听力原文： All big cities are quite similar. Living in a modem Asian city is not very different from living in an American city. The same cannot be said about living on farms, however. In many different parts of the world, farmers and their families live in villages or towns. In the United States, however, each farm family lives on its own fields, often beyond the sight of any neighbors. Instead of traveling from a village to the fields every morning, American farmers stay on their land through-out the week. They travel to the nearest town on Saturdays for shopping or on Sundays for lunch. The children ride on buses to large schools that serve all of the farm families living in the area. In some areas, there are small schools serving a few farm families, and the children walk to school. Of course life keeps changing for everyone, including farmers. Today there are ears, good roads, radios and television sets. And of course there are modem machines for farming. All of these have changed farm life. For many years, however, farming in America was often a lonely way of living. Farmers had to deal with their own problems, instead of getting help from others. They learned to try new methods, and to trust their own ideas instead of following older ways. (33)