TOEFL iBT Practice Test 20

Carla: Frank, thanks for agreeing to do a mock interview with me before my internship interview. Frank: No problem. Let's start with a common one: tell me about yourself. Carla: Sure. I'm a second-year business student interested in marketing, and I've worked on two campus campaigns. Frank: That's a solid answer, but try adding one specific result, like how many people you reached. Carla: Good point, I'll mention that our last campaign reached about two thousand students. Frank: Much stronger. Now, why do you want this particular internship? Carla: Because it focuses on social media strategy, which is exactly what I want to specialize in. Frank: That answer works well too. You're in good shape for the real interview.

Attention, shoppers. The campus bookstore's annual used book sale begins tomorrow and runs through the weekend in the main lobby. Thousands of gently used textbooks, novels, and reference books will be available at up to seventy percent off the original price. Proceeds from the sale go toward the campus literacy program, which provides books to local schools. Cash, card, and student account payments are all accepted. If you have books to donate, drop-off bins will be available near the entrance throughout the sale. Doors open at nine each morning, and the sale closes at six on Saturday and four on Sunday.

So, glaciers are incredibly powerful agents of erosion, and today I want to look at how they carve out some of the most dramatic landforms we see in mountainous regions. As a glacier moves, even at speeds often measured in centimeters per day, it drags embedded rock fragments along its base and sides, essentially acting like enormous sheets of sandpaper grinding against the underlying bedrock over thousands of years. This process, called abrasion, combined with a related process called plucking, where the glacier physically pulls loose chunks of rock directly out of the bedrock as it moves, gradually reshapes entire valleys. A river-carved valley typically has a distinctive V-shaped cross-section, but a glacier moving through that same valley widens and deepens it into a broader U-shape, since the glacier's mass affects the entire width of the valley floor and lower walls, not just a narrow channel like flowing water does. At higher elevations, where multiple glaciers originate near mountain peaks, this erosion can carve out bowl-shaped depressions called cirques, and where several cirques form on different sides of the same peak, continued erosion can eventually sculpt a sharp, pyramid-like summit called a horn, the most famous example probably being the Matterhorn in the Alps. Long after a glacier retreats, these distinctive shapes remain as clear evidence of its former presence.