托福听力official10 The word “whereas” in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案解析

whereas: 然而。A是然而，反之；B是以前；C是令人惊讶的；D是因为。根据词意，正确答案是A。对应原文：Just as painted designs on Greek pots may seem today to be purely decorative, whereas in fact they were carefully and precisely worked out so that at the time, their meaning was clear, so it is with Chinese pots. 注意句子中的seem和in fact，seem的意思是是“看上去”，也就是事实很可能不是这样；后面的in fact的意思是“事实上”，也就是说前面说的很可能不是事实，两者呼应，都说明两句话之间的关系是转折，所以while正确。