托福阅读之文明的起源与发展

 　　托福阅读考察过的话题可不少，学术性文章也是大家最难以理解的，不过如果能积累足够的托福阅读资料相信对于大家一定有帮助，下面就结合托福阅读资料来看看这个问题。

　　大家在托福阅读文章之前可以先跳到最后一题(文章总结题)的位置看看那句对于文章总结的句子。对于大家从整体上把握文章的结构非常有帮助。

　　托福阅读真题再现：

　　版本一： 文明的起源。地方是美索不达米亚平原那边的。因为土地资源丰富，所以人口增多来开发，好像还提到了从其他地方得到青铜(bronze)，所以很珍贵。一般不用来作为务农工具。有一题就是问为什么不用青铜器装农作物的。

　　版本二： 讲文明的起源，主要以两河流域为例。解释了文明的主要特点为有政治中心，自己的语言，金属工具等等。同事说美索不达米亚和埃及因为是何故所以进口bronze，价格昂贵作为首饰和装饰品。

　　解析： 本文讲文明发展史。主要讨论的是某文明发展的原因，主旨明确，结构清晰，每段首句为topic sentence的可能性较高。大家在阅读文章之前可以先跳到最后一题(文章总结题)的位置看看那句对于文章总结的句子。对于大家从整体上把握文章的结构非常有帮助。从文章结构与内容上，都非常接近TPO8的文章The Rise of Teotihucan。

　　相关托福阅读资料：

　　Sumer

　　Sumer (from Akkadian ?umeru; Sumerian ki-en-?ir15, approximately "land of the civilized¹ kings" or "native land"[note 1]) was an ancientcivilization and historical region in southern Mesopotamia, modern-day southern Iraq, during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age. Although the earliest forms of writing in the region do not go back much further than c. 3500 BC, modern historians have suggested that Sumer was first permanently² settled between c. 5500 and 4000 BC by a non-Semitic people who may or may not have spoken the Sumerian language (pointing to the names of cities, rivers, basic occupations, etc. as evidence).[1][2][3][4] These conjectured⁴, prehistoric⁵ people are now called "proto-Euphrateans" or "Ubaidians",[5] and are theorized to have evolved from the Samarra culture of northern Mesopotamia (Assyria).[6][7][8][9] The Ubaidians were the first civilizing⁶ force in Sumer, draining the marshes⁷ for agriculture, developing trade, and establishing industries, including weaving, leatherwork, metalwork, masonry⁸, and pottery⁹.[5] However, some scholars such as Piotr Michalowski and Gerd Steiner, contest the idea of a Proto-Euphratean language or one substrate language. It has been suggested by them and others, that the Sumerian language was originally that of the hunter and fisher peoples, who lived in the marshland and the Eastern Arabia littoral¹⁰ region, and were part of theArabian bifacial culture.[10] Reliable historical records begin much later; there are none in Sumer of any kind that have been dated beforeEnmebaragesi (c. 26th century BC). Professor Juris Zarins believes the Sumerians were settled along the coast of Eastern Arabia, today's Persian Gulf¹¹ region, before it flooded at the end of the Ice Age.[11] Sumerian literature speaks of their homeland being Dilmun.

　　Sumerologist Samuel Noah Kramer asserts "No people has contributed more to the culture of mankind than the Sumerians" and yet it is only comparatively recently that we have built up a knowledge of the existence of this ancient culture.[12] Sumerian civilization took form in theUruk period (4th millennium¹² BC), continuing into the Jemdat Nasr and Early Dynastic periods. During the 3rd millennium BC, a close cultural symbiosis¹³ developed between the Sumerians (who spoke³ a language isolate) and the Semitic Akkadian speakers, which included widespreadbilingualism.[13] The influence of Sumerian on Akkadian (and vice¹⁴ versa) is evident in all areas, from lexical borrowing on a massive scale, tosyntactic, morphological, and phonological convergence.[13] This has prompted scholars to refer to Sumerian and Akkadian in the 3rd millennium BC as a sprachbund.[13] Sumer was conquered by the Semitic-speaking kings of the Akkadian Empire around 2270 BC (short chronology), but Sumerian continued as a sacred language. Native Sumerian rule re-emerged for about a century in the Third Dynasty of Ur (Sumerian Renaissance) of the 21st to 20th centuries BC, but the Akkadian language also remained in use. The Sumerian city of Eridu, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, was the world's first city, where three separate cultures fused - that of peasant Ubaidian farmers, living in mud-brick huts and practicing irrigation; that of mobile nomadic¹⁵ Semitic pastoralists living in black tents and following herds¹⁶ of sheep and goats; and that of fisher folk, living in reed huts in the marshlands, who may have been the ancestors of the Sumerians.[14]

　　The irrigated¹⁷ farming together with annual replenishment¹⁸ of soil fertility and the surplus of storable food in temple granaries created by this economy allowed the population of this region to rise to levels never before seen, unlike those found in earlier cultures of shifting cultivators. This much greater population density¹⁹ in turn created and required an extensive labour force and division of labour with many specialised arts and crafts. At the same time, historic overuse of the irrigated soils led to progressive salinisation, and a Malthusian crisis which led to depopulation of the Sumerian region over time, leading to its progressive eclipse by the Akkadians of middle Mesopotamia.

　　Sumer was also the site of early development of writing, progressing from a stage of proto-writing in the mid²⁰ 4th millennium BC to writing proper in the 3rd millennium BC .

1 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

2 permanently   

adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地

参考例句：

• The accident left him permanently scarred.那次事故给他留下了永久的伤疤。
• The ship is now permanently moored on the Thames in London.该船现在永久地停泊在伦敦泰晤士河边。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 conjectured   

推测，猜测，猜想( conjecture的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The old peasant conjectured that it would be an unusually cold winter. 那老汉推测冬天将会异常地寒冷。
• The general conjectured that the enemy only had about five days' supply of food left. 将军推测敌人只剩下五天的粮食给养。

5 prehistoric   

adj.（有记载的）历史以前的，史前的，古老的

参考例句：

• They have found prehistoric remains.他们发现了史前遗迹。
• It was rather like an exhibition of prehistoric electronic equipment.这儿倒像是在展览古老的电子设备。

6 civilizing   

v.使文明，使开化( civilize的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The girls in a class tend to have a civilizing influence on the boys. 班上的女生往往能让男生文雅起来。
• It exerts a civilizing influence on mankind. 这产生了教化人类的影响。 来自辞典例句

7 marshes   

n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Cows were grazing on the marshes. 牛群在湿地上吃草。
• We had to cross the marshes. 我们不得不穿过那片沼泽地。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 masonry   

n.砖土建筑；砖石

参考例句：

• Masonry is a careful skill.砖石工艺是一种精心的技艺。
• The masonry of the old building began to crumble.旧楼房的砖石结构开始崩落。

9 pottery   

n.陶器，陶器场

参考例句：

• My sister likes to learn art pottery in her spare time.我妹妹喜欢在空余时间学习陶艺。
• The pottery was left to bake in the hot sun.陶器放在外面让炎热的太阳烘晒焙干。

10 littoral   

adj.海岸的；湖岸的；n.沿（海）岸地区

参考例句：

• We should produce the littoral advantage well.我们应该把海滨的优势很好地发挥出来。
• The reservoir sandstone was believed to have been deposited in a littoral environment.储集层砂岩就被认为是近海环境的沉积。

11 gulf   

n.海湾；深渊，鸿沟；分歧，隔阂

参考例句：

• The gulf between the two leaders cannot be bridged.两位领导人之间的鸿沟难以跨越。
• There is a gulf between the two cities.这两座城市间有个海湾。

12 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

13 symbiosis   

n.共生（关系），共栖

参考例句：

• They live in a symbiosis with governments that they are financing.他们与他们服务的政府互利共存。
• The symbiosis between social values and political structure has produced extraordinary achievement.社会价值观念和政治结构的共生现象带来了非凡的成就。

14 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

15 nomadic   

adj.流浪的；游牧的

参考例句：

• This tribe still live a nomadic life.这个民族仍然过着游牧生活。
• The plowing culture and the nomadic culture are two traditional principal cultures in China.农耕文化与游牧文化是我国传统的两大主体文化。

16 herds   

兽群( herd的名词复数 )； 牧群； 人群； 群众

参考例句：

• Regularly at daybreak they drive their herds to the pasture. 每天天一亮他们就把牲畜赶到草场上去。
• There we saw herds of cows grazing on the pasture. 我们在那里看到一群群的牛在草地上吃草。

17 irrigated   

[医]冲洗的

参考例句：

• They irrigated their crops with water from this river. 他们用这条小河里的水浇庄稼。
• A crop can be sown, weeded, irrigated, and fertilized uniformly. 一种作物可以均匀一致地进行播种，除草，灌溉和施肥。

18 replenishment   

n.补充(货物)

参考例句：

• Since the wartime population needed replenishment, pregnancies were a good sign. 最后一桩倒不失为好现象，战时人口正该补充。
• Natural replenishment of this vast supply of underground water occurs very slowly. 靠自然补充大量地下水是十分缓慢的。

19 density   

n.密集，密度，浓度

参考例句：

• The population density of that country is 685 per square mile.那个国家的人口密度为每平方英里685人。
• The region has a very high population density.该地区的人口密度很高。

20 mid   

adj.中央的，中间的

参考例句：

• Our mid-term exam is pending.我们就要期中考试了。
• He switched over to teaching in mid-career.他在而立之年转入教学工作。