老托福听力93篇-One of the most简介

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　　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 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 had vastly increased production of specialized 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 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.

　　【生词摘录】

　　1. idealize: v. 理想化

　　2. frontier: n. [C]边境，边疆

　　3. sweeping: adj. 广泛的，彻底的

　　4. specialize: v. 专攻，专门研究

　　5. machinery: n. [C]机械

　　6. overseas: adv. 在海外，在国外

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　　Before moving on to a new topic, I want to finish up our unit on arachnids by looking at what may seem a very unusual aspect of spider behavior, a species where the young spiders actually consume the body of their mother. Unlike most other spiders, this species lays one, and only one, clutch of 40 eggs in her lifetime. The young spiders hatch in mid-spring or early summer, inside a nest of eucalyptus leaves. Their mother spends the warm summer months bringing home large insects—often 10 times her weight—for meal. The catch is always significantly more than her young spiders can eat. So, the mother fattens herself up on this extra prey and stores the nutrients in her extra unfertilized eggs. As the weather turns colder, there are fewer insect prey to hunt. That's when the nutrients stored in those extra eggs begin to seep into the mother's bloodstream. So, when there are no more insects to feed to the young spiders, they attach themselves to the mother's leg joints and draw nourishment by sucking the nutrient-rich blood. After several weeks, the mother is depleted of all nutrients and she dies. But then how do the young get nourishment? They start to feed on one another. Now, if you recall our discussion of Darwin, you'll see the evolutionary value of this: Only the strongest spiders of the clutch will survive this "cannibalism," and the mother spider will have ensured that her genes have an increased chance of survival through future generations.

　　【生词摘录】

　　1. arachnid: n. [C]蜘蛛类动物(包括蜘珠、蝎子、虱子等)

　　2. spider: n. [C]蜘蛛

　　3. species: n. [C]种类

　　4. consume: v. 吃

　　5. clutch: n. [C]一次产的或孵的蛋

　　6. eucalyptus: n. [C]桉树

　　7. catch: n. [C]捕获物

　　8. fatten: v. 养肥，使肥胖

　　9. nutrient: n. [C]营养物

　　10. unfertilized: adj. 未受精的

　　11. bloodstream: n. [C]血流

　　12. joint: n. [C]接合处

　　13. nourishment: n. [C]食物，营养品

　　14. cannibalism: n. [C]嗜食同类，自相残杀

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