【正确答案】 B

【答案解析】[听力原文] In the field of agriculture, marketing is sort of a complex system. Marketing is supplying people with goods and services—what people want, in the form they want it, and when they want it. In agriculture, marketing involves moving a wide range of products—food crops, animal products, fiber crops, flowers, wood, and so on. Marketing links the producer with the customer. All of the processes and infrastructure involved—harvesting equipment, storage and transportation facilities—all of these processes and infrastructure come under the broad heading of 'agricultural marketing technology.' The focus of agricultural marketing technology is on meeting consumer demand. Consumers also want certain products at certain times of the year. They expect to have roses at Valentine's Day and poinsettias at Christmas. So, producers and marketing specialists have to make these special products available when consumers want them. Getting products to consumers involves several processes—we call them marketing functions. Functions such as harvesting, assembling, grading, transporting—these are just some of the important functions of agricultural marketing. The first function, harvesting—this begins on the farm or ranch. Harvesting methods vary for different types of products. A very important function that comes after harvesting is assembling. Assembling is the delivery of a product to a central location, like a packing shed, grain elevator, cotton gin, or processing plant. Assembling is gathering large quantities together to make marketing more efficient. Marketing professionals want to deal with large volumes, and some farms don't have large enough volumes, so they have to combine their product with the product of other farms. Another function is grading, which means sorting products for uniformity. Grading can take place during or after assembling. Grading involves dividing up the product on the basis of several factors—for example, size, color, variety, or the presence of defects. When people buy eggs, they kind of want a uniform size, not a mixture of small, medium, and large eggs. A very important marketing function is transporting, moving the product from one place to another. Agricultural products are transported in various kinds of vehicles: wagons, trucks, barges, airplanes, and railroad cars. In order to market products, certain facilities must be available—what we call marketing infrastructure—the vehicles, roads, railroads, assembling and processing plants, storage facilities, and so on. All of these facilities are necessary infrastructure for marketing agricultural goods. What does the professor mainly discuss? [考点] 主旨题。录音中提到“Marketing is supplying people with goods and services—what people want，in the form they want it，and when they want it”，接下来又讲到营销将产品的生产方与消费者相联系，“The focus of agricultural marketing technology is on meeting consumer demand”，所以可以推断教授主要讨论的问题是农产品是如何被提供给消费者的，所以本题选B。