Integrated Writing Reading

A huge marine mammal known as Steller’s sea cow once lived in the waters around Bering Island off the coast of Siberia. It was described in 1741 by Georg W. Steller, a naturalist who was among the first Europeans to see one. In 1768 the animal became extinct. The reasons for the

extinction are not clear. Here are three theories about the main cause of the extinction.

would have originally been quite large, but hundreds of years off too much hunting by the native people diminished the number of sea cows. Sea cows were a good source of food in a harsh environment, so overhunting by native people could have been the main cause of extinction.

Kelp populations respond negatively to a number of ecological changes. It is possible that ecological changes near Bering Island some time before 1768 caused a decrease of the kelp that the sea cows depend on.

the fur traders caught the last sea cow in 1768. It thus seems reasonable to believe that hunting by European fur traders, who possessed weapons that allowed them to quickly kill a large number of the animals, was the main cause of the sea cow’s extinction.

Integrated Writing Listening

Now listen to part of a lecture on the topic you just read about.

The truth is we don’t know what the main cause of extinction of

Steller’s sea cow was. There are problems with each of the theories that you read about. population of the native Siberian people wasn’t very large. So while the Siberians certainly did hunt the sea cows, they didn’t need to hunt a lot of them. So it’s unlikely they were the ones who brought the sea cows to the point of extinction.

Second, about a hypothetical decrease in kelp caused by ecological disturbances, well, if something severe really happened in the ecosystem near Bering Island sometime before 1768, it would have affected not just the kelp but also other parts of the ecosystem. For example, it would have caused the decline in other marine animals like whales. Since there is no indication of broader ecosystem problems, the kelp was probably growing just fine and the sea cows did not experience food shortage.

Third, it might seem like the European traders were responsible

because the sea cows became extinct soon after the Europeans arrived. We have evidence that the sea cow population was at its largest hundreds of years before the 1700s. So something was causing a serious and on-going decrease in the sea cow population long before the Europeans arrived in the Bering Island area. Whatever this something was, it should be considered the main cause of the extinction, not the European traders who were just the last to arrive.

Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they challenge the specific theories presented in the reading passage.

Independent Writing Topic

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?

Educating children is a more difficult task today than it was in the past because they spend so much time on cell phone, online games, and social networking Web site.

Use specific reasons and examples to support your answer.

 

第二篇：TPO34独立写作

Educating children is a more difficult task today than it was in the past because they spend so much time on cell phone, online games, and social networking Web site.

疑问句，反问句。Teaching children is really a difficult task because it not only refers to teaching conditions but also is influenced by the environment in which children study. When it comes to compare the difficulty of educating children today with in the past, most people would choose the former due to children are easily addicted to all kinds of Internet, game, Smartphone and so on. However, educating children in the old times also were confronted with many problems so that the statement is incomplete and incorrect.

It is undeniable that nowadays teaching children is hard because there many other things except study that attract children's eyes. It is the advanced conventions that makes taking control of children hard. According to researches, many elementary teachers complain that their students play Smartphone in class not to listen to teachers and play online games after school instead of finishing homework. What's worse, since children have an access to make friends on social web site such as facebook and twitter, they learn some bad habits such as violence from bad guys on the Internet. So all these things add more weight for teaching students because teachers will spend more time on protecting young students from outside disturbances and helping them cultivate positive study attitude and habits. 过于多，可以提几点但是不要太详细。

However, the difficulty in teaching children in the past cannot be ignored because education conditions for children at that time were too poor and limited to be stood with. Told by my grandparents and parents, children did not have available ways to acquire knowledge. They even had not enough textbooks and they had to share books with their classmates; they had no ways to resolve their questions, not like nowadays searching on the Internet; they cannot learn some lessons well such as English and biology and all they can do is to learn by rote. So these limitations gave teachers a lot of pressure because they cannot give students enough materials to read and exercise and they also were lack of professional skills and techniques to teach children. 可以反驳上面几点，虽然。。 或者可以对比现在的优点。没有现在的高科技怎么样。论点一定要清楚。

In conclusion, it is unconvincing to say that teaching children is much harder nowadays than in the past because each era has its own problems. Only when people analysis the different problems in different times can better educate children.