2016年11月12日托福阅读真题解析（新东方）

　　2016年11月12日托福考试阅读解析

　　2016年11月12日托福阅读真题词汇题：

　　2016年11月12日托福阅读真题第一篇

　　题材划分： 农业发展类

　　主要内容：主题是关于农业的出现，大概讲农业起源于什么时间，在埃及和美索不达米亚平原都有金字塔，因为埃及更早，而且都是为了宗教目的，所以科学家认为美索不达米亚是学埃及的。但是人造的hills and mounds由不同的人造有不同的目的，所以科学家又认为在美索不达米亚金字塔是学的还是自己发明的取决于农业是不是独立发展的。现在普遍认为1万年前，农业至少在六个独立的地方发展了，尽管没有证据。有人提出了一个概念，说农业的发展一定是在没有人类帮助的情况下，新作物被引进了，举例说grass就不是的，而maze是个成功的例子，最后的结论是农业是独立发展的

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　　TPO21- The Origins of Agriculture

　　相关背景知识：

　　The history of agriculture records the domestication of plants and animals and the development and dissemination of techniques for raising them productively. Agriculture began independently in different parts of the globe, and included a diverse range of taxa. At least 11 separate regions of the Old and New World were involved as independent centers of origin.

　　Wild grains were collected and eaten from at least 20,000 BC. From around 9500 BC, the eight Neolithic founder crops, emmer and einkorn wheat, hulled barley, peas, lentils, bitter vetch, chick peas and flax were cultivated in the Levant. Rice was domesticated in China between 11,500 and 6,200 BC, followed by mung, soy and azuki beans. Pigs were domesticated in Mesopotamia around 13,000 BC, followed by sheep between 11,000 and 9,000 BC. Cattle were domesticated from the wild aurochs in the areas of modern Turkey and Pakistan around 8,500 BC. Sugarcane and some root vegetables were domesticated in New Guinea around 7,000 BC. Sorghum was domesticated in the Sahel region of Africa by 5000 BC. In the Andes of South America, the potato was domesticated between 8,000 and 5,000 BC, along with beans, coca, llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs. Cotton was domesticated in Peru by 3,600 BC. In Mesoamerica, wild teosinte was domesticated to maize by 4,000 BC. Camels were domesticated late, perhaps around 3000 BC.

　　In the Middle Ages, both in the Islamic world and in Europe, agriculture was transformed with improved techniques and the diffusion of crop plants, including the introduction of sugar, rice, cotton and fruit trees such as the orange to Europe by way of Al-Andalus. After 1492, the Columbian exchange brought New World crops such as maize, potatoes, sweet potatoes and manioc to Europe, and Old World crops such as wheat, barley, rice and turnips, and livestock including horses, cattle, sheep and goats to the Americas. Irrigation, crop rotation, and fertilizers were introduced soon after the Neolithic Revolution and developed much further in the past 200 years, starting with the British Agricultural Revolution.

　　Since 1900, agriculture in the developed nations, and to a lesser extent in the developing world, has seen large rises in productivity as human labour has been replaced by mechanization, and assisted by synthetic fertilizers, pesticides, and selective breeding. The Haber-Bosch method allowed the synthesis of ammonium nitrate fertilizer on an industrial scale, greatly increasing crop yields. Modern agriculture has raised political issues including water pollution, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, tariffs and farm subsidies.