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OFFICIAL46 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. Drag your answer choices to the spaces where they belong To remove an answer choice, click on it. The earliest examples of writing have been found in Mesopotamia and date to shortly before 3000 B.C.E.

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The Origins of Writing
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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.

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. Drag your answer choices to the spaces where they belong To remove an answer choice, click on it. The earliest examples of writing have been found in Mesopotamia and date to shortly before 3000 B.C.E.

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

B.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.

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

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

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

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

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正确答案:BCD
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【题目翻译】说明:下面是文章的简要概括的介绍句。通过选择三个答案来完成摘要,这些答案表达了文章中最重要的观点。有些句子并不属于摘要,因为它们表达了文章中没有呈现的观点或文章中的次要观点。这个问题值得两点。将答案选项拖动到它们所属的空间。要删除答案选项,请单击它。最早的写作例子是在美索不达米亚发现的,时间大约在公元前3000年。 A:书写是在美索不达米亚、小亚细亚和地中海等古代文明发端的同一地区发明的。 B:楔形文字的发展是众所周知的,因为它是用一种经久不衰的材料写成的,而且在古代近东地区应用广泛。 C:楔形药片一般涉及商业和事实问题,但是其他的话题,包括文学,也被记录和估价。 D:书写首先由苏美尔人用楔形标记(楔形)在粘土片上书写,然后由埃及人用纸莎草纸书写。 E:亚述、巴比伦、叙利亚和小亚细亚的楔形文字必须学习所有使用楔形文字的语言。 F:考古学家经常发现成批的粘土片,有时每片多达一千片。 【判定题型】:根据问题的提问方式和6选3的作答方式可以确定该题目为概要小结题。 【选项定位及分析】 A对应第一第二段,但“Asia Minor and the Mediterranean”错误。 B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. 故B选项正确。 C选项对应原文第5段的Its use soon widened to document the multitudinous things and acts that are involved in daily life, from simple inventories of …故C选项正确。 D选项结合第一段结尾以及第二段开始,先后顺序是对的,所以D正确。 E选项的learn all the languages的说法无中生有,错误。 F选项内容没问题,但是是细节,不选。

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