The extinction of the woolly mammoth has long been attributed to human overhunting, but recent evidence suggests that climate change was the primary driver. First, the timing of mammoth decline correlates with the end of the last Ice Age, when global temperatures rose rapidly, altering habitats. As forests expanded and grasslands shrank, mammoths lost their primary food source. Second, genetic studies show that mammoth populations experienced severe bottlenecks long before humans arrived in their habitats, indicating that climate-driven habitat fragmentation weakened their numbers. Third, isolated populations survived on islands such as Wrangel Island for thousands of years after mainland extinction, which contradicts the idea that human hunting was decisive, because these island populations were small and vulnerable, yet they persisted until environmental conditions deteriorated.
🎧 听力讲座
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The lecture challenges the reading's claim that climate change alone drove mammoth extinction. While it is true that warming occurred, the reading overlooks that humans actively hunted mammoths and used fire to manage landscapes, which accelerated habitat loss. Moreover, the genetic evidence cited in the reading is flawed: the so-called 'bottlenecks' may reflect natural population fluctuations, not climate stress, and these bottlenecks occurred in regions where humans were already present. Finally, the Wrangel Island example actually supports human involvement, not refutes it. Those island mammoths survived because they were isolated from humans, but once seafaring hunters reached the island around 1700 BCE, the population collapsed within a few centuries. Thus, the reading misinterprets the evidence, and human hunting remains a likely primary cause.
📝 Writing Prompt Summarize the points made in the lecture, being sure to explain how they cast doubt on the specific points made in the reading passage.
📊 TOEFL Integrated Writing Rubric
Content Accuracy: Accurately capture the relationship between lecture and reading
Information Completeness: Cover all key counter-arguments from the lecture
Structure & Coherence: Logical organization and progression
Language Use: Grammar, vocabulary, expression accuracy
Scored 0-30 based on holistic scoring (original 0-5, scaled to 30).
