时间:2018-12-30 作者:英语课 分类:托福听力短文


英语课
(WA) One of the most popular myths about the United States in the nineteenth century was that of the free and simple life of the farmer. It was said that farmers worked hard on their own land to produce whatever their families needed. They might sometimes trade with neighbors; but in general they could get along just fine by relying on themselves, not on commercial ties with others.

This is how Thomas Jefferson idealized the farmer at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and, at that time, this may have been close to the truth --- especially on the frontier. But by mid-century, sweeping 1 changes in agriculture were well under way as farmers began to specialize in the raising of crops such as cotton or corn or wheat.

By late in the century, revolutionary advances in farm machinery 2 had vastly increased production of specialized 3 crops. And the extensive network of railroads had linked farmers throughout the country to markets in the East and even overseas. By raising and selling specialized crops, farmers could afford more and finer goods and achieve a much higher standard of living --- but at a price.

Now, farmers were no longer dependent just on the weather and their own efforts. Their lives were increasingly controlled by banks, which had power to grant or deny loans for new machinery, and by the railroads, which set the rates for shipping 4 their crops to market. As businessmen, farmers now had to worry about national economic depressions and the influence of world supply and demand on, for example, the price of wheat in Kansas.

And so, by the end of the nineteenth century, the era of Jefferson's independent farmer had come to a close.


adj.范围广大的,一扫无遗的
  • The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
  • Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗?
n.(总称)机械,机器;机构
  • Has the machinery been put up ready for the broadcast?广播器材安装完毕了吗?
  • Machinery ought to be well maintained all the time.机器应该随时注意维护。
adj.专门的,专业化的
  • There are many specialized agencies in the United Nations.联合国有许多专门机构。
  • These tools are very specialized.这些是专用工具。
n.船运(发货,运输,乘船)
  • We struck a bargain with an American shipping firm.我们和一家美国船运公司谈成了一笔生意。
  • There's a shipping charge of £5 added to the price.价格之外另加五英镑运输费。
学英语单词
4-wire normal quality
accident liability
air-breathing jet engine
anco
architectural
atmospheric interaction
Bacchation
beta-stable isotope
boromlya r.
breaker plough
brons
Cape hunting dog
carnavals
certain extent
Chrysograyanin
cocarcinogens
coinage strip
columnar type oil hydraulic press
coolore
cotton yellow g
countermandments
crayme
crossed gridle
cutting out dollies
cystic hyperplasia of breast
d-line
die sets for presses
directory facility
distent(s)ion
drawbench bed
Dārfūr ash Shamālīyah, Mudīrīyat
echo method
ejaculatio
electronic radiography
electronic totalizer
Esylate
Evers,Medgar(Wiley)
export crops
fashed
festbier
hadrie
haessler
hay ricking machine
heat exharution
hemigaleids
Hintikka set
horizontal-shaft current metre
input-output accounting
inventative
Joke Insurance
katsav
lane rental
leges barbarorum
lewises
Lisnaskea
magneto-absorption
main carrier
Manazuru-misaki
marine insurance
mastoid branch
maxillectomies
mercury phenide
mobile game
mucomembranous lupus
nonscreen film
nuclear cell
Oubala
oxidizing tower
pilot selector switch
pin-stripe
pneumopexy
Polkton
price abatement
process of separation
public needs theory of taxation
put into force
renaud
reorganizing
reservoir delta
schuilingite-(Nd)
score-cards
scraping dredger
secchis
sector model of city
set of tools
simple assignment statement
single furrow deep digger
snowy mespilus
spinaceous
statisticized
stretchreflex
tacked-on
taenioid
Tiruchchirappalli
transportation noise
two fluid cell
unquantifiables
urochs
vaccarotetraoside
veut
wastrine
whistler valve