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
Altaja
appleless
basalar plate
be affluent in
bernstein theorem
Caryota mitis
chief customer officer
chuck hydrant
coho salmon
cow dungs
deem
delp
desuperheated steam pipe
direct precedence relation
e-identities
educational audit
emotional responses
entity bean
expiring laws
extensible markup language remote procedure call
eyskens
fair-lead sheave
feed production
Fermi-Dirac gas
field game
flusher cleaning attachment
football leagues
fovent
gas distribution
get rats
ghost cars
glass cleaner
global revession
granularization
hairshafts
haplogroup
head lamp door
humanizations
hyperexcitable
in the team
inclined weld
innins
intercrystalline fluid
investment pool
kalkh
linear first-order differential equation
lipothiamine pyrophosphate
Lukousaurus
m-methylbenzyl alcohol
magnetic space group
maisey
mean orbit radius
meddler
melanotrichia hibuneana
Minamishinano
monel metals
monni
multicast channel
multiple hearth reactor
neckguards
nitrogen acid anhydride
Nonionella
Novolaudom
obviative
paleontological facies
Pars tibiotalaris anterior
phosphation
physical colorimetry
pilla
pizzles
plight one's honour
post-accident sampling system
preliminary cast
presentation of self
proof strength
Raukumara Ra.
reprojection
rightsize
Rissah
sagittate leaf
salt rust
scale-out storage
second window
segmental arc
sequential interdependence
shines on
Sibinda
sleeve-resection
square-thread
statistic soil mechanics
strine
struck back
stumbling-blocks
Sulfhydrases
telegraphic office
tocolytics
Two-Way Quote
underground mining method
vicegeral
weight balanced spindle
wellgarnished
xa