托福阅读常考话题及练习题推荐八：苏美尔和埃及（2）

1托福常考话题：苏美尔和埃及话题练习题

► Paragraph 1：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.

1. The word “key” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. frequent

B. essential

C. original

D. familiar

► Paragraph 2：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.

2. The word “virtue” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A. price

B. design

C. desirable quality

D. physical characteristic

3. 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. In part because of its low cost and ease of use, clay became the preferred writing material throughout Mesopotamia and well beyond it

B. Clay was cheap throughout Mesopotamia, so clay tablets from Mesopotamia became the preferred writing material as far as the Mediterranean.

C. For a while, the clay tablet was the preferred writing material in Crete and Greece.

D. Moreover, because clay was used as the writing material of choice in Mesopotamia, Syria, Asia Minor, Persia, and the Mediterranean, it was cheap and popular.

4. What can be inferred from paragraph 2 about clay as a writing material?

A. It had to be baked before it could be written on

B. Its good points outweighed its bad points.

C. Its durability was its most important feature for its users.

D. It was not available in Egypt.

5. In paragraph 2, why does the author discuss the Egyptian use of papyrus as a writing material?

A. To describe the superiofity of papyrus over leattier and wood as a writing material

B. To explain why writing in Egypt did not develop as quickly as it did Mesopotamia

C. To explain why archaeologists' knowledge of the early history of writing relies mainly on Sumerian cuneiform

D. To explain why the Sumerians preferred clay tablets for writing over papyrus

► Paragraph 3：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.

6. According to paragraph 3, all of the following are true of cuneiform writing EXCEPT:

A. It was composed of very simple shapes

B. It was perfected by the ancient Sumerians.

C. It influenced the choice of material on which it was written.

D. It was understood by very few Sumerians.

► Paragraph 4：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.

7. According to paragraph 4, how did the Akkadians use the Sumerian language?

A. They used Sumerian for speaking but used their own national language for writing.

B. They used the complex cuneiform signs developed by the Babylonians and Assyrians rather than the Sumerian signs.

C. They developed their own cuneiform shapes on clay tablets to replace those used by the Sumerians.

D. They assigned new sound and word values to the signs of Sumerian cuneiform.

8. Paragraph 4 answers all the following questions about Sumerian writing in the period after the Sumerians were conquered EXCEPT:

A. Did Sumerian literature continue to be read?

B. Did Sumerian continue to be spoken?

C. Did scribes compose new texts in Sumerian?

D. Did Sumerian have the same fate as Latin had after the fall of Rome?