托福閱讀文章不僅篇幅很長，文章內容也常會給考生帶來困擾，比如近期出現頻率很高的中世紀農業改革相關的各類題目，許多同學乍一看到往往是一頭霧水完全不知道在講什么。因此，大家有必要補充一些相應的高頻話題背景知識才行，下面小編就來做具體講解。

近期托福閱讀農業話題出現情況介紹

農業向來是ETS特別喜歡考的一個話題，從農業起源，到具體某個國家或者文明農業發展的狀況，從瑪雅印加農業到巴厘島埃及農業，農業的話題充斥著工業革命之前歷史時期的各個階段。縱觀最近幾場考試：

The Plow and the Horse in Medieval Europe 2019.9.7;

The Medieval Agricultural Revolution 2019.8.25;

New Sources of Power for Agriculture 2019.7.6;

中世紀的農業改革這個話題熱度久高不下，接下來小編就跟大家詳細聊聊中世紀農業改革那些事。

中世紀工業改革話題背景知識科普分享

中世紀的農業改革重點體現在3個方面：三田制(three-field system)，重型犁(heavy plow)和馬在畜力上的使用(plow horse)。

1. three-field system(三田制)

在中世紀之前的羅馬時代是二田制，所有的田地一份為二，一半種植(cultivation)，一半休耕(fallow)，但隨著時代的發展，人口越來越多，導致食物供不應求，所以這個時期的人們開始使用三田制，將土地一分為三，其中的三分之二用于種植，另外三分之一進行休耕，一方面能夠確保糧食的供應，另一方面也保證土地有時機恢復肥沃度。

具體內容如下：

For much of the early Middle Ages, peasants continued the Roman practice of dividing their fields in two leaving one fallow, or uncultivated, for a year, and planting their crops in the other half. Fallow land restored its nutrients, but the practice meant that half the land produced nothing every year. In southern Europe with its drier climate this system of two-field crop rotation continued, but in northern Europe, peasants improved on this system by dividing their land into three parts. One they left fallow, another they planted in the spring, and the third they planted with winter crops. This three-field crop rotation, dependent on more rainfall than southern Europe received, meant that two-thirds instead of one-half of a peasant's land was under production in one year.

2. heavy plow(重型犁)

這個時期的人們把羅馬時代的犁(scratch plow)進行了改造，使它更鋒利，能夠穿透北歐沉重潮濕的泥土，給土地充氣，并且將底層的礦物質翻倒地表，有助于莊稼生長，另一方面，重型犁留下犁紋(furrow)，有利于疏通泥土排水，減少洪澇。但新犁很重，需要八匹馬/八頭牛去拉，個體農民無法負擔如此多牲畜，促使農民合作結成馬隊或者牛隊，且為了減少犁地時拐彎，將農田變成長條形(long strips)。

具體內容如下：

A major development in farming was the heavy plow that could cut through the deep, wet, and heavy soils of Northern Europe much better than the light scratch plow. It had three basic parts: the coulter or heavy knife that cut through the soil vertically, the plowshare that cut through the soil horizontally, and the mouldboard, which turned the soil to one side.

There were two advantages to this kind of plow. First, it cut the soil so violently that there was no need for cross plowing as there was with the scratch plow. This saved time, which could be used for, among other things, clearing more land and producing more food. Second, the heavy plow created furrows, little ridges and valleys in each plowed row. In times of drought, water would drain into the valleys and ensure some crops would survive. In times of heavy rains, the crops on top of the ridges would not get flooded out. As a result, peasants could usually look forward to at least some crops to harvest even in bad years. The furrows the heavy plow created also meant that the rich alluvial bottomlands by rivers could be farmed without their frequent floods doing too much damage. The heavy plow also fed into the feedback cycle of more food, population growth, etc.

3. plow horse(馬的使用)

馬的使用也是這個時期的重點突破，之前不用馬是因為套在牛脖子上的collar不適合馬，后來人們對這個collar進行改造，研制出了新型馬具，使得馬可以在耕地上發揮作用。馬的工作時間更長，效率更高，促進了農業產出(yield)，且馬可以用來運輸糧食去更遠的地方，推動區域經濟的發展。

相應文章如下：

Oxen are slow and unintelligent compared to horses, but peasants could not use horses to pull plows until they devised a different kind of harnessing than the strap that circled an ox's neck. With a harness resting on its shoulders instead of its neck, a horse could be used to plow, and horses could walk more quickly and work longer hours than oxen. They also required less guidance, since they understood verbal signals to turn or to stop. Heavier, wheeled plows pulled by suitably harnessed horses meant that peasants could work more land in a day than ever before. Whether an increase in population across western Europe, but particularly in the north, stimulated innovations or whether such innovations contributed to a rise in population, the cumulative effect of these changes in agriculture was apparent in the tenth century. Conditions in Europe were ripe for an economic and cultural upswing.

這三大改革，大大促進了農業的發展，也使得中世紀進入了它發展的繁盛期，歷史上稱之為The High Middle Ages。

中世紀農業改革的相關背景知識就介紹到這里，小編希望各位考生能夠認真閱讀有所收獲，并運用到后期的備考甚至是實戰的階段當中。