PTE考生目前最大的问题之一就是练习题缺乏。除了有限的基本官方书（PLUS，Testbuilder, OG）之外，就没有题了。很多英语基础不是很扎实的同学很难找到练习材料。墨尔本文波雅思PTE培训学校专门为墨尔本，悉尼PTE考生准备了PTE练习的lecture 93篇。各位PTE同学可以练习阅读，练习记笔记技巧，可以练习复述，甚至可以练习describe image。废话少说，下面开始：
63. 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
