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TOEFL Directory > TOEFL writing > Listening Unit one passage 29
Listening Unit one passage 29
Listen to the passage again and check out the script.
★Listen to a talk given by a Biology professor
Nature often sends signals indicating what is going to do. Some of these signals are pretty obvious others are not so much. Smoke beginning to pour out of volcano probably means that it will erupt sometimes soon. Less obvious and easily overlooked is the fur of woolly worm. It's been claimed you can make a long-range weather forecast base on the thickness of woolly worm's fur. The thicker the fur, the harsher the winter is predicted to be. The thinking of the course is that the worms know what they have to prepare for in order to survive. However, I don't know any research on this. I want to share with you something biologists have noticed in the last few years. Amphibians, especially frogs, have been disappearing in alarming numbers. In places while a couple years ago, there were populations, now there are none. Surely nature is urgently signaling something. But What? What makes this particularly worrisome is the fact of the phenomenon isn't restricted to any specific climate, altitude, country. That is no common link, no one element that scientists can point to and blame. It'll be easy to say the global warming or loss of habitat due to the over population. But these don't begin to explain the scope of the problem. Amphibians evolved around 350 million years ago, which means they came long before the dinosaurs. They have endured phenomenon changes in the earth all of which add to the mystery in concerns. Why was the population that such ancient older animals change so suddenly after that much time?
Correct answers :ACBAD
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