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  3. Civilization Before about 3500 BC, there were cultures, but not civilizations. Prehistoric men and women created societies,

Civilization Before about 3500 BC, there were cultures, but not civilizations. Prehistoric men and women created societies,

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问题                 Civilization
    Before about 3500 BC, there were cultures, but not civilizations. Prehistoric men and women created societies, constructed houses, lived in villages, hunted and fished, farmed, made pottery, wove cloth and created languages. But unlike more advanced peoples, they did not build cities, read or write. Cities are the cornerstone of civilized life because with them came other civilizing elements, including differentiation of classes and employment, sophisticated religious and political systems, monumental architecture and the formation of states and empires.
    Historians usually begin the story of civilization with accounts of the world’s first great writers and city-builders, the Sumerians. Because the Sumerians recorded ideas and sagas and listed the names of their rulers, we know more about them than about prehistoric peoples who left their legacy in stones, bones and pottery.
    With the ability to build cities and record thoughts came the ability to communicate ideas and innovations over vast reaches of time and space. Human beings—who had formerly taken hundreds of thousands of years to learn that a stone ax sharpened on both sides is more useful than an ax sharpened on one side—progressed rapidly from foot travel to horse drawn carts, and later from railways to airplanes. With these and thousands of other innovations, people came to live longer, more comfortable lives.
    Civilization also brought new ills to humanity. In the 20th century it brought nuclear warfare, global warming, and ozone depletion. More subtly, civilization removed human beings from regular encounters with the wonders of the natural world. Unlike people of modern civilizations, primitive people lived close to the sounds and smells of forest and grasslands. They looked at fire and the stars with awe and reverence. Civilization involves the ability to create a new political and cultural world. In the 19th century the American writer, philosopher and naturalist Henry David Thoreau noted that this artificial sphere separates humanity from primitive virtue. "Most of the luxuries", he argued, "and many of the so-called comforts of life are not only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevations of mankind." Thoreau believed that men and women should simplify their lives.
(A)To live well and happily usually doesn’t mean to live very luxuriously, the material enjoyment and much expense can satisfy you to some extent, but to enjoy a simple life also can make you feel fine and comfortable, something in your mind or in your spiritual world can bring more or influence much on your life and your happiness value.
(B)They expressed this sense of regret in the story of Prometheus and Pandora. Contrary to the wishes of other gods, Prometheus brought to humanity the gifts of fire, art and science. The jealous gods were unwilling to allow men and women to enjoy such blessings without cost, and so they sent Pandora to the world with a box containing disease, sorrow and other evils.
(C)From then on, the world wasn’t quiet or fortunate all the time, some people suffered from them and always got punished in one way or other. The people began to pay as well as they gain some achievement during the progress process. Human beings have viewed civilization as a mixed blessing. Civilized people have waged brutal wars, destroyed majestic forests and persecuted religious minorities.
(D)But civilizations have also achieved wonders.
    We cannot list with words all the achievements of the human beings with the help and development of civilization. The abilities of writing and reading can spread one kind of culture or invention to other places, and advanced science and technology have allowed human beings to enjoy much more convenient and interesting lives. With many inventions of modern life, many places where people could not reach before can be explored and developed by human beings and many new materials with very good properties can improve people’s lives and help do many jobs which were thought very difficult or impossible before.
The word cornerstone in Paragraph 1 is closest in meaning to ______.
选项 A、foundation
B、centralization
C、backbone
D、milestone
答案A
解析 本题属于词汇题，主要考查考生根据上下文对单词cornerstone的理解。此处cornerstone意为“奠基石，基础”，意思为“城市是文明的基础”，这与下文“在城市的基础上产生了其他文明的因素”是一致的。选项A(foundation)意为“基础”，是cornerstone的同义词，而选项B(集中)、选项C(主干)、选项D(里程碑)均不符合题意，故选A。
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