The origin of the Sumerians remains obscure. Their language is unrelated to any other known tongue. Sometimes before 4,000 B.C. they came to southern Mesopotamia, from Persia, and there, within the next thousand years, they founded a number of city-states and developed their distinctive form of writing in cuneiform (wedge-shaped) characters on clay tablets. ?Unfortunately, the tangible remains of Sumerian civilization are extremely scanty compared to those of ancient Egypt. ?Building stone being unavailable in Mesopotamia, the Sumerians used mud brick and wood, so that almost nothing is left of their architecture except the foundation. ?Nor did they share the Egyptians’ concern with the hereafter, although some richly endowed tombs in the shape of vaulted chambers below ground from the early dynastic period have been found in the city of Ur. ?Our knowledge of Sumerian Civilization thus depends very largely on chance fragments brought to light by excavation, including vast numbers of inscribed clay tablets. Yet we have learned enough to form a general picture of this vigorous, inventive, and disciplined people。
根据该词出现的那句话就可以得知这里讲述的是“苏美尔人的起源仍然不清。他们的语言和其他任何已知语言无关。他们大约在公元前4000年从波斯来到美索不达米亚平原南部，从此在那里以后的数千年中，他们建立了许多城邦并且形成了他们与众不同的梭形文字。
如果对于该词不认识的也可以从后文的 unrelated to any other known tongue的否定表达知道，前面的词应该是负向的，后面的unfortunately一段我们可以再次印证这里的表达是负向的，因为文章说我们对苏美尔文明的了解只能靠考古发掘，从而我们也可放心这个单词的理解是正确的。由此可见，本题仍是熟词熟义。
第7题：The word vast in the passage is closest in meaning to_________
(A) random
(B) very large
(C) surprising
(D) relatively small
这题就是很容易的“熟词熟义”，根据上下文就可以判断选B。
第11题仍然是熟词熟义，所以很容易选出答案A。原文：The temple controlled the pooling of labor and resources for communal enterprises, such as the building of dikes or irrigation ditches, and it collected and distributed a considerable part of the harvest. All this required the keeping of detailed written records. Hence, we need not be surprised to find that the texts of early Sumerian inscriptions deal very largely with economic and administrative rather than religious matters, although writing was a priestly privilege。
#11 The word considerable in the passage is closest in meaning to_________
(A) substantial
(B) fixed
(C) valuable
(D) limited
从以上四个托福阅读词汇题看出，我们在解答这类题目时，有以下几个环节需要注意：首先，尽量在高亮词汇出现的地方阅读，利用上下文线索推敲快速找到该词对应意思，这样可以节省时间。其次是如果发现该词汇是熟词就要注意区分是熟义还是生义，而上下文的解释会很快帮助你正确判断。最后，这样的题目也可以按照阅读课中我们已经归纳的方法来解题。
以上就是为大家整理的托福阅读TPO真题解析：苏美尔文明，希望通过上述TPO内容的解析，可以帮助大家更好的来备考。