Holly老師的英語新天地

有時考生們會發現閱讀部分除了基本的三篇外，還會多兩篇，使整個閱讀時間從60 minutes延長為100 minutes。多的這一組便稱為「加試題」，其分數的比重遠不如基本的三篇(甚至坊間也有說法認為這不計分)，但由於考的多選自以下文章，同學正式考之前不妨上來花幾分鐘了解一下。

若加試題有計分，多多少少可以幫自己提升些閱讀分數囉！(不過事實上考生們考到閱讀加試題的機率是比較低的。)

Sumerian Civilization

It is an astonishing fact that human civilization should have emerged into the light of history in two separate places at just about the same time. Between 3500 and 3000 B.C. when Egypt was being united under pharaonic rule other great civilization arose in Mesopotamia the“land between the rivers.” And for close to three thousand years, the two rival centers retained their distinct characters, even though they had contact with each other from their earliest beginnings, and their destinies were interwoven in many ways. The pressure that forced the inhabitants of both regions to abandon the pattern of Neolithic village life may well have been the same. But the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, unlike that of the Nile, is not a narrow fertile strip protected by desert on either side It resembles a wide, shallow trough with few natural defenses, crisscrossed by two great rivers and their tributaries, and is easily encroached upon from any direction.

Thus the facts of geography tended to discourage the idea of uniting the entire Mesopotamian area under a single head. Rulers who had this ambition did not appear, so far as we know, until about one thousand years after the beginning of Mesopotamian civilization, and they succeeded in carrying it out only for brief periods and at the cost of almost continuous warfare. As a consequence, the political history of ancient Mesopotamia has no underlying theme of the sort that divine kingship provides for Egypt. Local rivalries foreign incursions, the sudden upsurge and equally sudden collapse of military power—those are its substance. Against such a disturbed background, the continuity of cultural and artistic traditions seems all the more remarkable. This common heritage is very largely the creation of the founders of Mesopotamian Civilization, whom we call Sumerians after the region of Sumer, which they inhabited, near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates.

The origin of the Sumerians remains obscure. Their language is unrelated to any other known tongue. Sometimes before 4,000 B.C. they came to southern Mesopotamia, from Persia, and there, within the next thousand years, they founded a number of city-states and developed their distinctive form of writing in cuneiform (wedge-shaped) characters on clay tablets. ■Unfortunately, the tangible remains of Sumerian civilization are extremely scanty compared to those of ancient Egypt. ■Building stone being unavailable in Mesopotamia, the Sumerians used mud brick and wood, so that almost nothing is left of their architecture except the foundation. ■Nor did they share the Egyptians’ concern with the hereafter, although some richly endowed tombs in the shape of vaulted chambers below ground from the early dynastic period have been found in the city of Ur. ■Our knowledge of Sumerian Civilization thus depends very largely on chance fragments brought to light by excavation, including vast numbers of inscribed clay tablets. Yet we have learned enough to form a general picture of this vigorous, inventive, and disciplined people.

Each Sumerian city-state had its own local god, who was regarded as its king and owner. It also had a human ruler, the steward of the divine sovereign, who led the people in serving the deity. The local god, in return, was expected to plead the cause of his subjects among his fellow deities who controlled the forces of nature such as wind and weather, water, fertility, and the heavenly bodies. Nor was the idea of divine ownership treated as a mere pious fiction. The god was quite literally believed to own not only the territory of the city-state but also the labor power of the population and its products. All these were subject to his commands, transmitted to the people by his human steward. The result was an economic system that has been dubbed “theocratic socialism”, a planned society whose administrative center was the temple. The temple controlled the pooling of labor and resources for communal enterprises, such as the building of dikes or irrigation ditches, and it collected and distributed a considerable part of the harvest. All this required the keeping of detailed written records. Hence, we need not be surprised to find that the texts of early Sumerian inscriptions deal very largely with economic and administrative rather than religious matters, although writing was a priestly privilege.

主要在講蘇美文明civilization 還和埃及比較了一下。

二個文明同時出現在不同的地區，十分令人驚訝 astonishing（辭彙題）。一是法老統治的埃及；一是蘇美〈二河流域〉。二者有交流，但各自保有各自的特色〈句子同義改寫）。在地理條件方面，埃及有沙漠屏障，而兩河流域四面受敵，因此兩河流域很難被統一。

兩河文明發跡後，曾短暫的統一，不過結果是外患內戰，突然掘起、突然衰敗的軍事力量，成為兩河文明的本質（指代題）。不過如此紛亂的背景，反而襯托出他們非凡的文化及藝術傳統。

蘇美文明的起源仍然不明 obscure（辭彙題〉，和埃及相比，留下的遺跡也很少。因為缺少石頭，所以他們建築使用泥磚和木頭。雖然在Ur有發現一些墓穴，不過他們不像埃及人這麼重視來世〈題目〉。我們對蘇美文明的瞭解來自偶然挖出的大量vast（辭彙題）泥板。

蘇美各國城邦都有不同的god和 human ruler。Human ruler帶領人們進行祭神的活動。god不僅呼風喚雨，對土地有所有權，而且能夠分酊人力及資源。廟宇是管理的中心，可以集中，分酊很多的considerable(辭彙題)作物，這些都需要詳細的記錄，所以，雖然書寫是神職人員的特權，但大多數的記錄都和管理及經濟有關，反而不是記錄宗教的事務。

Q1. The word “astonishing” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A1. amazing

Q2. 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

A2. A great civilization arose in Mesopotamia between 3500 and 3000 B.C. at the same time that ancient Egypt was being united.

Q3. The phrase “its substance” in the passage refers to

A3. the political history of ancient Mesopotamia

Q4. The word “obscure” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A4. unclear

Q5. The author mentions Nor did they share the Egyptians’ concern with the hereafter, in order to

A5. To provide one explanation for the relatively few physical remains of ancient Sumerian society.

Q6. It can be inferred that the City of Ur is located in

A6. near the confluence of Tigris and Euphrates

Q7. The word “vast” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A7. very large

Q8. According to paragraph 2 and 3, the physical characteristics of Mesopotamia affected Sumerian civilization in all of the following ways EXCEPT

Q8. Continuity of cultural and artistic traditions could not be achieved.

Q9. Look at the four squares ■ that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.

Despite these achievements, scholars know much less about Sumerian life than they would like

A9. (D)

Q10. In the above paragraph, what evidence is used to support the claim that the idea of divine ownership was not a “a mere pious fiction”?

A10. The idea of divine ownership was the reason why a large part of the harvest was offered to the god.

Q11. The word “considerable” in the passage is closest in meaning to

A11. substantial

Q12. In the above passage, all of the following were true of the local god EXCEPT

A12. The local god sometimes fought against the local gods of rival city-states.

Q13.分類題