托福阅读真题Official 46 Passage 1（七）

托福阅读真题Official 46 Passage 1（七）

The Origin of Writing

It was in Egypt and Mesopotamia(modern-day Iraq)that civilization arose,and it is there that we find the earliest examples of that key feature of civilization,writing.These examples,in the form of inscribed clay tablets that date to shortly before 3000 B.C.E.,have been discovered among the archaeological remains of the Sumerians,a gifted people settled in southern Mesopotamia.

The Egyptians were not far behind in developing writing,but we cannot follow the history of their writing in detail because they used a perishable writing material.In ancient times the banks of the Nile were lined with papyrus plants,and from the papyrus reeds the Egyptians made a form of paper;it was excellent in quality but,like any paper,fragile.Mesopotamia’s rivers boasted no such useful reeds,but its land did provide good clay,and as a consequence the clay tablet became the standard material.Though clumsy and bulky it has a virtue dear to archaeologists:it is durable.Fire,for example,which is death to papyrus paper or other writing materials such as leather and wood,simply bakes it hard,thereby making it even more durable.So when a conqueror set a Mesopotamian palace ablaze,he helped ensure the survival of any clay tablets in it.Clay,moreover,is cheap,and forming it into tablets is easy,factors that helped the clay tablet become the preferred writing material not only throughout Mesopotamia but far outside it as well,in Syria,Asia Minor,Persia,and even for a while in Crete and Greece.Excavators have unearthed clay tablets in all these lands.In the Near East they remained in use for more than two and a half millennia,and in certain areas they lasted down to the beginning of the common era until finally yielding,once and for all,to more convenient alternatives.

The Sumerians perfected a style of writing suited to clay.This script consists of simple shapes,basically just wedge shapes and lines that could easily be incised in soft clay with a reed or wooden stylus;scholars have dubbed it cuneiform from the wedge-shaped marks(cunei in Latin)that are its hallmark.Although the ingredients are merely wedges and lines,there are hundreds of combinations of these basic forms that stand for different sounds or words.Learning these complex signs required long training and much practice;inevitably,literacy was largely limited to a small professional class,the scribes.

The Akkadians conquered the Sumerians around the middle of the third millennium B.C.E.,and they took over the various cuneiform signs used for writing Sumerian and gave them sound and word values that fit their own language.The Babylonians and Assyrians did the same,and so did peoples in Syria and Asia Minor.The literature of the Sumerians was treasured throughout the Near East,and long after Sumerian ceased to be spoken,the Babylonians and Assyrians and others kept it alive as a literary language,the way Europeans kept Latin alive after the fall of Rome.For the scribes of these non-Sumerian languages,training was doubly demanding since they had to know the values of the various cuneiform signs for Sumerian as well as for their own language.

The contents of the earliest clay tablets are simple notations of numbers of commodities—animals,jars,baskets,etc.Writing,it would appear,started as a primitive form of bookkeeping.Its use soon widened to document the multitudinous things and acts that are involved in daily life,from simple inventories of commodities to complicated governmental rules and regulations.

Archaeologists frequently find clay tablets in batches.The batches,some of which contain thousands of tablets,consist for the most part of documents of the types just mentioned:bills,deliveries,receipts,inventories,loans,marriage contracts,divorce settlements,court judgments,and so on.These records of factual matters were kept in storage to be available for reference—they were,in effect,files,or,to use the term preferred by specialists in the ancient Near East,archives.Now and then these files include pieces of writing that are of a distinctly different order,writings that do not merely record some matter of fact but involve creative intellectual activity.They range from simple textbook material to literature—and they make an appearance very early,even from the third millennium B.C.E.

Question 13 of 14

Look at the four squares[■]that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.However,the Sumerian language did not entirely disappear.Where would the sentence best fit?Click on a square[■]to add the sentence to the passage.

正确答案：B

题目详解

题型分类：插入句子题

题干分析：题干中的关键词however说明所要插入的句子和上文形成转折的关系，意为“然而，苏美尔语言并没有完全消失”；那么通过文章逻辑，所插入句子的后文就会论述苏美尔语言是如何没有完全消失的。那么根据这个逻辑关系，第二个点后面的语段就在论述“苏美尔语言是如何没有完全消失的”；因为苏美尔文学在Near East被重视和珍藏treasure，同时，巴比伦人和亚述人及其他人让苏美尔语言alive，同时使其作为literary language。

选项分析：

第二个插入点选项完全符合题干分析中的逻辑，为正确答案。

第一个插入点选项后的语段信息与要插入的句子所续接的文意逻辑不符。

第三个插入点选项与要插入的句子不够成转折逻辑。

第四个插点选项，转折后的语段不构成结尾信息的综合叙述。

Question 14 of 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 minor ideas in the passage.This question is worth 2 points.

The earliest examples of writing have been found in Mesopotamia and date to shortly before 3000 B.C.E.

Answer Choices:

A.

Writing was invented in the same areas in which civilization began by the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia,Asia Minor and the Mediterranean.

B.

Writing was developed first by the Sumerians using wedge-shaped marks(cuneiform)on clay tablets and then by the Egyptians using papyrus paper.

C.

The development of cuneiform is known because it was written on a long-lasting material and because it was long and widely used throughout the ancient Near East.

D.

Scribes using cuneiform in Assyria,Babylon,Syria and Asia Minor had to learn all the languages that used the cuneiform script.

E.

Cuneiform tablets generally dealt with business and factual matters,but other topics,including literature,were also recorded and valued.

F.

Batches of clay tablets,sometimes with as many as a thousand tablets each,are often found by archaeologists.

正确答案：BCE

题目详解

题型分类：文章总结题

题干分析：选择概括性的正确选项。

选项分析：

B选项前半段通过对比的方式，说明泥土作为书写材料的优势：durable.该优势使得苏美尔文字有考古证据而埃及没有。后半段说泥土作为书写材料广泛使用的原因：便宜，容易书写。所以选项中的writing was developed...by Sumerians...then by Egyptian...对应第二段内容，所以答案正确。

C选项对应第3段的内容，选项的long-lasting material对应原文的durable，throughout the ancient Near East对应原文的In the Near East they remained in use for more than two and a half millennia，所以选项C正确。

E选项对应最后一段的内容，选项对应原文第五段的Its use soon widened to document the multitudinous things and acts that are involved in daily life,from simple inventories of...，总结了第五段和第六段中关于泥板文字的使用范围，正确。

A选项对应第一段第1句，但是Asia Minor and the Mediterranean的表述错误。

D选项与原文第二段内容不符，错误。

F选项中的as many as a thousand tablets each与最后一段的some of which contain thousands of tablets不符。