新托福考试必备：新托福TPO（1-24）听力原文文本TPO12

　　TPO 12　Conversation 1
　　Narrator
　　Listen to a conversation between a student and a professor.

　　Student
　　So Professor Tibets, your notes said that you want to see me about my
　　heavy-weight paper. I have to say that grade wasn’t what I was expecting. I
　　thought I’d done a pretty good job.

　　Professor
　　Oh, you did. But do you really want to settle for pretty good when you can do
　　something very good?

　　Student
　　You think it can be very good?

　　Professor
　　Absolutely!

　　Student
　　Would that mean you’d…I could get a better grade?

　　Professor
　　Oh, sorry! It’s not for your grade. It's…I think you could learn a lot by revising it.

　　Student
　　You mean, rewrite the whole thing? I really swamped. There’re deadlines
　　wherever I turn and… and I don’t really know how much time I could give it.

　　Professor
　　Well, it is a busy time, with spring break coming up next week. It’s your call.
　　But I think with all a little extra effort, you could really turn this into a fine essay.

　　Student

　　No… yeah…I mean, after I read your comments, I...I can see how it tries to do
　　too much.

　　Professor
　　Yeah. It’s just too ambitious for the scope of the assignment.

　　Student
　　So I should cut out the historical part?

　　Professor
　　Yes. I would just stick to the topic. Anything unrelated to the use of nature
　　EMITRY has no place in the paper. All that tangential material just distracted
　　from the main argument.

　　Student
　　Yeah, I never know how much to include. You know…where to draw the line?

　　Professor
　　Tell me about it! All writers struggled without one. But it’s something you can
　　learn. That will become more clear with practice. But I think if you just cut out
　　the…emm…

　　Student
　　The stuff about history, but if I cut out those sections, won’t it be too short?

　　Professor
　　Well, better a short well-structured paper than a long paper that
　　poorly-structured and wanders off topic.

　　Student
　　So all I have to do is to leave those sections?

　　Professor
　　Well, not so fast. After you cut out those sections, you’ll have to go back and
　　revise the rest, to see how it all fits together. And of course, you’ll have to
　　revise the introduction too, to accurately describe what you do in the body of

　　the paper. But that shouldn’t be too difficult. Just remember to keep the
　　discussion focused. Do you think you can get it to me by noon tomorrow?

　　Student
　　Wow…emm…I have so much…er…but I’ll try.

　　Professor
　　OK, good! Do try! But if you can’t, well, sure for after spring break, OK?