BSection I Use of EnglishDirections: Read the following text. Choose the best word(s) for each numbered blank and mark A, B, C or D./B

Miss Universe took place in Athens, Greece. The junta was still in power. I saw a heck of a lot of jeeps and troops and machine guns. The Americans were supposed to keep a low profile.【F1】 I had never been a great fan of the Greek junta, but I knew well I was going to have to keep my mouth shut. I was still representing the United States, for better or for worse. Miss Philippines won. I ran second. At the end of the year, you're run absolutely ragged. That final evening, they usually have several queens from past years come back. Before they crown the new Miss USA, the current one is supposed to take what they call the farewell walk. They call over the PA: Time for the old queen's walk. I'm now twenty-three and I'm an old queen. And they have this idiot farewell speech playing over the airwaves as the old queen takes the walk.【F2】 And you're sitting on the throne for about thirty seconds, then you come down and they announce the name of the new one and you put the crown on her head. And then you're out. Miss USA and remnants thereof is the crown stored in the attic in my parents' home. I don't even know where the banners are. It wasn't me the fans of Miss USA thought was pretty. What they think is pretty is the banner and crown.【F3】 If I could put the banner and crown on that lamp, I swear to God ten men would come in and ask it for a date. I'll think about committing an axe murder if I'm not called anything but a former beauty queen. I can't stand it any more. Several times during my year as what's her-face I had seen the movie The Sting. There is a gesture the characters use which means the con is on: they rub their nose.【F4】 In my last fleeting moments as Miss USA, as they were playing that silly farewell speech and I walked down the aisle and stood by the throne. I looked right into the camera and rubbed my finger across my nose. The next day,the pageant people spent all their time telling people that I hadn't done it. I spent the time telling them that, of course, I had. I simply meant; the con is on. 【F5】 If I could sit down with every young girl in America for the next fifty years. I could tell them what I liked about the pageant, I could tell them what I hated. I wouldn't make any difference. There're always gonna be girls who want to enter the beauty pageant. That's the fantasy: the American Dream.

【F1】 The agricultural sciences deal with the challenges of food and fibre production and processing. They include the technologies of soil cultivation, crop cultivation and harvesting, animal production, and the processing of plant and animal products for human consumption and use. Food is the most basic human need.【F2】 The domestication and cultivation of plants and animals beginning almost 10,000 years ago were aimed at ensuring that this need was met, and then as now these activities also fit with the relentless human drive to understand and control the Earth "s biosphere. Over the last century and a half, many of the world"s political leaders have recognized what India"s Jawaharlal Nehru did, that "Most things except agriculture can wait. " Scientific methods have been applied widely, and the results have revolutionized agricultural production. Under the conditions of prescientific agriculture, in a good harvest year, six people can produce barely enough food for themselves and four others. Advanced technologies have made it possible for one farmer in the United States, for example, to produce food for more than 100 people.【F3】 The farmer has been enabled to increase yields per acre and per animal; reduce losses from diseases, pests, and spoilage; and augment net production by improved processing methods. Until the 1930s, the benefits of agricultural research derived mostly from labour-saving inventions. Once the yield potentials of the major economic crops were increased through agricultural research, however, crop production per acre increased dramatically.【F4】 Between 1940 and 1980 in the United States, for example, per-acre yields of corn tripled, those of wheat and soybeans doubled, and farm output per hour of farm work increased almost 10-fold as capital was substituted for labour. 【F5】 New techniques of preserving food products made it possible to transport them over greater distances, in turn facilitating adjustments among locations of production and consumption, with further benefits to production efficiency . From a global perspective, the international flow of agricultural technology allows for the increase of agricultural productivity in developed and developing countries alike. From 1965 to 1985, for example, world trade in grains tripled, as did net exports from the United States. In fact, by the 1980s more than two-fifths of U. S. crop production was exported, making U. S. agriculture heavily dependent upon international markets.

APet'sWishWriteanessayof160-200wordsbasedonthedrawing.Inyouressay,youshould1)describethedrawingbriefly,2)explainitsintendedmeaning,and3)giveyourcomments.

BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B

DNA testing has become something our society relies on very heavily for identification purposes. Everyone has different DNA so it is a unique way to identify an individual. It is the equivalent of a signature only in a genetic form that can"t be altered or hidden. One of the most common uses of DNA testing is to track down criminals who have left hair, skin, or semen at the scene of a crime. A use for DNA testing that is less familiar to most individuals is for tracking down a person"s heritage. It can be hard to determine a person"s heritage without the help of DNA testing. Each person is classified into one of four main groups when it comes to ancestry. Those groups arc East Asian, Native American, African, or European. Many people have some identifying features or skin colors that help to identify their particular line of ancestry. The trouble is that many people have parents from two different ancestry lines. This makes the diversification very hard to track as you start looking back on generations of mixed ancestry. With ancestry DNA it is possible to determine the dominant one for that individual. The testing involved in the ancestry DNA process is done with the technology available today. Ancestry DNA testing involves the process of Single Nucleotide Polymorphism so that the dominant ethnic group can be identified. The Single Nucleotide Polymorphism also tells the percentage of the different ancestry groups that make up the individual"s DNA. While you may wonder why ancestry is so important to some people, the reality is that it does matter. It is interesting to know where your heritage lies and for some people not knowing gives them a void they really want to have filled. This is more important to them than simply fitting into society because of their race or color. There is plenty of debate surrounding the concept of ancestry DNA. Many experts claim it is not a reliable way to determine one"s heritage. They also believe it causes issues with cultural beliefs rather than instilling a sense of their role in society. Others find these claims to be completely ridiculous and place plenty of merit in ancestry DNA test results. There are many good ancestry DNA test locations in the world that do offer individuals the opportunity to find out where their true heritage lies. Meanwhile an independent validation method still has to be adopted before the scientific field is going to accept it.

It was the biggest scientific grudge match since the space race. The Genome Wars had everything: two groups with appealing leaders ready to fight in a scientific dead heat, pushing the limits of technology and rhetoric as they battled to become the first to read every last one of the 3 billion DNA "letters" in the human body.【F1】 The scientific importance of the work is unquestionable, the completed DNA sequence is expected to give scientists unprecedented insights into the workings of the human body, revolutionizing medicine and biology. But the race itself, between the government's Human Genome Project and Rockville, Md., biotechnology company Celera Genomics, was at least partly symbolic, the public/private conflict played out in a genetic lab. Now the race is over. After years of public attacks and several failed attempts at reconciliation, the two sides are taking a step toward a period of calm. HGP head Francis Collins(and Ari Patrinos of the Department of Energy, an important ally on the government side)and Craig Venter, the founder of Celera, agreed to hold a joint press conference in Washington this Monday to declare that the race was over(sort of), that both sides had won(kind of)and that the hostilities were resolved(for the time being). No one is exactly sure how things will be different now.【F2】 Neither side will be turning off its sequencing machines any time soon—the "finish lines" each has crossed are largely arbitrary points, "first drafts" rather than the definitive version. 【F3】 And while the joint announcement brings the former Genome Warriors closer together than they've been in years, insiders say that future agreements are more likely to take the form of coordination, rather than outright collaboration. The conflict blew up this February when Britain's Wellcome Trust, an HGP participant, released a confidential letter to Celera outlining the HGP's complaints. Venter called the move "a lowlife thing to do." But by spring, there were the first signs of a thaw. "The attacks and nastiness are bad for science and our investors," Venter told Newsweek in March, "and fighting back is probably not helpful."【F4】 At a cancer meeting earlier this month, Venter and Collins praised each other's approaches, and expressed hope that all of the scientists involved in sequencing the human genome would be able to share the credit. By late last week, that hope was becoming a reality as details for Monday's joint announcement were hammered out. Scientists in both camps welcomed an end to the hostilities. "If this ends the horse race, science wins."【F5】 With their difference behind them, or at least set aside, the scientists should now be able to get down to the interesting stuff: figuring how to make use of all that data.

Think of theme parks and you think of roller coasters. The secret checking of the seat restraints, the stomach-sickening climb and the visceral thrill of the drop are the hallmarks of a park visit. But as a metaphor for the industry, the roller coaster is all wrong. Making money from theme parks is a hard thing, not a thrilling rush. And coasters are not where the best chance of revenue growth lies. This week"s July 4th celebrations marked the beginning of the summer season for America"s theme parks. Around the world, another year of moderate growth is expected: global attendance grew by 2.2% in 2006. Growth is slowest in the mature markets of North America and Europe, though the prospects look better in Asia. Scope to raise entry prices is limited by competition. At $300m or more, the economics of building a new park are "brutal", says Raymond Braun of Economic Research Associates, a consultancy. In response, operators are concentrating on improving the customer experience, making greater use of their facilities and turning parks into multi-day destinations. Stronger theming helps to make a park more distinctive. Greater interactivity is also important The "Men in Black" ride at Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida, in which passengers shoot at animatronics aliens, is a good example of what industry types like to call an "immersive" experience. Discovery Cove, another Florida park, takes that term literally, charging visitors premium prices to swim with dolphins and other animals. Packing more people into parks risks turning visits into a series of queues interrupted by rides, rather than the other way round. "Queuing is a big nuisance," says Mark Fisher of Merlin Entertainments. One answer is to break up the boredom by putting entertainers into the queue. Another is to offer ride-reservation systems or special tickets that let people book a place in line without having to queue. Getting people through the park more efficiently is one way to increase the use of facilities. Extending the season is another. Tivoli, a park in the heart of Copenhagen, introduced a ten-day Halloween season in 2006 to sit alongside its summer and Christmas openings. "We used to be a seasonal business and now we are more or less a full-year business," says the park"s chief executive. As squeezing growth out of existing parks becomes harder, operators are also looking to new markets. Indoor city-based attractions, which are cheap to build and easy to get to, have plenty of potential, even in mature markets. Emerging markets look promising, too. Asia"s top ten parks recorded attendance growth of 4.4% in 2006, much of it driven by Hong Kong Disneyland"s first full year of operation. As consumers in developing markets become wealthier, the industry will look a lot more thrilling.

Aging poses a serious challenge to OECD (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, in particular, how to pay for future public pension liabilities. And early retirement places an【B1】______burden on pension financing. There is no easy solution, but 【B2】______retirement could help. Early retirement may seem like a worthy individual goal, but it is a socially【B3】______one, and makes the present public pension system difficult to sustain for long. The【B4】______reason is that more people are retiring early and living longer. That means more retirees depending on the 【B5】______of those in work for their income. The【B6】______is worrying. In the next 50 years, low fertility rates and【B7】______life expectancy in OECD countries will cause this old-age dependency rate to roughly double【B8】______size. Public pension payments, which afford 30-80% of total retirement incomes in OECD countries, are【B9】______to rise, on average, by over three percentage points in GDP and by as much as eight percentage points in some countries.【B10】______is the pressure on pension funds that there is a danger of today's workers not getting the pensions they expected or felt they【B11】______for. Action is needed,【B12】______simply aiming to reduce the【B13】______(and cost) of public pensions, or trying to【B14】______the role of privately funded pensions within the system, though necessary steps, may be【B15】______to deal with the dependency challenge. After years of【B16】______early retirement schemes to avoid【B17】______and higher unemployment, many governments are now looking【B18】______persuading people to stay in work until they are older. Surely, the thinking goes, if we are healthier now and jobs are physically less【B19】______and unemployment is down, then perhaps the【B20】______rate should rise anew.

More and more residences, businesses, and even government agencies are using telephone answering machines to take messages or give information or instructions. Sometimes these machines give (1)_____ instructions, or play messages that are difficult to understand. If you (2)_____ telephone calls, you need to be ready to respond if you get a (3)_____. The most common machine is the (4)_____ used in residence. If you call a home (5)_____ there is a telephone answering machine in operation you (6)_____ hear several rings and then a recorded message (7)_____ usually says something (8)_____ this: "Hello. We can"t come to the (9)_____ right now. If you want us to call you back, please leave your name and number after the beep". Then you will hear a "beep", (10)_____ is a brief, high-pitched (11)_____. Alter the beep, you can say who you are, whom you want to speak to, and what number the person should call to (12)_____ you, or you can leave a (13)_____. Some telephone answering machines (14)_____ for only 20 or 30 seconds after the beep, so you must respond quickly. Some large businesses and government agencies are using telephone answering machines to provide information on (15)_____ about which they receive a large volume of (16)_____. Using these systems (17)_____ you to have a touch-tone phone (a phone with buttons rather than a rotary dial). The voice on the machine will tell your to push a certain button on your telephone if you want information on Topic A, another button for Topic B, and so on. You listen (18)_____ you hear the topic you want to learn about, and then you push the (19)_____ button. After making your (20)_____, you will hear a recorded message on the topic.

Galileo, perhaps more than any other single person, was responsible for the birth of modern science. His renowned conflict with the Catholic Church was central to his philosophy, for Galileo was one of the first to argue that man could hope to understand how the world works, and moreover, that we could do this by observing the real world. Galileo had believed Copernican theory (that the planets orbited the sun) since early on, but it was only when he found the evidence needed to support the idea that he started to publicly support it. He wrote about Copernicus"s theory in Italian (not the usual academic Lat in), and soon his views became widely supported outside the universities. This annoyed the Aristotelian professors, who united against him seeking to persuade the Catholic Church to ban Copernicanism. Galileo, worried by this, traveled to Rome to speak to the ecclesiastical authorities. He argued that the Bible was not intended to tell us anything about scientific theories, and that it was usual to assume that, where the Bible conflicted with common sense, it was being allegorical. But the Church was afraid of a scandal that might undermine its fight against Protestantism, and so took repressive measures. It declared Copernicanism "false and erroneous" in 1616, and commanded Galileo never again to "defend" or "hold" the doctrine. Galileo acquiesced. In 1623, a longtime friend of Galileo"s became the Pope. Immediately Galileo tried to get the 1616 decree revoked. He failed, but he did manage to get permission to write a book discussing both Aristotelian and Copernican theories, on two conditions: he would not take sides and would come to the conclusion that, man could in any case not determine how the world worked because God could bring about the same effects in ways unimagined by man, who could not place restrictions on God"s omnipotence. The book, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was completed and published in 1632, with the full backing of the censors-and was immediately greeted throughout Europe as a literary and philosophical masterpiece. Soon the Pope, realizing that people were seeing the book as a convincing argument in favor of Copernicanism, regretted having allowed its publication. The Pope argued that although the book had the official blessing of the, censors, Galileo had nevertheless contravened the 1616 decree. He brought Galileo before the Inquisition, who sentenced him to house arrest for life and commanded him to publicly renounce Copernicanism. For a second time, Galileo acquiesced. Galileo remained a faithful Catholic, but his belief in the independence of science had not been crushed. Four years before his death in 1642, while he was still under house arrest, the manuscript of his second major book was smuggled to a publisher in Holland. It was this work, referred to as Two New Sciences, even more than his support for Copernicus, that was to be the genesis of modern physics.

On April 20, 2000, in Accra, Ghana, the leaders of six West African countries declared their intention to proceed to monetary union among the non-CFA franc countries of the region by January 2003, as first step toward a wider monetary union including all the ECOWAS countries in 2004. The six countries (1)_____ themselves to reducing central bank financing of budget deficits (2)_____ 10 percent of the previous years government (3)_____; reducing budget deficits to 4 percent of the second phase by 2003; creating a Convergence Council to help (4)_____ macroeconomic policies; and (5)_____ up a common central bank. Their declaration (6)_____ that, "Member States (7)_____ the need (8)_____ strong political commitment and (9)_____ to (10)_____ all such national policies (11)_____ would facilitate the regional monetary integration process". The goal of a monetary union in ECOWAS has long been an objective of the organization, going back to its formation in 1975, and is intended to (12)_____ broader integration process that would include enhanced regional trade and (13)_____ institutions. In the colonial period, currency boards linked sets of countries in the region. (14)_____ independence, (15)_____, these currency boards were (16)_____, with the (17)_____ of the CFA franc zone, which included the francophone countries of the region. Although there have been attempts to advance the agenda of ECOWAS monetary cooperation, political problems and other economic priorities in several of the region"s countries have to (18)_____ inhibited progress. Although some problems remain, the recent initiative has been bolstered by the election in I999 of a democratic government and a leader who is committed to regional (19)_____ in Nigeria, the largest economy of the region, raising hopes that the long-delayed project can be (20)_____.

(T1) While there are almost as many definitions of history as there are historians, modern practice most closely conforms to one that sees history as the attempt to recreate and explain the significant events of the past. Caught in the web of its own time and place, each generation historians determines anew what is significant for it in the past. In this search the evidence found is always incomplete and scattered; it is also frequently partial or partisan. The irony of the historian"s craft is that its practitioner always know that their efforts are but contributions to an unending process. (T2) Interest in historical methods has arisen less through external challenge to the validity of history as an intellectual discipline and more from internal quarrels among historians themselves. While history once revered its affinity to literature and philosophy, the emerging social sciences seemed to afford greater opportunities for asking new questions and providing rewarding approaches to an understanding of the past. Social science methodologies had to be adapted to a discipline governed by the primacy of historical sources rather than the imperatives of the contemporary world, (T3) During this transfer, traditional historical methods were augmented by additional methodologies designed to interpret the new forms of evidence in the historical study. Methodology is a term that remains inherently ambiguous in the historical profession, (T4) There is no agreement whether methodology refers to the concepts peculiar to historical work in general or to the research techniques appropriate to the various branches of historical inquiry. Historians, especially those so blinded by their research interests that they have been accused of "tunnel method", frequently fall victim to the "technicist fallacy", Also common in the natural sciences, the technicist fallacy mistakenly identifies the discipline as a whole with certain parts of its technical implementation. (T5) It applies equally to traditional historians who view history as only the external and internal criticism of sources, and to social science historians who equate their activity with specific techniques.

[A]Listen more than you talk [B]Tell white lies when necessary [C]Be honest about what you can reveal [D]Don' t discount the little guys [E]Choose the customer with the same values [F]Do your research [G]Stay true to your values Successful businesses are built on strong relationships. Business leaders often need to step into the shoes of a diplomat, developing and managing complex relationships with many diverse groups. "There is a lot of common ground between diplomacy and business, " says Carey Cavanaugh, a professor of diplomacy at the University of Kentucky and a former U.S. ambassador stationed all over the world for over two decades under both the Clinton and Bush administrations. "Entrepreneurs can draw from the diplomatic tool box to be more effective, " he says. Try these tips from a seasoned diplomat' s toolbox to help you build solid business relationships that last. 【R1】______ Diplomats are known as "people who lie for their countries, " and corporations are often seen as equally deceitful. But in both cases, telling the truth is essential for success. Truth builds a solid reputation. It's the key to establishing long-term relationships that you can rely on in a crunch. When secrecy is essential, with an upcoming product launch or a private personnel issue, don't compromise honesty. You can keep secrets and still tell the truth. Just be honest about what you can and cannot say. 【R2】______ Just as a diplomat would learn about a culture's customs before a visit, learn as much as you can before you try to connect with a customer, peer, or potential partner. Learn what they value, how they behave, what their long-term interests are, and what they need or want. Use that knowledge to help you craft your message or product, address specific needs, and show that you understand their values. 【R3】______ Diplomats and business people have a reputation for being pushy, but you best take time to listen. Half the job is about saying what you want or need, but the other half is listening, It's as important to listen as it is to speak. Listening makes the other party feel valued, helps you identify their needs, and allows you to respond more creatively. When you listen, you can often find solutions that evade others, making you more likely to reach your goals. 【R4】______ The relationships you 're building today, even those that seem inconsequential, are worth attention and care. Relationships that don't seem important now will come back to you later, though you won't know when or how. A casual acquaintance may be the key to your next innovation, just as a tiny country may be the next major oil source for a diplomat. Build lasting relationships by treating others with integrity and giving your full attention when you' re with them. 【R5】______ In any negotiation or business decision, choose solutions that fit your values, even if they're not the easiest or cheapest options. When you deviate from your values, there' s a hard price to pay. It takes a long time to get a reputation back. It's easiest to lose your values when you're getting impatient or growing rapidly, so in those moments, remember what you stand for. The more you act on consistent values, the stronger your business will be in the long run and the more your consumers will trust you.

Some time between digesting Christmas dinner and putting your head back down to work, spare a thought or two for the cranberry. It is, of course, a (1)_____ of Christmas: merry bright red, bittersweetly delicious with turkey and the very devil to get out of the tablecloth (2)_____ spilled. But the cranberry is also a symbol of the modern food industry and in the tale of its (3)_____ from colonial curiosity to business-school case study (4)_____ a deeper understanding of the opportunities and (5)_____ of modern eating. The fastest growing part of today"s cranberry market is for cranberries that do not taste like cranberries. Ocean Spray"s "flavoured fruit pieces" (FFPS, to the trade) taste like orange, cherry, raspberry or any (6)_____ of other fruits. They are in fact cranberries. Why make a cranberry taste like an orange? Mostly because it is a (7)_____ little fruit: FF PS have a shelf-life of two years. Better (8)_____, they keep a chewy texture (9)_____ baked, unlike the fruits whose flavours they mimic, which turn to (10)_____. The dynamic that has brought the cranberry to this point is (11)_____ to the dynamic behind most mass-produced goods. Growing (12)_____ provided the (13)_____ to create cheaper and more reliable supply. Cheaper and more reliable supply, (14)_____, created incentives to find new markets, which increased demand. Thus was the (15)_____ kept churning. The cranberry is one of only three fruits native (16)_____ North America, growing wild from Maine to North Carolina. (The others are the Concord grape and the blueberry.) The American Indians had several names for cranberries, many (17)_____ the words for "bitter" or, more (18)_____, "noisy". They ate the berries mostly (19)_____ pemmican, but also used them for dye and medicine. And they introduced them to the white settlers—at the first Thanksgiving dinner in 1621, it is said. The settlers promptly renamed this delicacy the "crane berry", (20)_____ the pointy pink blossoms of the cranberry look a bit like the head of the Sandhill crane.

BPart ADirections: Write a composition/letter of no less than 100 words on the following information./B

In this part you are asked to write a short passage about job Resume, your writing should include letter head(信头), work experience, education, other information, personal information and references(证明人). If your names are mentioned in the writing, use "Li Ming" instead, write it neatly and with no less than 150 words.

You"ve received a wedding invitation from your best friend Jessie just now, but unfortunately you have something else to do that day and could not attend it. Please write a reply letter, telling her your decision, stating your reason(s), and making an apology. You should write about 100 words on ANSWER SHEET 2 Do not sign your own name at the end of the letter. Use "Li Ming" instead. Do not write the address.

Who knows better than your customers where your operations can be improved? Today, progressive firms increasingly rely on advisory councils to suggest improvements, recommend action, and offer feedback on programs and policies. In fact, many companies feel that this form of communication is vital to the continuous improvement of their business operations. A council, among other things, improves communication and spurs improvement of operations. Remember that the secret to success is dialogue—the exchange of ideas and opinions. Focus on problems your customers have. Spell out your goals and objectives. Each meeting should have a specific objective to accomplish. Determine the meeting"s frequency. If you want to implement a strategic plan, an annual meeting may be enough. If you want to focus on operational issues, more meetings may be needed. A good council will have no more than 12 people, with half of the members from your company and half your customers. It should also have diversity in its membership. Members should serve from one to three years-rotation of membership will ensure the council doesn"t become stale. Find an approximate meeting site, whether it"s in-house or off site, where there will be no interruptions. You should pay for all the expenses related to the meeting—remember, the council members are providing your company with a service. Treat them as your guests and your experts. If you have a fixed beginning and ending time to your meeting, stick to it. When structuring the meeting, remember the 80720 problem-solving rule. Structure the meeting so that 20 percent of the time is spent identifying or discussing a problem and 80 percent of the time is spent designing a solution. Often it is helpful to have a person act as timekeeper and announce when the agenda time for a particular item has expired. However, during the meeting, be flexible. The facilitator can allow. the group to decide whether to move on to the next item or extend the discussion. As you go along, look to narrow the differences among members and form a consensus. As the meeting closes, summarize what was accomplished, checking for agreement and commitment among the members. Make a detailed list of the follow-up items, who has responsibility for each item, and a timeline for completion. The results from really listening to and learning from your customers in a well-run advisory council can pay huge dividends.

The historian Frederick J. Turner wrote in the 1890' s that the agrarian discontent that had been developing steadily in the United States since about 1870 had been precipitated by the closing of the internal frontier — that is, the depletion of available new land needed for further expansion of the American farming system. Actually, however, new lands were taken up for farming in the United States throughout and beyond the nineteenth century.【F1】 In the 1890's, when agrarian discontent had become most acute, 1,100,000 new farms were settled, which was 500,000 more than had been settled during the previous decade. After 1890, under the terms of the Homestead Act and its successors, more new land was taken up for farming than had been taken up for this purpose in the United States up until that time. 【F2】 It is true that agricultural practices had become sufficiently advanced to make it possible to increase the profitability of farming by utilizing even these relatively barren lands. The emphasis given by both scholars and statesmen to the presumed disappearance of the American frontier helped to obscure the great importance of changes in the conditions and consequences of international trade that occurred during the second half of the nineteenth century. 【F3】 By about 1870 improvements in agricultural technology made possible the full exploitation of areas that were most suitable for extensive farming on a mechanized basis. Huge tracts of land were being settled and farmed in Argentina, Australia, Canada, and in the American West, and these areas were joined with one another and with the countries of Europe into an interdependent market system.【F4】 As a consequence, agrarian depressions no longer were local or national in scope, and they struck several nations whose internal frontiers had not vanished or were not about to vanish. Between the early 1870' s and the 1890' s, the mounting agrarian discontent in America paralleled the almost uninterrupted decline in the prices of American agricultural products on foreign markets.【F5】 Those staple-growing farmers in the United States who exhibited the greatest discontent were those who had become most dependent on foreign markets for the sale of their products.