托福阅读文章不仅篇幅很长，文章内容也常会给考生带来困扰，比如近期出现频率很高的中世纪农业改革相关的各类题目，许多同学乍一看到往往是一头雾水完全不知道在讲什么。因此，大家有必要补充一些相应的高频话题背景知识才行，下面小编就来做具体讲解。
近期托福阅读农业话题出现情况介绍
农业向来是ETS特别喜欢考的一个话题，从农业起源，到具体某个国家或者文明农业发展的状况，从玛雅印加农业到巴厘岛埃及农业，农业的话题充斥着工业革命之前历史时期的各个阶段。纵观最近几场考试：
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;
中世纪的农业改革这个话题热度久高不下，接下来小编就跟大家详细聊聊中世纪农业改革那些事。
中世纪工业改革话题背景知识科普分享
中世纪的农业改革重点体现在3个方面：三田制(three-field system)，重型犁(heavy plow)和马在畜力上的使用(plow horse)。
1. three-field system(三田制)
在中世纪之前的罗马时代是二田制，所有的田地一份为二，一半种植(cultivation)，一半休耕(fallow)，但随着时代的发展，人口越来越多，导致食物供不应求，所以这个时期的人们开始使用三田制，将土地一分为三，其中的三分之二用于种植，另外三分之一进行休耕，一方面能够确保粮食的供应，另一方面也保证土地有时机恢复肥沃度。
具体内容如下：
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)
这个时期的人们把罗马时代的犁(scratch plow)进行了改造，使它更锋利，能够穿透北欧沉重潮湿的泥土，给土地充气，并且将底层的矿物质翻倒地表，有助于庄稼生长，另一方面，重型犁留下犁纹(furrow)，有利于疏通泥土排水，减少洪涝。但新犁很重，需要八匹马/八头牛去拉，个体农民无法负担如此多牲畜，促使农民合作结成马队或者牛队，且为了减少犁地时拐弯，将农田变成长条形(long strips)。
具体内容如下：
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(马的使用)
马的使用也是这个时期的重点突破，之前不用马是因为套在牛脖子上的collar不适合马，后来人们对这个collar进行改造，研制出了新型马具，使得马可以在耕地上发挥作用。马的工作时间更长，效率更高，促进了农业产出(yield)，且马可以用来运输粮食去更远的地方，推动区域经济的发展。
相应文章如下：
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.
这三大改革，大大促进了农业的发展，也使得中世纪进入了它发展的繁盛期，历史上称之为The High Middle Ages。
中世纪农业改革的相关背景知识就介绍到这里，小编希望各位考生能够认真阅读有所收获，并运用到后期的备考甚至是实战的阶段当中。
