新托福听力话题之商业场景分析
广州智美教育
 
朗阁海外考试研究中心
 
我们都知道，在新托福考中，听力的话题是非常具有多样性的：生物类，天文类，地理地质类，历史类，艺术类等等。今天我们将要涉及的是比较小众但又不容忽视的一类话题：商业类。这类话题所占比重不大，容易被忽略，而且高中生或大部分大学生对这一话题又不够熟悉，因此一旦出现，杀伤力会比较大。除了词汇应当掌握外，还要注意听力练习过程中的总结和长句理解。下面朗阁海外考试研究中心的将与大家一起具体探讨下如何应对这一类话题。
 
一、概述
商业类场景往往和其他分支学科产生联系。具体可以从以下几个方面来考察：
☆ 某个商业术语的介绍 例如历的经济政策（如放任主义），以及某个商业概念（如边际效益）等。
☆ 某种市场现象 例如互联网泡沫，郁金香热等。
☆ 商业案例分析 例如某个公司的营销情况介绍，兴衰原因等。
☆ 其他话题 商业容易和其他学科产生交叉，如历史，文化和政治等。
商业类的听力话题一般来说是考察考生短时间内的理解能力。虽然可能会出现比较难的术语，但不考察专业知识。有背景知识固然好，但不会因没有背景知识而做不出题目，所以考生们大可放心。但建议考生平时多关注时事，以及浏览如Economist之类的杂志，拓宽知识面。
 
二、案例分析
下面是一个人文学的经典案例：
TPO 6 Lecture 1 (Boom and Bust)
听力原文：
1)… Of course, booms aren’t always followed by busts. We’ve certainly seen times when local economies expanded rapidly for a while and then went back to a normal pace of growth. But, there’s a type of rapid expansion, what might be called the hysterical or irrational boom that pretty much always leads to a bust. See, people often create and intensify a boom when they get carried away by some new industry that seems like it will make them lots of money fast. You’d think that by the 90s, people would have learned from the past. If they did, well, look at tulips.
 
Q: What is the main purpose of the talk?
A. to show what happens after an economy has experienced a boom-and-bust cycle
B. to illustrate the conditions needed to produce a boom-and-bust cycle
C. to demonstrate how boom-and-bust cycles have changed over time
D. to explain why the boom-and-bust cycle is not a frequent historical occurrence
 
分析：
在前几讲中我们提到过，大部分lecture的主旨都位于开头前几句话。而在这里，我们发现，文章中好像没有一句和文章选项是相对应的。这就需要我们根据上下文的内容进行总结。在此我们可以看这几个下划线句子，“繁荣之后不一定跟随的是衰败，而这种非理性的，不正常的经济繁荣之后，难免就是衰败了”。我们不禁思考：这种非理性的扩张到底是什么样子的呢？或者说，有哪些因素导致了这种扩张，从而导致经济泡沫呢？因此总结看来，B项是合适的。
 
朗阁海外考试研究中心的提醒大家，这里句子长，语速快，还伴随生词或词组，要仔细推敲。比如be carried away的意思是“失去自制力”，“沉溺于”，这些表达方式要多看听力原文进行总结。
 
2) … It turns out that the Netherlands was an ideal country for growing tulips. It had the right kind of sandy soil for one thing, but also, ⑴ it was a wealthy nation with a growing economy, willing to spend lots of money on new exotic things. Plus, the Dutch had a history of gardening. ⑵ Wealthy people would compete, spending enormous amounts of money to buy the rarest flowers for their gardens. What happened then was a craze for these specialized tulips. We called that craze ‘tulip-mania’. So, here we’ve got all the conditions for an irrational boom: ⑶ a prospering economy, so more people had more disposable income - money to spend on luxuries, but they weren’t experienced at investing their new wealth. Then along comes a thrilling new commodity. Sure the first specimens were just plain ordinary tulips, but they could be bred into some extraordinary variations, like that dark purple tulip. And finally, ⑷ you have an unregulated marketplace, no government constraints, where price could explode.
 
Q: What were some of the factors that contributed to the tulip craze in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century? Click on three choices.
    ① wealthy gardeners liked to complete for rare plants
② the number of people with disposable income was growing
③ tulip bulbs were initially cheap and easy to obtain
④ tulips in the wild bloomed in unusual color combination
⑤ the tulip market was not regulated by the government
 
分析：
节选内容原文很长，这里只选取了和考点有关的信息。本题是一个细节题，五选三，这在lecture中比较少见（一般来说是四选二）。加粗字体提醒大家要注意表示分类，列举和次序的路标词。细节题考察大家笔记记录的条理性，所以听到speaker有列举情况，要素，种类的意图时要马上记笔记。在此，⑵句对应的是选项一，⑴ ⑶句对应的是选项二，⑷句对应的是选项五，且均采取总结和同义置换形式。还要注意，此题涉及的篇幅较长，听时注意力一定要集中，还要在听的过程中学会总结。
 
参考笔记形式：
 1. ↑Eco spend 币
             2. rich 竞→ 稀 花
             3. income↑; lux
             4. unrgltˉmkt; no gov
 
细节题考察小知识点的辨音及把握。注意力集中的同时记录下平时用的比较多且印象深刻的简写符号，努力做到有条理性，节省查找笔记的时间。
 
三、考点追踪
通过郁金香热这个例子，我们可以看出众多商业类的听力话题具有以下特点：
☆ 结合段甚至全文总结主旨
☆ 顺序和列举路标词 考察小细节。
☆ 逻辑性强 要求考生把握全文主线，根据主题推断相关细节等内容。
 
朗阁海外考试研究中心的建议广大考生适当关注一下商业方面的听力段子，培养细节思维和逻辑思维。虽说新托福lecture的听力段子话题多样，但本质不变，多少会有差异性。平时备考多一分准备，考试就会多一份胜算