托福阅读常考话题及练习题推荐二：玛雅文明（2）

1托福阅读常考话题：玛雅文明练习题

Paragraph1: Bartering was a basic trade mechanism for many thousands of years; often sporadic and usually based on notions of reciprocity, it involved the mutual exchange of commodities or objects between individuals or groups. Redistribution of these goods through society lay in the hands of chiefs, religious leaders, or kin groups. Such redistribution was a basic element in chiefdoms. The change from redistribution to formal trade—often based on regulated commerce that perhaps involved fixed prices and even currency—was closely tied to growing political and social complexity and hence to the development of the state in the ancient world. In the 1970s, a number of archaeologists gave trade a primary role in the rise of ancient states.

1. The word "notions" in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. ideas

B. rules

C. degrees

D. traditions

2. According to paragraph 1, what development occurred as political and social complexity increased?

A. The prices of most commodities rose.

B. Formal trade emerged.

C. Chiefs became more powerful

D. Bartering became the preferred means of trade.

Paragraph2: British archaeologist Colin Renfrew attributed the dramatic flowering of the Minoan civilization on Crete and through the Aegean to intensified trading contacts and to the impact of olive and vine cultivation on local communities. As agricultural economies became more diversified and local food supplies could be purchased both locally and over longer distances, a far-reaching economic interdependence resulted. Eventually, this led to redistribution systems for luxuries and basic commodities, systems that were organized and controlled by Minoan rulers from their palaces. As time went on, the self-sufficiency of communities was replaced by mutual dependence. Interest in long-distance trade brought about some cultural homogeneity from trade and gift exchange, and perhaps even led to piracy. Thus, intensified trade and interaction, and the flowering of specialist crafts, in a complex process of positive feedback, led to much more complex societies based on palaces, which were the economic hubs of a new Minoan civilization.

3. The word “diversified” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. organized

B. selective

C. varied

D. efficient

4. According to paragraph 2, which of the following controlled the systems of redistribution of goods in ancient Crete?

A. Local community leaders

B. Olive growers

C. Minoan rulers

D. Long-distance traders

5. According to paragraph 2, Renfrew believed that one effect of long-distance trade in the Aegean was

A. a greater effort to control piracy

B. greater cultural similarity throughout the region

C. a decline in local olive production

D. a decline in the use of luxuries for gift exchanges

Paragraph3: Renfrew’s model made some assumptions that are now discounted. For example, he argued that the introduction of domesticated vines and olives allowed a substantial expansion of land under cultivation and helped to power the emergence of complex society. Many archaeologists and paleobotanists now question this view, pointing out that the available evidence for cultivated vines and olives suggests that they were present only in the later Bronze Age. Trade, nevertheless, was probably one of many variables that led to the emergence of palace economies in Minoan Crete.

6. According to paragraph 3, what was a major problem with Renfrew’s model?

A. He overlooked the fact that only the Minoan palaces had access to domesticated vines and olives.

B. He wrongly assumed that the introduction of domesticated vines and olives led to the cultivation of more land.

C. Trade in domesticated plants was much more important to the emergence of Minoan palace economies than he thought.

D. Domesticated vines and olives do not appear to have been available as early as he thought.

Paragraph4: American archaeologist William Rathje developed a hypothesis that considered an explosion in long-distance exchange a fundamental cause of Mayan civilization in Mesoamerica. He suggested that the lowland Mayan environment was deficient in many vital resources, among them obsidian, salt, stone for grinding maize, and many luxury materials. All these could be obtained from the nearby highlands, from the Valley of Mexico, and from other regions, if the necessary trading networks came into being. Such connections, and the trading expeditions to maintain them, could not be organized by individual villages. The Maya lived in a relatively uniform environment, where every community suffered from the same resource deficiencies. Thus, argued Rathje, long- -distance trade networks were organized through local ceremonial centers and their leaders. In time, this organization became a state, and knowledge of its functioning was exportable, as were pottery, tropical bird feathers, specialized stone materials, and other local commodities.

7. According to paragraph 4, which of the following was true about ancient Mayan communities?

A. They each created their own separate trading networks with communities in the nearby highlands.

B. They all had many luxury materials that they were able to trade for resources that they lacked.

C. They all needed to obtain a number of important materials through trade with other regions.

D. They all gradually reduced their trading activities with communities in the Valley of Mexico and developed trading networks with other regions.

8. What can be inferred from the fact that the Maya lived in a “relatively uniform environment”?

A. The communities could not obtain resources they lacked by trading with each other.

B. The communities’ ceremonial centers were all organized in much the same way.

C. Increased competition between the communities to export their local commodities expanded commercial networks beyond the nearby highlands.

D. Different communities tended to specialize in the production of different commodities.