Passage Question(1-5): Writing a arguably the most important invention in human history. The opportunity for human knowledge to build on other knowledge is severely limited without the medium of writing. Not only does writing allow a permanence to human thought but also a complexity and scope to human expression that seem barely possible without it. The earliest known artifacts that could be considered writing by the loosest definition are the famous and extraordinarily beautiful 20000 year old “cave paintings” in southern France and northern Spain. The pictures, mostly of animals but with some human figures possibly tell some sort of story or may merely be pictures with expressive, magical or religious purpose. Other assorted pictures have been found antedating the rise of great civilization of the Near East, but the earliest artifacts that are clearly writing date from about only 5500 years ago in Mesopotamia. The earliest system of writing is usually attributed to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia during the end of the fourth millennium B,C. There, officials of such Sumerians city-states as Uruk had developed a system of recording numerals, pictographs and ideographs on specially prepared clay surfaces. Although the clay blanks used by the Uruk scribes are universally referred to as tablets, a word with the connotation of flatness, they are actually convex. Individual characters were inscribed in the clay means of stylus made of wood, bone or ivory with one end blunt and the other pointed. The characters were basically of two kinds. Numerical signs were impressed into the clay; all other signs, pictograms and ideographs alike were incised with the pointed end of the stylus. The repertory of characters used by the Uruk scribes was large; it is estimated at no fewer than 1,500 separate signs. Q- The word “incised” in line 20 is closest in meaning to

Passage Question(1-5): Writing a arguably the most important invention in human history. The opportunity for human knowledge to build on other knowledge is severely limited without the medium of writing. Not only does writing allow a permanence to human thought but also a complexity and scope to human expression that seem barely possible without it. The earliest known artifacts that could be considered writing by the loosest definition are the famous and extraordinarily beautiful 20000 year old “cave paintings” in southern France and northern Spain. The pictures, mostly of animals but with some human figures possibly tell some sort of story or may merely be pictures with expressive, magical or religious purpose. Other assorted pictures have been found antedating the rise of great civilization of the Near East, but the earliest artifacts that are clearly writing date from about only 5500 years ago in Mesopotamia. The earliest system of writing is usually attributed to the Sumerians of Mesopotamia during the end of the fourth millennium B,C. There, officials of such Sumerians city-states as Uruk had developed a system of recording numerals, pictographs and ideographs on specially prepared clay surfaces. Although the clay blanks used by the Uruk scribes are universally referred to as tablets, a word with the connotation of flatness, they are actually convex. Individual characters were inscribed in the clay means of stylus made of wood, bone or ivory with one end blunt and the other pointed. The characters were basically of two kinds. Numerical signs were impressed into the clay; all other signs, pictograms and ideographs alike were incised with the pointed end of the stylus. The repertory of characters used by the Uruk scribes was large; it is estimated at no fewer than 1,500 separate signs. Q- The word “incised” in line 20 is closest in meaning to –

A Painted

B Erased

C Cut

D Embroidered

Solution

Correct Answer: Option C

Solution

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