墨尔本PTE素材库——Penguin Researchers

墨尔本PTE素材库——Penguin Researchers

中文批注

今天这个视频讲述的是我们的科研小帮手——小企鹅！~ 对！这些小企鹅就是居住在我们熟悉的Phillip Island上的小企鹅。这一块区域的水温，比世界上任何一个地方的水温都变暖的快。所以说，科学们就 “雇佣”了这些小帮手，来协助收集数据。

小企鹅们是如何帮助人类的呢？原来，科学们在小企鹅的身上安装了GPS tracker和activity tracker，用来收集数据。比如，小企鹅今天去了哪里，吃了些什么，吃了多少等等等等~ 这些都可以帮助科学们采集到相关的数据，用来研究海水温度增长所带来的影响。

澳大利亚语言学院整理的PTE素材库，旨在帮助各位PTE的烤鸭们在平时练习、复习备考的阶段，除了一些官方的练习题之外，还能有不少的素材可以练习听力、阅读、口语、写作，不同PTE的题型，例如re-tell lecture，例如summarize spoken test 都是各位考生们比较纠结的难点题型。这篇文章其实不难，也没有太难的生词会导致理解出现偏差，所以大家可以用来练习一下听力哦~ 因为这个难度和听力考试很接近呢！~

【Key Vocabulary】

Recruit：招聘，雇佣

Unsuspected：未知的

Consequence：结果

Tolerate：容忍

Survive：生存

Marine：海洋

Feather：羽毛

Full Transcript

They don’t wear lab coats and none of them have been to uni, but these little researchers are pretty cute and now they’re helping human scientists with a very important study!

The little penguin researchers live here on Phillip Island in Victoria. It’s an area where sea temperatures are rising faster than almost anywhere else in the world. So, scientists have recruited these unsuspecting helpers to collect data that would be impossible to get any other way.

RICHARD REINA, MONASH UNI PROFESSOR: We haven’t had a big picture before because sampling is so difficult and it’s a big area to cover. So by using the birds who know where to go and what to look for, we save ourselves the time and effort of having to do it.

RESEARCHER: Is there anyone else in here? Yes, sorry mate.

To see exactly what they get up to, researchers are attaching GPS trackers to them along with activity trackers; the sort of thing people wear to measure their fitness. In this case, waddles and strokes!

DR ANDRE CHIARADIA, PENGUIN BIOLOGIST: Well, we put this GPS – the same as you have in your car – and we use this Fitbit to measure how much energy they’re using, or how hard the penguins are working when they go at sea.

The aim is to find out more about how climate change is affecting our oceans. By tracking their movements, scientists are hoping to discover if the penguins are changing their habits as water temperatures rise.

RICHARD REINA, MONASH UNI PROFESSOR: One of the worst consequences is the range in which different species can survive shifts. So a species that are able to tolerate warmer water are likely to come further south.

One of the things they’re worried about is that marine animals might have to start travelling further to look for food, or even eat different things. So to find out what these guys are eating, they’re keeping a close eye on penguin poo!

RESEARCHER: Not the nicest of jobs but it gives us fantastic data.

So far, they’ve been surprised to find these little guys are eating a lot of jelly fish. That could mean other types of fish aren’t as easy to find right now. Then there’s this penguin-size bridge which scans each one as they walk over it! It records which penguin’s which, when they leave home, come back and, most importantly, how much they weigh. That helps scientists work out how much the little penguins are eating. So that’s just some of the data scientists are already getting from these cute birds. But in the future, they hope to be able to discover even more about how our environment is changing with a little help from their new feathered friends.

(Source: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4430575.htm)