托福阅读常考话题及练习题推荐七：苏美尔和埃及（3）

1托福常考话题：苏美尔和埃及话题练习题

► Paragraph 5：The ancient Egyptians invented a different way of writing and a new substance to write on - papyrus, a precursor of paper, made from a wetland plant. The Greeks had a special name for this writing: hieroglyphic, literally "sacred writing". This, they thought, was language fit for the gods, which explains why it was carved on walls of pyramids and other religious structures. Perhaps hieroglyphics are Egypt's great contribution to the history of writing: hieroglyphic wiring, in use from 3100 B.C.E. until 394 C.E., resulted in the creation of texts that were fine art as well as communication. Egypt gave us the tradition of the scribe not just as educated person but as artist and calligrapher.

9.Paragraph 5 supports all of the following statements about Egyptian hieroglyphics EXCEPT

A. They were associated with buildings that had a religious function.

B. They were used in Egypt for many centuries.

C. They were believed to be a gift to humans from the gods.

D. They were sometimes written on material made from plants.

► Paragraph 6：Scholars have detected some 6,000 separate hieroglyphic characters in use over the history of Egyptian writing, but it appears that never more than a thousand were in use during any one period. It still seems a lot to recall, but what was lost in efficiency was more than made up for in the beauty and richness of the texts. Writing was meant to impress the eye with the vastness of creating itself. Each symbol or glyph - the flowering reed (pronounced like V), the owl ("m"), the quail chick ("w"), etcetera - was a tiny work of art. Manuscripts were compiled with an eye to the overall design. Egyptologists have noticed that the glyphs that constitute individual words were sometimes shuffled to make the text more pleasing to the eye with little regard for sound or sense.

10.The word "detected" in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. identified

B. described

C. studied

D. classified

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 of leave out essential information.

A. Sometimes the appearance of texts was improved by giving more beautiful symbols to individual words even though the sound and sense of the changed words remained the same.

B. The symbols for individual words were sometimes moved around in a text, regardless of these words' meaning and sound, to make the text more beautiful.

C. The glyphs used as symbols for individual words in texts were sometimes chosen more for their beauty than for their connection to sound or sense.

D. For various reasons, individual glyphs were sometimes shuffled to make a text sound more pleasing, to make its sense clearer, or to make its appearance more beautiful.

12.Directions: Select from the seven phrases below the 2 phrases that correctly characterize Cuneiform Writing and the 3 phrases that correctly characterize Hieroglyphic Writing. Drag each phrase you select into the appropriate column of the table. Two of the phrases will NOT be used. This question is worth 3 points. Drag your answer choices to the spaces where they belong. To remove an answer choice, click on it. To review the passage, click on View Text. Answers Choices

Hieroglyphic Writing：

Cuneiform Writing：

answer choice

A. Written on papyrus and sometimes carved into stone. Limited to financial and business uses.

B. Emphasis on the beauty and overall design of the text.

C. Written on clay tablets with a stick.

D. Most characters redesigned 1,500 years after they were create

E. Up to a thousand characters used during a given period.

F. Written on papyrus and sometimes carved into stone.

G. Used for fifteen languages over a wide are