墨尔本PTE素材库——Storms Explained

墨尔本PTE素材库——Storms Explained

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各位可以把这段报道当成一段Re-tell Lecture的录音，尝试复述一下其关键要点。

需要关注的内容有：

• What’s the difference between Typhoon, Hurricane, and Cyclone?
• How do them form and what are the main factors?

台风（Typhoon）、飓风（Hurricane）、旋风（cyclone）这三种“风”到底有什么区别？这段报道给了我们一个明确的答案——没有区别，只是名字不同而已。三种“风”形成的过程也是完全一样的，都是由于蒸发的水汽，积雨云，和地球自转的共同作用而产生的，本质都是破坏性巨大的超级风暴。

澳大利亚语言学院整理的墨尔本PTE素材库，旨在帮助各位PTE考生整理一些可以用作PTE考试题型练习的素材，可以帮助大家提升dictation、re-tell lecture、Summarize  spoken text 等等题型的能力哦！PTE市面上的素材并不多，练习的题目也不多，所以AIL整理的这些PTE素材库，真的是帮助非常大的哦！

【Key Vocabulary】

storm n. 风暴

destruction n. 毁坏，摧毁

typhoon n. 台风

hurricane n. 飓风

hemisphere n. 半球

cyclone n. 旋风

mega adj. 巨型的，庞大的

equator n. 赤道

evaporate v. 蒸发，挥发

thundercloud n. 雷雨云，积雨云

ingredient n. 原料，要素

rotation n. 旋转，循环

Full Transcript

Over the past week two massive storms have caused a huge amount of destruction in two different parts of the world. The first was a typhoon that hit the Philippines. The second a hurricane that hit Mexico and the US. Both storms seemed pretty similar but they had different names. So what is the difference between a hurricane and a typhoon? Here’s Carl with the answer.

It was the biggest hurricane ever recorded in the Western hemisphere. Hurricane Patricia battered Mexico and the US, turning homes and towns inside out.

Meanwhile on the other side of the planet, this wild weather lashed the Philippines for nearly a week, forcing thousands of kids to flee their homes.

Official reports so far say no one has died because of Hurricane Patricia. But in the Philippines 58 people were killed and more than 100,000 are still stuck in evacuation centres like this.

LOTTA SYLWANDER, UNICEF PHILIPPINES: Things are destroyed and so it will take several weeks, maybe months until children can go back.

Both of these storms were very strong, and both hit within a week of each other. But they both had different names: one was a hurricane, the other a typhoon. And here in Australia we call big storms ‘cyclones’.

NEWS REPORTER: When the cyclone crossed which is making it harder for the workers cleaning up.

So what’s the difference? Well, as it turns out there is no difference! These mega storms all have to form over warm water near the equator. But the equator wraps right around the world, and over time different cultures using different languages, have come up with different names for them.

The word cyclone is believed to have come from a Greek word, Kukloma, which means ‘wheel, or coil of a snake’. It was adopted by the English language, so it’s used in lots of places once colonised by the British like Australia and India.

Hurricane has its roots in a Caribbean language, where Juracán was the name of a storm god. It was then adopted by the Spanish that colonised the area, so it’s still the term used around the Americas.

And typhoon is believed to have come from a few languages, including Chinese, where tai fung means big wind. So it’s still used in most of Asia.

So other than the name, these three types of big storms are all exactly the same. They even form in the same way too.

They always start building over warm ocean water, where the surface of the sea is above 26.5 degrees Celsius. When it’s that hot, water starts to evaporate, and that warm humid air begins to rise into the sky. As it moves up through the atmosphere, it releases heat and water making thunderclouds. This process can kick-start a chain reaction, evaporating more water and making bigger clouds.

The last ingredient needed to make one of these storms is the rotation of the Earth which causes the clouds to spin around faster and faster. Some countries like the Philippines and Mexico get hit more often because they’re closer to the warm water of the equator. So aid organisations like UNICEF are asking for some help, especially for the people of the Philippines, who are facing a long road to recovery.

LOTTA SYLWANDER, UNICEF PHILIPPINES: What we need help with now, right now, is to make sure we have enough things that we can give to families like big water jugs, tablets that you can put in the water that cleans the water; that we can also provide with blankets, with things to sleep on.

After such a devastating storm a little can go a long way.

(Source: http://www.abc.net.au/btn/story/s4336216.htm)