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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 中文机经中文机经 主要在讲苏美文明 civilization 还和埃及比较了一下 二个文明同时出现在不同的地区 十分令人惊讶 astonishing 词汇题 一是法老统治的埃及 一是苏美 二河流域 二者有交流 但各自保有各自 的特色 句子同义改写 在地理条件方面 埃及有沙漠屏障 而两河流域四面受敌 因此两河流域很难 被统一 两河文明发迹后 曾短暂的统一 不过结果是外患内战 突然崛起 突然衰败 的军事力量 成为两河文明的本质 指代题 不过如此纷乱的背景 反而衬 托出他们非凡的文化及艺术传统 苏美文明的起源仍然不明 obscure 词汇题 和埃及相比 留下的遗迹也很少 因为缺少石头 所以他们建筑使用泥砖和木头 虽然在 Ur 有发现一些墓穴 不 过他们不像埃及人这么重视来世 题目 我们对苏美文明的了解来自偶然挖 出的大量 vast 词汇题 泥板 苏美各国城邦都有不同的 god 和 human ruler human ruler 带领人们进行祭神的 活动 god 不仅呼风唤雨 对土地有所有权 而且能够分配人力及资源 庙宇 是管理的中心 可以集中 分配很多的 considerable 词汇题 作物 这些都需 要详细的记录 所以 虽然书写是神职人员的特权 但大多数的记录都和管理 及经济有关 反而不是记录宗教的事务 题目 题目 1 The word astonishing in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案 C amazing 2 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 答案 C A great civilization arose in Mesopotamia between 3500 and 3000 B C at the same time that ancient Egypt was being united 3 The phrase its substance in the passage refers to 答案 A the political history of ancient Mesopotamia 4 The word obscure in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案 A unclear 5 The author mentions Nor did they share the Egyptians concern with the hereafter in order to 答案 A To provide one explanation for the relatively few physical remains of ancient Sumerian society 6 It can be inferred that the City of Ur is located in 答案 D near the confluence of Tigris and Euphrates 7 The word vast in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案 B Very large 8 According to paragraph 2 and 3 the physical characteristics of Mesopotamia affected Sumerian civilization in all of the following ways EXCEPT 答案 C Continuity of cultural and artistic traditions could not be achieved 9 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 答案 D 第四个方块 10 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 答案 B The idea of divine ownership was the reason why a large part of the harvest was offered to the god 11 The word considerable in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案 A substantial 12 In the above passage all of the following were true of the local god EXCEPT 答案 D The local god sometimes fought against the local gods of rival city states 13 分类题 Ancient Egyptian Sumerian Civilization Civilization 政治统一了很久时间 有相当多建筑物遗址 城邦国家是一个特色 从文件中所记载 这一个文明受到外部的 侵略 Observing Natural Selection Witnessing natural selection would not have seemed possible to Darwin because he assumed natural selection was too slow and gradual for our short term minds to perceive Yet later biologists have been able to witness flashes of evolutionary change In the late 1980s for example biologist David Reznick began to use the guppies that swim in the streams of Trinidad forests in natural experiment At lower elevations these guppies face the assault of predatory fishes but the ones in higher waters live in peace because few of the predators can move upstream past the waterfalls and craggy rocks Like all animals guppies have a timetable for their lives how long they take to reach sexual maturity how fast they grow during that time how long they live as adults Theoretical biologists have predicted that the life history of animals can evolve if mutations that alter it bring the animals more reproductive success Reznick put their predictions to the test In ponds with a lot of predators guppies that grow fast should be more successful than slow growing ones With the threat of death hanging over a guppy it will grow as quickly as possible so that it can start mating as soon as possible and have as many offspring as possible Of course the strategy comes with a heavy price By growing so quickly a guppy may shorten its own natural life span and by quickly giving birth to babies female guppy cannot take time to support her offspring with energy which put them at risk of dying young But Reznick reasoned that the threat of an early death offset by other risk To see whether this trade off was real Reznick relocated guppies that were being terrorized in the downstream by putting them in pools with relatively few predators Eleven years in these conditions produced guppies that were on average in less of a rush They took 10 percent longer to mature than their ancestors and were over 10 percent heavier by the time they were fully grown They were also laying smaller broods of eggs but each of the new guppies that hatched from those was bigger Sometimes nature runs evolutionary experiments of its own without any help from humans whatsoever In 1973 Peter and Rosemary Grant husband and wife biologists arrived on the Galapagos Islands to study the effects of natural selection on the birds Most years on the Galapagos the weather follows a standard pattern For the first five months of the years it is hot and rainy followed by a cool dry period But in 1977 the wet season never came A periodic disturbance of the Pacific ocean called La Nina altered weather patterns over the Galapagos causing a disastrous drought On Daphne Island where the Grants worked the drought was lethal Out of the 1 200 medium ground finches Geospiza fortis that lived on the Island more that 1 000 died But the Grants discovered that the decimation was not random G fortis lives mainly on seeds which it cracks with its strong beak Small G fontis can break only small seeds but larger birds have beaks that are strong enough to break big ones The drought had lingered for a few months the small finches ran out of small seeds and began dying off But the big finches managed to survive because they could eat seeds that the smaller ones couldn t get to In particular they depended on a plant called caltrop which grows spiked shells to protect it seeds The survivors on the 1977 drought mated in 1978 and the Grants could see evolution s mark on their offspring A new generation of G fortis was born and the Grants student Peter Boag discovered that on average their beaks were 4 percent larger than those of the previous generation The big beaked finches which had fared better during the drought had put their trait to their offspring altered the profile of the population In the years since the drought the finches changed In 1983 for example there was a season of heavy rain abundant seeds favored finches with smaller beaks and Grants found that by 1985 their average size had dropper 5 percent The finches can change quickly but it seems that are swinging back and forth like a pendulum 中文机经中文机经 关于 natural selection Darwin 认为是长期且渐进的 后来 科学家却在短时间 内目击 witness 词汇题 到进化 接着用两个 relatively short evolution s examples 来 support natural selection 1st 人为控制条件 有一种鱼 guppy 在 predator 多的时候 长得快 但代价 是 life span 变短 不过研究人员认为 这代价被其他危险抵销 offset 词汇题 了 然后 再将一部分放入 predator 少的 pool 中 offspring 发生了很多 changes 比 如比它们的 ancestor size 上要大 下 egg 少了 等等 2ed 自然条件变化 我们需要做的只是 observe 讲的是 finch 有关它们 beak 的大小的 又举了一个 bird 的例子 一对夫妇学者在一个群鸟研究一种雀鸟 有一年岛上 发生致命的 lethal 词汇题 干旱 他们发现 当干旱 drought 时 鸟的大量 死亡 decimation 词汇题 并不是随机的 那些有大而硬的 beak 的 bird 往往能 生存下来 这样一来这一地区的这种 bird 很快都有了大而硬的 beak 干旱的时 候小种子少 嘴小的鸟死了 嘴长的鸟存活 存活的鸟和第二年的鸟交配 后 代的鸟嘴整体变长 雨量又充足的时候 又足够小种子 这个时候 新出生的 鸟的鸟嘴又变短了 题目 题目 1 According to paragraph 1 compared to the views of modern biologists Darwin s view of natural selection was limited by his belief that 答案 A natural selection only occurred over a very long period of time IS natural selection could only be witnessed in some species 2 The word witness in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案 A observe 3 The word offset in the passage in meaning to 答案 D balanced 4 Which of the following reason is mentioned in paragraph 3 to explain why growing fast is an advantage for guppies that live in ponds with many predators 答案 A They will product more offspring 5 What is the author s primary in presenting the information in paragraph 3 答案 C To explain Reznick s reasoning about why it would be an advantage for guppies with predators to mature quickly 6 All of the following are mentioned in paragraph 4 as change in the guppy population eleven years after guppies were transferred to upstream ponds EXCEPT 答案 B More offspring were produced 7 The word lethal in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案 C deadly 8 The word decimation in the passage is closest in meaning to 答案 A destruction 9 According to paragraph 6 what disadvantage did small beaked finches have compared to large beaked fiches 答案 A Small beaked finches were not able to crack open the large seeds 10 According to paragraph 7 the new generation of G fortis on average differed from earlier population in 答案 B the size of their beaks 11 According to paragraph 8 how short term changes to the environment affect the r natural election of traits in G fortis 答案 A Short term changes result in quick reversals of the trait selected 12 How were the results of the natural experiment with the finches similar to the results of Reznick s experiment with the guppies 答案 B In both cases evolutionary changes occurred in a relatively short period of time 13 Look at the four squares that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage In such case if biologists are lucky enough to be present they simply have to observe 答案 B 第二个方块 14 总结题 Evolutionary changes resulting from changes in the environment can occur in relatively short period on time Guppies taken from upstream pools and precede in downstream pools produced offspring that had significantly shorter life spans The survival of finches with big beaks during a severe drought in Galapagos resulted in more big beaks finches in the next generation 电报发展史电报发展史 The Impact of the Electric Telegraph 科技进步 1840s 电报已经有了长足进步 Telegraph 的出现有很重大的意义 拉近了 long distance communication 电报发展的重要性不只体现在其自身 也 体现于政治等因素 而其对于商业等的影响尚不及对政治的影响 不同于 steam engineering 在欧美都原先都不是由国家管制 电报的发展遇到了一些 obstacles 需要庞大的资本 此外在管技术及管理上也 要作很大的变革 因为前面提到的缺点 使得当时传统邮政业又恢复生机 并比较了 telegram 以 及 telephone 在美国和欧洲的不同用途 随着发展 欧洲国家把 telegraph 纳入 governmental control 主要运应用在邮政系统方面 然而美国人没有这么做 在 美国 电报系统的运用在与政府有关联之前是纯粹的私营企业 一开始这种传输不得到大家的认可 先说这种方法是一个博士发现的 但是没 人觉得有什么好处 又因为当时的技术还有局限 然后那个博士也说服不了政 府相信他 虽然当时在某方面已经有了进展 但是政府不肯资助他 所以他们 就办了公司自己发展 有题 问为什么他们只能自己发展 原因选政府不给资 助 电报和电话的发展非常迅速 然后电报在欧洲和美国的发展不同 在美国 是 私人公司所属 所以竞争极为激烈 后来逐渐发展后依然为私人为股东但是受 限于国家管制 有题 当时就这方面来说 是令人惊奇的 因为在美国这样 的差的科学技术条件下 在电报发展方面却是领头羊 有同义改写题 在美国 telegraph system 掌控在私人企业手里 私有化的 private 很多私人 商务行为都用电报来联系 这些私企有些很垄断 monopoly Telegraph 由私人 企业掌控 因为激烈的竞争 反而发展很快 然而 即使这些私企形成独占产 业 但因为由公众 share stocks 所以危害不大 这也催生了后来的股票 并使 纽约成为第一个 最大的 证券交易市场 在 19 世纪 电报被纳入政府监管 under government regulation 之后 虽然美国那时有科技的限制 但电报在美国 发展得最好 得到了普及 由于 telegraph 的发展 使得美国从东岸到西岸的通讯 从以往的 5 6 天减少 到 2 3 天 当时因为很多欧洲国家 担心电报会使情报外流 因此犹豫是否应 该立法来规范电报行为 随着发展 欧洲国家把 telegraph 纳入 governmental control 国家政府管理 主要应用在邮政系统 postal system 方面 使得欧洲 国家的传统邮政 postal 业又恢复生机 有题 最后一段提到 电报需要建立 net 这为后来的网络的建立提供了很多思路 所 以说 telegraph 是非常 revolutionary invention 虽然当时 telegram 以及 telephone 在美国的工业 新闻同步等方面有很重要的贡献 但电报对时代的 进步似乎被历史学家夸大了 其实电报对社会只产生了 little change