READING PASSAGE 1

You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 on pages 2 and 3.

The world's first cities

working relentlessly = work around the clock

The creation of Mesopotamian cities

The inhabitants of Mesopotamia - which now forms part of eastern Syria, southeastern
Turkey and Iraq - lived for thousands of years on individual farms and in small, isolated enclosed
catertheir basic needs. But then, about 6,000 years
communities, working relentlessly just to meet
ago something remarkable happened. The people left the security of their family homes and
villages and came together with others to create something far more complex and difficult:
the world's first city, called Uruk
left the security = jump out of the comfort zone

There is not much left now of Uruk, which is about 250 kilometres south of Iraq's capital
Baghdad, but enough does remain to show that this initial experiment in urban living was
extraordinarily successful. At its height, around 5,000 years ago, Uruk was home to more
than 40,000 people. The outlines of the city walls indicate an enclosed area of about 600
hectares. outskirts = suburb
urban = city
remain - arterfacts: hiện vật
= large
The archaeological record of Uruk reveals the intensive building and rebuilding which went
on for four or five centuries after the city's initial establishment. In that period the people of
Uruk built a dozen or so large public buildings. They would carefully level what had stood
before, and then build another structure on top, often trying out a different building material
or an innovative technique. They seemed to be searching for ways in which architecture
could express the revolutionary new social structures that had come into being there.
bằng phẳng
Soon Uruk was not the only Mesopotamian city. People all across the flat plains of
southern Mesopotamia were enjoying many of the benefits of city life. By about 4,500
years ago, 80 per cent of the Mesopotamian population lived in cities over 40 hectares
in size, with populations of between 15,000 and 30,000 people. The emergence of
these thriving communities, made up mostly of individuals and groups with no blood
ties, was unprecedented in human history. Why did these extraordinary advances
happen? emergence = appearance = growth = rise
thrive = strive = try = make attempts to
Reasons for the creation of cities in Mesopotamia
= đoàn kết
Smaller communities in Mesopotamia sometimes decided to come together to make it
protect simple = basic
easier to defend themselves from their enemies. But the underlying reason for the
creation of cities can be found in the harshness of this particular environment. The area
was a place of extremes, where narrow strips of fertile river valleys were bounded by
thousands of kilometres of desert and unproductive wetlands. As the small amount of
rainfall in the region was incapable of sustaining anything but very limited agriculture, it
sustainable = remain = bound = restrict

harshness = severe = extreme: khắc nghiệt

fertile river: dồi dào, màu mỡ

 prosper: thịnh vượng

tưới tiêu
was only through sophisticated irrigation that isolated pieces of land were kept fertile.
The Tigris and the Euphrates rivers provided water for irrigation, and were also the
basis of a communication system that led to the spread of the latest concepts in farming.
In such a region, the only way for humans to prosper was by forming groups that could
work together. The threat of famine, which could be caused by a prolonged drought or
the sudden change in the course of a river, forced people to look outside their families,
and work with their neighbours to create an elaborate system of dams, channels and
canals to manage water. These projects needed specific skills and labour from outside
the farmer's family, and this established more firmly the patterns of dependence that are
at the heart of civilisation. nền văn minh = strongly
quan trọng = core = important
Changes in the organisation of farming
surplus = excessive: dư
The intensive farming that came about in Mesopotamia was more efficient and
productive and therefore generated a surplus of food, allowing crops in years of good
harvests to be stored as protection against future less successful years. It also allowed
more land for the production of a wider range of crops. It created a world where there
was a need for traders and for skilled craftsmen: in short, it was the beginning of
industry and consumerism. The concept of specialisation emerged within the population
- with increasing numbers of soldiers, builders, musicians, doctors, fortune tellers - all
supported directly or indirectly by agriculture. At the same time, this increased the
control that powerful institutions, gradually emerging in the early cities, had over the
urban population. Although large numbers of people were freed from the struggle of
subsistence farming, they were now totally dependent on the institutions that employed
them for their daily sustenance
.
The role of the temples

The earliest and most powerful of these institutions was centred on the religious temple.
Ever more temple structures were erected in the form of massive pyramids which had
enormous storerooms for the output from the farming estates. Over time, the temples
acquired these farms for themselves, and appointed a large number of staff to
administer them and to deal with the storage of produce. The temples' greatest
advantage was that each citizen was expected to give up some time to work for the
temples. This meant that temples could easily store huge amounts of agricultural
produce which could be used to buy yet more land. In addition, the revenues generated
allowed the temples to serve as primitive kinds of banks making loans to people in
difficult economic times. =many

The emergence of writing

We know a surprising amount about these times thanks to the development of an

important new technology: writing. In Mesopotamia basic records were inscribed in wet
clay, unlike the fragile papyrus used in ancient Egypt and Greece. These first writings
were largely lists of people and things, simple bookkeeping. But within several hundred
years, writing systems had become more advanced capable of recording concepts as
well as lists. The clay tablets used for writing were tough, and the fires that often burnt
down the archives where they were stored usually merely baked them for future
=rarely: hiếm
generations

Questions 1 - 6

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement agrees with the information

FALSE if the statement contradicts the information

NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this

settle down = migrate = reside

experiment
1. Some physical evidence of Uruk still exists in Iraq. T

2. The people of Uruk lived in large apartment buildings. NG

= often
3. Builders in Uruk frequently experimented with new construction methods. T
80% -> phổ biến
4. Urban settlements were unusual in Mesopotamia 4,500 years ago. F
k phổ biến trao đổi
5. The Tigris and the Euphrates rivers were important for the interchange of ideas. T
=communication =concepts
6. When there were food shortages, farmers relied mainly on the help of their relatives F

Questions 7 - 13

Complete the notes below.

Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.

Write your answers in boxes 7-13 on your answer sheet.

Early changes in Mesopotamia trong thi thì đừng dịch thọt lỗ

• Changes in organisation of farming

Improved agricultural methods led to:

- a food 7 ...............
surplus

being used as insurance

- a wider range of crops being grown

- the development of industry and consumerism

- increased specialisation amongst workers

- greater control by institutions

• Temples

- were built in the shape of large 8 ...............

pyramids

- had large 9 storerooms

...............where produce was kept

staff
- many needed 10 ...............to manage the farms

bank
- acted as 11...............in hard economic periods

• The development of writing

clay
- people wrote on surfaces made of 12 ...............

- written records remained undamaged after 13fire

............... archives they were kept in
wtiting systems tough cần danh từ