work remotely report higher levels of job satisfaction and better work-life balance than their office-based counterparts. This flexibility is particularly valuable for parents of young children and for workers with disabilities or chronic health conditions that make commuting difficult.
Second, remote work reduces costs for employers. By eliminating or reducing the need for physical office space, companies save on rent, utilities, maintenance, and office supplies. Major corporations, including several Silicon Valley giants, have reported annual savings of tens of millions of dollars from reduced real estate footprints. These savings can be reinvested in employee compensation, research and development, or passed on to consumers in the form of lower prices.
Third, remote work delivers significant environmental benefits. The elimination of daily commutes for millions of workers dramatically reduces carbon emissions from transportation. Office buildings are major energy consumers, and reducing their occupancy lowers energy use for heating, cooling, and lighting. A 2021 study estimated that if remote work became the norm for workers whose jobs allow it, U.S. carbon emissions could decrease by up to 58 million metric tons annually.
Listening — Lecture:
Narrator: Now listen to part of a lecture on the same topic.
Professor: The celebration of remote work as an unambiguous good is, I would argue, premature. When we look more carefully at the evidence, significant downsides emerge that complicate the optimistic narrative.
On flexibility and autonomy, the picture is more nuanced than the reading suggests. Yes, surveys show higher job satisfaction — but other data reveal concerning trends. Remote work radically blurs the boundary between work and personal life. A major 2022 study tracking digital activity patterns found that remote workers logged, on average, 2.5 more hours of work per day than their office-based counterparts. The “flexibility” to work anytime becomes pressure to work all the time. Burnout rates among remote workers are rising, not falling. And entry-level employees, who benefit enormously from informal mentorship and spontaneous collaboration, are disproportionately harmed by the loss of in-person interaction — they are less visible, receive less guidance, and their career progression is measurably slower.
On employer costs, the savings on real estate are real, but the reading ignores what economists call “hidden costs.” Companies are finding that they need to invest heavily in cybersecurity infrastructure for distributed workforces — home networks are far more vulnerable than corporate systems. They are spending more on IT support, digital collaboration tools, and employee home-office stipends. And the hardest cost to quantify is the loss of organizational culture and the “serendipitous innovation” that occurs when people from different teams run into each other in hallways and cafeterias. Several companies that initially embraced permanent remote work, including some prominent tech firms, have already reversed course for exactly these reasons.
On the environmental argument, the math is not as clean as it appears. Yes, commuting emissions decline. But residential energy use increases — people are heating and cooling their homes all day instead of sharing climate-controlled office buildings. Many remote workers have moved from dense urban areas to car-dependent suburbs, increasing their total vehicle miles traveled for non-work trips. And some research suggests that the energy saved in offices is partially offset because many buildings continue to operate climate-control systems even at reduced occupancy. The net environmental benefit is smaller and more uncertain than the reading implies.
Question: Summarize the points made in the lecture, explaining how they cast doubt on the specific benefits of remote work discussed in the reading passage.
Model Essay (~260 words):
The reading passage advances three benefits of permanent remote work: increased flexibility and satisfaction, reduced employer costs, and environmental gains. The lecturer challenges each with countervailing evidence, presenting a more complicated picture.
First, on flexibility and worker well-being, the reading emphasizes higher job satisfaction and better work-life balance. The lecturer acknowledges the survey data but introduces contrary findings. A 2022 study found remote workers logged roughly 2.5 more work hours daily than office workers, suggesting flexibility has become constant availability. Burnout is rising, not falling. Furthermore, entry-level employees suffer disproportionately: without informal mentorship and spontaneous collaboration, they receive less guidance and experience slower career advancement. The celebrated autonomy masks a less visible erosion of boundaries and opportunity.
Second, on employer costs, the reading highlights dramatic savings from reduced real estate. The lecturer concedes these savings are real but identifies hidden costs that erode the net benefit: substantial investments in cybersecurity for vulnerable home networks, increased IT support expenses, collaboration tool subscriptions, and home-office stipends. The most significant uncounted cost is the loss of “serendipitous innovation” — the creative collisions that occur spontaneously in shared physical spaces. The lecturer notes that several prominent companies that embraced permanent remote work have already reversed course, citing diminished organizational culture.
Third, on environmental benefits, the reading claims significant emission reductions from eliminated commutes. The lecturer complicates the calculation: residential energy consumption rises when workers are home all day; many remote workers relocate to car-dependent suburbs, increasing non-commute driving; and partially-occupied office buildings often maintain climate systems nonetheless. The net environmental benefit is smaller and far less certain than the reading suggests.
Task 2: Academic Discussion
Directions: Read. Write ~120 words.
Discussion:
Professor Yamamoto: This week, we are examining the ethics of artificial intelligence. One particularly contentious issue is the use of AI in hiring decisions. Companies increasingly use algorithms to screen resumes, evaluate video interviews, and even predict candidate success. Proponents argue this reduces human bias and makes hiring more meritocratic. Critics warn that AI systems, trained on historical data, can perpetuate and amplify existing biases — for instance, if past hiring favored male candidates, the AI “learns” to favor male candidates. In your view, should AI play a significant role in hiring decisions? Why or why not?
Priya (Student): I believe AI should play a limited and carefully regulated role in hiring. The promise of eliminating human bias is genuine but oversimplified. AI doesn’t eliminate bias — it automates it at scale and makes it harder to detect. When a human manager discriminates, there’s a paper trail: interview notes, emails, witness accounts. When an algorithm discriminates, the logic is an opaque matrix of weighted variables that even its creators often cannot fully explain. I’m not saying ban AI from hiring entirely — it can be useful for efficiently processing applications and identifying candidates who meet minimum qualifications. But the final decisions, especially at interview and offer stages, should remain with humans who can be held accountable for their judgments. We should demand transparency, auditability, and human oversight, not hand the entire process to systems we don’t fully understand.
Leo (Student): I’m more optimistic than Priya. Human bias in hiring is pervasive and well-documented. Studies consistently show that identical resumes receive different responses based on the name at the top — a “Jamal” gets fewer callbacks than a “James.” AI, properly designed and validated, can be explicitly programmed to ignore demographic variables and evaluate candidates on job-relevant criteria alone. Yes, biased training data is a serious problem, but it’s an engineering problem with engineering solutions: bias audits, diverse training datasets, and ongoing monitoring for disparate impact. The alternative — continuing to rely on unaudited, inconsistent human judgment — is not some bias-free paradise. It’s the biased status quo we’ve always had. Better to improve the technology than to reject it.
Your Response (~120 words):
Model Response:
Priya and Leo both raise compelling points about a genuinely difficult problem, and I find myself agreeing with elements of both positions. Leo is correct that human hiring is riddled with documented bias — the resume-name studies he references are damning — and that well-designed AI could potentially reduce some forms of discrimination by focusing on relevant criteria. However, Priya’s concern about transparency and accountability is ultimately more persuasive to me. The distinction between a tool and a decision-maker matters. An AI system that flags promising candidates for human review is qualitatively different from one that autonomously rejects applicants without explanation. I believe the optimal approach, drawing from both arguments, is to use AI for screening and pattern identification — tasks at which algorithms genuinely excel — while reserving evaluative judgments and final decisions for human beings operating within structured, auditable processes. The goal should not be to replace human judgment with machine judgment but to equip human decision-makers with better information. Accountability requires a person to whom a rejected candidate could, in principle, ask: “Why?”
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READING Section Answers
| Question | Answer | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | B | Paragraph 1: “exposes the vulnerable underbelly, makes climbing more difficult, and complicates childbirth.” |
| 2 | C | ”Conferred” means provided or granted (advantages). |
| 3 | B | Paragraph 2: “a vertical body presents less surface area to the midday sun than a horizontal one.” |
| 4 | B | Paragraph 3: Ardipithecus was “a facultative biped yet lived in a wooded, forested environment.” |
| 5 | B | Paragraph 4: chimpanzee feeding behavior is a modern analog for how postural bipedalism could originate. |
| 6 | C | The aquatic ape hypothesis is never mentioned. Savanna, postural feeding, and carrying are all discussed. |
| 7 | B | The sentence states that woodland-dwelling early bipeds contradict Darwin’s savanna-based model. |
| 8 | B | The sentence contrasts human provisioning with chimpanzee patterns, fitting at [B] after the description of provisioning. |
| 9 | B | Paragraph 6: “multiple selective pressures…operated simultaneously or sequentially.” |
| 10 | A, B, D/E | Best: foundational importance/challenge (A), savanna hypothesis challenged (B), alternative models (D), and multi-causal resolution (E). |
| 11 | C | Paragraph 1: “the primary barrier they face is not a lack of skills…but a lack of capital.” |
| 12 | B | ”Align” means to bring into harmony or agreement. |
| 13 | C | Paragraph 2: “foreign capital flowing into microfinance grew at an estimated annual rate of 65 percent.” |
| 14 | B | Paragraph 3: financialization contributed to aggressive lending, over-indebtedness, and coercive practices. |
| 15 | B | Paragraph 3-4: the Andhra crisis catalyzed rigorous empirical scrutiny described in paragraph 4. |
| 16 | B | RCTs found microcredit did NOT produce transformative income increases on average (paragraph 4). |
| 17 | C | Essential: the original model was too simple; credit alone is insufficient without capabilities and opportunities. |
| 18 | A | The sentence introduces the paragraph’s theme that the microfinance pattern reflects a broader trend, fitting at [A]. |
| 19 | B | Paragraph 5: “slightly better-off ‘entrepreneurial poor’ benefit more.” |
| 20 | A, B, D/E | Best: founding concept/Nobel (A), growth and financialization leading to crisis (B), RCT evidence of modest effects (D), and broader lesson about evidence (E). |
LISTENING Section Answers
| Question | Answer | Explanation |
|---|---|---|
| 21 | B | The lecture centers on the paradox itself — probability vs. absence of evidence — and categorizes resolutions. |
| 22 | C | Professor: “roughly 100 to 400 billion” stars. |
| 23 | B | Professor: something prevents reaching galactic colonization, and the question is whether it’s behind or ahead of us. |
| 24 | B | The description emphasizes the depth and importance of the unresolved question. |
| 25 | B | Structure: paradox introduction, Drake Equation, categories of resolution. |
| 26 | B | He presents it neutrally as “another category of resolution” without endorsing. |
| 27 | B | Covers Paine’s sea star experiment, the keystone concept, trophic cascades (Yellowstone wolves), and conservation implications. |
| 28 | B | Professor: species diversity dropped from “about 15 species to roughly 5.” |
| 29 | B | Yellowstone wolves are explicitly described as “the classic terrestrial example.” |
| 30 | B | Beavers illustrate “ecosystem engineers” as a type of keystone species. |
| 31 | B | Professor calls it “essential strategy” and “not just elegant theory.” |
| 32 | B | The comment implies modern ethical/regulatory review would be stricter about removing species from ecosystems. |
| 33 | B | Focuses on physical properties, statistical evidence for language, failed decipherments, and limits of knowledge recovery. |
| 34 | B | Professor: “exhibits statistical properties characteristic of real languages” including Zipf’s law. |
| 35 | B | Professor: “identified Hebrew as the most likely source language, with the text possibly encoded by rearranging letters.” |
| 36 | B | The professor uses this to articulate the central insight about the limits of preserving meaning across time. |
| 37 | B | Structure: introduction, physical/statistical description, decipherment history, computational approaches, broader reflection. |
| 38 | B | Professor: “none has yielded a translation that makes consistent sense across substantial portions of the text.” |
| 39 | B | Student directly asks the professor to write a letter of recommendation for PhD applications. |
| 40 | C | Professor: “weigh research experience more heavily than anything else.” |
| 41 | B | Student: “the mechanisms by which emotional experiences modulate memory strength.” |
| 42 | B | The professor is gauging the student’s intellectual specificity for a strong, detailed recommendation letter. |
| 43 | B | Professor explicitly states she wants to ensure she can write “a genuinely supportive letter rather than a generic one.” |
| 44 | B | Student: “I’ve just been feeling really overwhelmed lately.” |
| 45 | B | Student describes morning anxiety, poor concentration, and giving up gym routine. |
| 46 | B | Counselor recommends individual counseling AND the workshop series. |
| 47 | B | The counselor is reassuring the student that these feelings are common and not a sign of inadequacy. |
| 48 | B | Student: “I honestly feel better just having a plan.” |
📊 Score Conversion Guide
Reading (Raw Score → Scaled Score)
| Raw (out of 20) | Scaled (0–30) |
|---|---|
| 20 | 30 |
| 18–19 | 28–29 |
| 16–17 | 26–27 |
| 14–15 | 24–25 |
| 12–13 | 21–23 |
| 10–11 | 18–20 |
| 8–9 | 15–17 |
| 6–7 | 12–14 |
| 0–5 | 0–11 |
Listening (Raw Score → Scaled Score)
| Raw (out of 28) | Scaled (0–30) |
|---|---|
| 28 | 30 |
| 26–27 | 28–29 |
| 23–25 | 26–27 |
| 20–22 | 23–25 |
| 17–19 | 20–22 |
| 13–16 | 16–19 |
| 9–12 | 12–15 |
| 5–8 | 8–11 |
| 0–4 | 0–7 |
Total Score Estimation
| Reading | Listening | Speaking | Writing | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ___/30 | ___/30 | ___/30 | ___/30 | ___/120 |
✅ 自我評量清單 Self-Evaluation Checklist
- Reading: 答對 ___ / 20 (目標: 16+)
- Listening: 答對 ___ / 28 (目標: 22+)
- Speaking Task 1: 是否清楚表達同意/不同意並舉出兩個具體例子？
- Speaking Task 2: 是否摘要了女學生的觀點及完整的支持理由？
- Speaking Task 3: 是否連結了 marginal value theorem 定義與蜜蜂覓食實驗？
- Speaking Task 4: 是否涵蓋了 prevention paradox 的定義、兩種策略對比與政策困境？
- Writing Task 1: 是否對應了閱讀的三個論點和聽力的反駁？
- Writing Task 2: 是否回應教授、參考兩位同學、提出自己的立場？
- 時間管理: 每個 section 在規定時間內完成了嗎？
🏆 五回模擬考完成度總覽
| Mock | 難度 | 主題 | 完成日期 | Reading | Listening | 備註 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Moderate | 自然科學 | / | ___/20 | ___/28 | |
| 2 | Moderate | 社會科學 | / | ___/20 | ___/28 | |
| 3 | Challenging | 人文學科 | / | ___/20 | ___/28 | |
| 4 | Challenging | 混合主題 | / | ___/20 | ___/28 | |
| 5 | Exam-Level | 混合主題 | / | ___/20 | ___/28 |
威威老師的最後叮嚀： 恭喜你完成了五回完整的 TOEFL 模擬考！回顧這五回的表現，找出你的弱項——是閱讀速度不夠？聽力細節捕捉不準？口說組織能力需要加強？還是寫作論述深度不足？針對弱項進行刻意練習，進步的速度會超乎你的想像。TOEFL 不是考你有多聰明，而是考你對考試形式的熟悉程度和應試策略的有效性。你已經有了最好的準備工具——五回完整的實戰練習。繼續加油，威威老師相信你一定可以達到目標分數！
Mock 5 結束。五回模擬考全員完成！你已經準備好了！