托福听力备考干货：状况由谁把控——个体还是团体的作用？|附托福备考资料免费下载领取！

说完了考古学对促进现代人类对古代同胞生活状况以及发展历程的作用，我们再把目光转向已经有迹可循的近现代社会。大家可以先想想社会一词在当下语境中指什么样的概念。大概很多人下意识会认为是一群人在一起的集合体。诚然，社会，在我们讨论的语境——人类社会中，指代的就是集体。那这就不可避免地引出一个问题——究竟是什么，对社会的形成发展有着至关重要的作用？个体还是团体？

在多篇听力中，都提到了决定社会经济状况的因素：以美国社会为例，尤其是处于美国西部开发的边远地frontier的社会底层人们，他们是否对社会的形成造成了影响呢？而他们的生活又是否被其他力量影响着呢？我们首先来了解何为“美国梦”。

美国梦，即指一种相信只要经过努力不懈的奋斗便能获得更好生活的理想。不难看出，实现梦想的最大助力是个人努力，而不是社会大环境。换而言之，只要愿意付出，便有机会成功——典型的个人主义Individualism思想。在西进运动Westward Movement中，广阔美国西部土地（虽然当时是印第安人的领土）尽“入吾彀中”的优渥条件表面上催生了一种以个人主义为核心的美国精神，如同TPO57中教授介绍的一位名叫Frederick Jackson Turner的史学家的观点一样：

Turner asserted that the existence of a frontier with cheaper or virtually free land for the taking available for individuals to sort of try their luck tended to promote certain ideals that were central to the American character, ideals of economic self-sufficiency, individualism, political independence, small town democracy, suspicion of large government, things like that. He saw these things being really shaped by the economic and social conditions of the frontier, and for Turner, the end of the frontier in 1890 meant the end of this particular era of American character.

然而这所谓“靠自己不靠别人”的个人主义，这看似美好的自由是真实的吗？其实在发展的洪流中，个体永远是被时代的车轮裹挟着不断前进的，个体的命运是由社会乃至国家的情况决定的：

Turner really, in their view, underestimated the role of the federal government and large corporations in shaping the economic life of the frontier. I mean, just as a for instance, the federal government, to this day, is the largest landowner west of the Mississippi river; and people’s lives, when they got to the frontier, were really dictated by market forces beyond, pretty much beyond their control. You know, you grow wheat, you exported it to Europe, and whether you prosper or not depended at least partly on the price of wheat, which you had relatively little control over.

大家注意听力中，如果碰到较难理解的概念，往往会通过举例的方式进行说明；在听这些例子的时候，固然能听懂具体在说什么最好，如果没有办法完全get，至少需要把例子主体和其解释的观点进行对应。在听力的考点考察中，非常重要的一点就是例子的作用，例如题目会问Why does the professor mention wheat growing and exporting of the frontier? 这时候我们就需要去到前文中寻找观点，通常就在例子之前。此处为加粗的dictated by market force。对于整个例子听懂的同学来说，更应该对应到beyond their control上。

回到内容上，这一段明显说明了，人们对自己的生活是没有如Turner想象中的那般美好，不是那种通过个人主义/美国梦就可以成功的状态，而是被外在因素：政府、大公司、市场因素所掌控。

在TPO 48中，介绍了商业巨头是如何“控制”国家的经济命脉的，教授如是说：

How did an elite group, a few business giants how did they end up dominating controlling a number of important national industries in the last quarter of the 19th century? How did they get to be so dominant? How did they figure out? How did they take advantage of the new industrialization of American society. Well, consider the example of Andrew Carnegie and the steel industry. We’ve already discussed the development of a national network, a national system of railroads, well this growth created a tremendous demand for steel, a national railroad system needs a lot of railroad tracks right? And Carnegie seized the opportunity. He built the world’s most modern steel mill, and he came up with a system of business or organization called vertical integration.

在选段中，教授先提出了一系列的问题——注意，提问在托福听力中有着举足轻重的作用，常常引导了下面一大段话的主要内容，也就是主旨。所以在提到钢铁大王安德鲁卡耐基和他著名的“纵向整合”理论的时候，一定要有意识：这是用来回答之前问题的。通过这样的方式，做对下面这题便不成问题了：

Why does the professor discuss vertical integration?

A.To explain how Andrew Carnegie gained control of the steel industry
B.To describe the most typical organization for businesses in the nineteenth century
C.To explain how John D. Rockefeller organized the oil industry
D.To explain the origins of the business trust

大家发现，其实这个和上文中说到的举例子的问法如出一辙，是因为我们可以把卡耐基的故事看做一个大的例子（当然这个例子的具体内容是重要的）来解释回答前文问题的。定位问题中的关键词dominant/control可以轻松选出A是正确答案。