托福阅读常考话题及练习题推荐三：苏美尔和埃及（3）

1托福常考话题：苏美尔和埃及话题

►Paragraph 4: Other innovations of the late fourth millennium include the wheel, probably developed first as a more efficient way of making pottery and then transferred to transport. A tablet engraved about 3000 B.C.E. provides the earliest known example from Sumer, a roofed boxlike sledge mounted on four solid wheels. A major development was the discovery, again about 3000 B.C.E., that if copper, which had been known in Mesopotamia since about 3500 B.C.E., was mixed with tin, a much harder metal, bronze, would result. Although copper and stone tools continued to be used, bronze was far more successful in creating sharp edges that could be used as anything from saws and scythes to weapons. The period from 3000 to 1000 B.C.E., when the use of bronze became widespread, is normally referred to as the Bronze Age.

9. According to paragraph 4, the earliest wheels probably

A. were first developed in areas outside Mesopotamia

B. were used to make pottery

C. appeared on boxlike sledges

D. were used to transport goods between cities

10. The word “engraved” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. carved

B. produced

C. dated

D. discovered

11: Which of the sentences below best expresses the essential information in the highlighted sentence in the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave out essential information.

A. Also around 3000 B.C.E., it was discovered that mixing copper, known from about 3500 B.C.E., with tin would create a much harder metal known as bronze.

B. Although copper had been known since 3500 B.C.E in Mesopotamia, the discovery of bronze did not occur until around 3000 B.C.E.

C. Another major development around 3000 B.C.E. was the discovery that copper could be mixed with a much harder metal known as tin.

D. The development of bronze by mixing copper and tin probably occurred around 3000 B.C.E. but may have happened as early as 3500 B.C.E.

12: The word “widespread” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. obvious

B. significant

C. necessary

D. common

►Paragraph 3: It used to be believed that before 3000 B.C.E. the political and economic life of the cities was centered on their temples, but it now seems probable that the cities had secular rulers from earliest times. ■Within the city lived administrators, craftspeople, and merchants. (Trading was important, as so many raw materials, the semiprecious stones for the decoration of the temples, timbers for roofs, and all metals, had to be imported.) ■An increasingly sophisticated system of administration led in about 3300 B.C.E. to the appearance of writing. ■The earliest script was based on logograms, with a symbol being used to express a whole word. ■The logograms were incised on damp clay tablets with a stylus with a wedge shape at its end. (The Romans called the shape cuneus and this gives the script its name of cuneiform.) Two thousand logograms have been recorded from these early centuries of writing. A more economical approach was to use a sign to express not a whole word but a single syllable. (To take an example: the Sumerian word for " head” was “sag.” Whenever a word including a syllable in which the sound “sag” was to be written, the sign for “sag" could be used to express that syllable with the remaining syllables of the word expressed by other signs.) By 2300 B.C.E. the number of signs required had been reduced to 600, and the range of words that could be expressed had widened. Texts dealing with economic matters predominated, as they always had done; but at this point works of theology, literature, history, and law also appeared.

13: Look at the four squares [■] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

City life was diverse, and the population was engaged in a variety of occupations.

Where would the sentence best fit?

14: Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minorideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.

Irrigation made it possible for the civilization known as Sumer to arise on the Mesopotamian plain in the fifth millennium B.C.E.

Answer Choices

A.The scarcity of natural resources on the plain made it necessary for a powerful elite to emerge and take charge of trade and imports.

B. The economy of each city was based on a craft such as pottery or metal working, and the city of Eridu was known for its saws, scythes and weapons.

C. Writing appeared in the form of logograms and later developed into a system using signs to represent syllables rather than whole words.

D. Priests were powerful figures in the ancient civilization and controlled the political and economic life of the cities.

E. The earliest city states had one or more patron gods and were built around central temple complexes.

F. The development of the wheel and the creation of bronze were important innovations in Sumer