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OFFICIAL39 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

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Early Writing Systems
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Scholars agree that writing originated somewhere in the Middle East, probably Mesopotamia, around the fourth millennium B.C.E. It is from the great libraries and word-hoards of these ancient lands that the first texts emerged. They were written on damp clay tablets with a wedged (or V-shaped) stick; since the Latin word for wedge is cunea, the texts are called cuneiform. The clay tablets usually were not fired; sun drying was probably reckoned enough to preserve the text for as long as it was being used. Fortunately, however, many tablets survived because they were accidentally fired when the buildings they were stored in burned.

Cuneiform writing lasted for some 3,000 years, in a vast line of succession that ran through Sumer, Akkad, Assyria, Nineveh, and Babylon, and preserved for us fifteen languages in an area represented by modern-day Iraq, Syria, and western Iran. The oldest cuneiform texts recorded the transactions of tax collectors and merchants, the receipts and bills of sale of an urban society. They had to do with things like grain, goats, and real estate. Later, Babylonian scribes recorded the laws and kept other kinds of records. Knowledge conferred power. As a result, the scribes were assigned their own goddess, Nisaba, later replaced by the god Nabu of Borsippa, whose symbol is neither weapon nor dragon but something far more fearsome, the cuneiform stick.

Cuneiform texts on science, astronomy, medicine, and mathematics abound, some offering astoundingly precise data. One tablet records the speed of the Moon over 248 days; another documents an early sighting of Halley's Comet, from September 22 to September 28, 164 B.C.E. More esoteric texts attempt to explain old Babylonian customs, such as the procedure for curing someone who is ill, which included rubbing tar and gypsum on the sick person's door and drawing a design at the foot of the person's bed. What is clear from the vast body of texts (some 20,000 tablets were found in King Ashurbanipal's library at Nineveh) is that scribes took pride in their writing and knowledge.

The foremost cuneiform text, the Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh, deals with humankind's attempts to conquer time. In it, Gilgamesh, king and warrior, is crushed by the death of his best friend and so sets out on adventures that prefigure mythical heroes of ancient Greek legends such as Hercules. His goal is not just to survive his ordeals but to make sense of this life. Remarkably, versions of Gilgamesh span 1,500 years, between 2100 B.C.E and 600 B.C.E., making the story the epic of an entire civilization.

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.

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.

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 created

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 area.

你的答案:
正确答案: BEF,CG
题目解析:
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1、【题目翻译】 概要小结 A:写在纸莎草上,有时刻成石头。仅限于财务和商业用途。 B:强调文字的美观和整体设计。 C:用木棍写在泥版上。 D:大多数字符在创建1500年后重新设计 E:在给定的时间段内最多使用一千个字符。 F:写在纸莎草上,有时刻在石头上。 G:广泛用于15种语言。 【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】 选项A后半句说局限于经济和商业用途,定位到第二段,错误,其实楔形文字用途很多;选项B定位到第六段倒数三行,说的是Hieroglyphic Writing,正确; 选项C定位到第一段第四行,说的是Cuneiform Writing,正确; 选项D定位到第四段最后两句,但是原文中并没有说redesign,错误; 选项E定位到第六段第一行,虽然发现了约6000个独立的Hieroglyphic文字,但任何时期内被使用的数量从未超过1000个,正确; 选项F定位到第五段前四行,说的是Hieroglyphic Writing,正确; 选项G定位到第二段第三行,说的是Cuneiform Writing,正确。 综合起来,Cuneiform Writing选择C和G,Hieroglyphic Writing选择B,E,F。

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