2026年真题32

Listen to a talk in an art history class (man) Before we begin, here’s a little background. Leonardo da Vinci was an Italian artist and inventor who lived during the Renaissance, a period of renewed interest in science, art, and human knowledge. He is best known for paintings such as the Mona Lisa, but he also studied anatomy, engineering, and mechanics, often combining these interests in his work. And today we’ll talk about one of his lesser-known works, his design of a robot. In 1495, Leonardo designed what we now call Leonardo’s Robot, or the Mechanical Knight. So, to be clear, this was long before the term robot entered our vocabulary. Leonardo was fascinated with human anatomy, not really surprising for a painter, and this fascination directly influenced his robotic design, a synthesis of his varied interests. Leonardo sketched an intricate human-like robot that would mimic human actions. The knight was meant to be wearing armor and was designed to move its arms, raise its visor and even hug a person. This knight might not have been built during Leonardo’s lifetime, but the designs highlight mechanical understanding that was remarkable for the period. They reveal an in-depth understanding of gears, pulleys, principles of weight distribution. These sketches made by Leonardo were actually rediscovered in the 1950s by a Leonardo scholar. This scholar studied these sketches, but it wasn't until 2002 that the most complete physical reconstruction of the robot was made. This robot was able to walk and wave, an incredible feat considering how long ago Leonardo created his sketches.

Listen to a talk in a film class (woman) You’re familiar with documentaries, nonfiction films that use things like interviews and news footage to tell a true story. Of course, they’re likely to show the filmmaker’s perspective. If the filmmaker has an axe to grind, that’s the version of the story you’ll learn. So, it’s important to use caution before being too credulous about what you see in one. Documentaries have become much more popular over the last several years. It seems like every streaming service is showing them, and all the streaming services seem to be creating their own. One from a few years back called My Octopus Teacher was recognized for its high production value. My Octopus Teacher had a team of camera operators, editors, plus a compelling story and great music. On the other hand, we have ethnographic films. These are also nonfiction, but unlike documentaries, ethnographic films don’t have such elaborate production. They’re non-fiction films about people, particular cultures around the world. Forest of Bliss is one. Um, Forest of Bliss is about daily life in a city in India. Now, researchers making ethnographic films might spend years living within a particular cultural group. This way, they learn about the everyday life of its people and integrate into the group. This enables them to make ethnographic films. They’re more like research films than movies. They’re not likely to have dramatic music or cinematography. Instead, they’ll focus on everyday life and show the complexity of life while not trying to tell one particular story.

Listen to a talk in a music history class (man) Imagine taking a regular piano and transforming its sound by inserting everyday objects like screws, bolts, and rubber erasers between the strings. This is what’s known as a prepared piano. It was developed by the avant-garde composer John Cage in 1940. Cage was working at a university in Seattle, and he needed to write music with percussion to accompany dancers, but the performance space’s stage wasn’t big enough for percussion instruments like drums, so he made the sounds with just the piano by placing objects between the strings. Now, Cage spent time searching for items that made the kind of sounds he was looking for. It had a feel of improvisation. Cage himself said that looking for items was kind of like walking on the beach and looking for shiny or beautiful seashells that you liked. That is, he didn’t know ahead of time what items he wanted to use. He just kept looking around and seeing what suited his needs. Cage ended up composing a collection of music for prepared piano in the mid-1940s. He included specific instructions for how to prepare the piano. For this collection, Cage was inspired by ancient Hindu theory and about eight essential emotions. He wanted his listeners to sense eight essential emotions from Hindu philosophy. The result is a blending of sounds that would be familiar to a western audience, plus sounds reminiscent of Indonesian gamelan. Um, gamelan is traditional Indonesian percussion music. This prepared piano music really raised John Cage’s profile in the music world.

Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class (woman) Honeybees are social insects forming highly organized colonies where teamwork is essential. Inside a hive, most bees are workers, but different workers have different jobs. For example, some specialize in maintaining the hive, while others head out to forage for food like nectar and pollen. Now, researchers wanted to know if forager bees shared their workload evenly among themselves, or did some work harder than others. To find out, they tagged thousands of foragers with tiny transponders. Think of it like giving each bee its own identification badge. And they tracked every trip in and out of the hive. The results were surprising. About twenty percent of the forager bees made more than half of all the trips. These harder working forager bees, called elite foragers, were foraging non-stop, while many others spent most of their time inside the hive. Interesting, right? But the researchers also wanted to know whether or not this hard working behavior was an intrinsic, permanent characteristic. To find out, the scientists ran a second experiment. They removed most of the elite foragers from the hive, and what happened? Initially, overall foraging activity dropped, which makes sense. But a day later, forgers that had been relatively inactive suddenly stepped up and started foraging like crazy. The colony bounced back quickly. Apparently, those less active foragers functioned like a reserve workforce, with each bee monitoring the colony’s needs and adjusting its activity level accordingly. It’s a wonderful example of flexibility, with individual bees working in concert to ensure the hive’s survival.