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Reading Comprehension

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Rangga Reza mandalika
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218 views2 pages

Reading Comprehension

Uploaded by

Rangga Reza mandalika
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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READING COMPREHENSION

Archaeology is a source of history, not just a humble auxiliary discipline. Archaeological data are
historical documents, not mere illustrations to written texts. Just as much as any other historian, an
archaeologist studies and tries to reconstitute the process that has created the human world in which we
live and us ourselves in so far as we are each creature of our age and social environment. 5
Archaeological data are all changes in the material world resulting from human action or more succinctly
the fossilized results of human behavior. The sum of these constitutes is what may be called as the
archaeological record which it exhibits certain peculiarities and deficiencies the consequences of which
produce a rather superficial contrast between archaeological history and the more familiar kind based
upon written records.
10
Not all human behavior fossilizes. The words I utter and you hear as vibrations in the air are
certainly human changes in the material world and may be of great historical significance. Yet they leave no
sort of trace in the archaeological records unless they are captured by a dictaphone or written down by a
clerk. The movement of troops on the battlefield may "change the course of history", but this is equally
ephemeral from the archaeologist's standpoint. What is perhaps worse, most organic materials 15
being perishable. Everything made of wood, hide wool, linen, grass hair, and similar materials will decay
and vanish in dust in a few years or centuries, save under very exceptional conditions. In a relatively brief
period, the archaeological record is reduced to mere scraps of stone, bone, glass, metal, and earthenware.
Still modern archaeology, by applying appropriate techniques and comparative methods, aided by a few
lucky finds from peat bogs, deserts, and frozen soils can fill up a good deal of the gap.

1. What is the author's main purpose in the passage? A. a cause of different story in the past
A. Pointing out the importance of recent B. a reference of certain history
advances in archaeology. C. a change in related history
B. Describing an archaeologist’s education. C. D. a matter of history course
Explaining how archaeology is a source of 7. Which of the following is NOT mentioned as an
history. example of an organic material?
D. Encouraging more people to become A. stone
archaeologists. B. wool
2. The word "discipline" in line 1 can be best C. grass
replaced by . D. hair
A. student 8. The author mentions all the following
B. course archaeological discovery sites EXCEPT
C. order A. urban areas
D. method B. peat bogs
3. The word "it" in line 7 refers to . C. very hot and dry lands
A. the record D. earth that has been frozen
B. the sum 9. The word "mere" in line 17 can be bestreplaced by .
C. human behavior A. simple
D. constitute B. unimportant
4. According to the passage, what does the C. pure
archaeological record consists of? D. little
A. spoken words of great historical significance 10. The paragraph following the passage
B. the fossilize results of human activity C. most probably discusses
organic materials A. techniques for recording oralhistories
D. ephemeral ideas B. certain battlefield excavationmethods C.
5. The word "they" in line 12 refers to . A. some specific archaeological discoveries D.
scraps building materials of the nineteenth and
B. words twentieth centur
C. troops
D. humans
6. In line 13, the phrase “change the course of
history” can be considered as .

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