Directions: You are expected to study this section in class. Don’t preview.

Word Pretest

For each italicized word or expression, choose the best meaning below.

1. They made a crude attempt to kill the King.
A. cruel B. successful C. unskillful
2. The Nile is one of the principal rivers of Africa.
A. principle B. longest C. main
3. The temple was filled with golden idols.
A. people who are foolish
B. images worshipped as god
C. people liked by the public
4. John didn’t say when he’d return, but I presume he’d be back for dinner.
A. accept B. suppose C. wish
5. These plans must be modified if they’re to be used successfully.
A. changed greatly B. changed slightly C. changed completely
6. A lunar month is the period between two new moons.
A. of the sun B. of the moon C. of the stars
7. The baseball match is being sponsored by a cigarette company.
A. opposed B. supported C. spoiled
8. The King decreed the use of army.
A. wished strongly B. believed firmly C. ordered officially

Key: 1. C 2. C 3. B 4. B 5. B 6. B 7. B 8. C

Text A

1. Background Information
2. Text: 　　　　The Calendar

　　During the prehistoric period the human race developed very slowly. Gradually it spread over various regions of the friendly portions of the earth.
　　Man no longer lived in caves, but in low, flat-roofed houses built of stone blocks, or of bricks baked in the sunshine.
　　Images and designs were carved or painted on the walls. In these crude representations of objects primitive man recorded his history. This led to one of his greatest powers ---- the art of writing.
　　Through all this age man continued to regulated his increasing affairs by the sun, the moon and the stars. He divided time by their periodic positions, never realizing how interested future societies would be in what he did.
　　We have now come through the ages to a date about 4200 B.C. which is near the beginning of recorded history, and to one of the most ancient civilizations on this planet. It was in the region called Mesopotamia, in southwestern Asia between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
　　This area is where the ancient and famous city of Babylon was created.
　　When the Babylon priests and scholars reviewed the findings of the previous discoveries about time, they began making revisions to suit their own culture.
　　In the meantime they had built towers in their principal city to be used for the observance of the sun, the moon and other bodies. Because of their belief in supernatural beings, the towers were also used for the worship of their idols. These idols were presumed to be in the largest bodies in the sky.
　　The principal bodies, being seven in number, were identified and named. The period of the moon’s cycle was divided onto four quarters of seven days each. These seven-day periods were to become known as weeks. And each day of the week was named for one of their idols.
　　The ancient astronomers decided that it would be reasonable to divide the year into 12 periods, in honor of the 12 constellations seen during the darkness. Hence, these 12 periods were to be called months, in honor of the moon. Then combined, they became a year.
　　And so the Babylon Calendar was created. It was based on the cycles of the moon. The first calendar day was the first day of spring. This was a logical starting point because plant life was beginning to thrive. It was modified from time to time but, in general, was the basis of annual record-keeping for about 3, 500 years.
　　The Egyptians, however, had a calendar in abut 4200 B.C. which was based on the sun’s influence on the seasons. This calendar contained 365 days. It also was divided into 12 months, but of 30 days each plus five holidays at the end. It was to become recognized much later as being more accurate (on an annual basis) than the Babylonian calendar. However it was the Babyonian calendar which was adopted by the ancient Sinai, Phoenicians, Greeks and even the ancient Romans. The calendar developed approximately as follows:
　　BABTLONIAN CALENDAR ---- Their lunar year contained 354 days and was the basis upon which this annual time-keeping device was developed. It contained 12 months of 29 days plus six extra holidays. Obviously this became impractical and caused a loss of time each year.
　　EGYPTIAN CAEANDAR ---- It was based on the solar year and contained 365 days. This work is regarded as being the earliest date in recorded history.
　　OLD ROMAN CALENDAR ---- (750 B.C.) When Romulus, the founder of Rome, creatd his calendar, it contained 304 days! It was composed of 10 months with 30 days each plus 4 days at the end for an unknown reason.
　　The Old Roman calendar began on the first day of spring. The first was named Martius for Mars, the Roman God of War. The second was Aprilis, the Latin for the opening of the seasons. The third month was called Maia, for the Roman Goddess of spring. The fourth month was called Juno for the Roman Queen Goddess of marriage. The last six months of the Old Roman calendar were called by successive numbers, Quintilis (5), Sextellis (6), Septem (7), Octem (8), Novem (9) and Decem (10). All of this development occurred over a period of 250 years to 500 B.C.
　　NUMA’S CALENDAR ---- (500 B.C. )Numa Pompilius, the second King of Rome, re-organized the previous lunar calendar. This action made a calendar of 355 days.
　　Numa, in order to pick up the days that were lost, added two months. These he put on the front rather than at the end of the previous ten months, because he didn’t want to name them “Eleven” and “Twelve”. They were called Janus for the Roman God of the Beginning, and Februaris, from the Latin, meaning “festival”. This didn’t correct the situation either, because it was still short according to the periods of equinox.
　　JULIAN CALENDAR ----(46 B.C. ) Next appearing on the time measuring scene was the Roman Dictator Julius Caesar. By this time Numa’s calendar was more than 60 days behind. Caesar decided that it was time to abandon the lunar calendar of the Babyloninas and to adopted the solar year of the Egyptians. He arbitrarily added two more months to the first year of his dictatorship. This made “14 months”! That particular year contained 445 days and was to become known as the “year of confusion”. However, after that year of “confusion”, the calendar was fairly accurate as an annual time-keeping system.
　　Caesar’s decision resulted in 12 months of no less than 30 dyas each plus the additional five days as recognized by the Egyptians. But rather than grouping the five days at the end of Decem he scattered them out ---- thus adding one day to each of five months, Octem, Decem, Janus, Martius and Maia. So October, December, January, March and May each had 31 days.
　　Caesar, being a dictator, exercised his authority and changed name of the seventh month from Quintilis to Julius in honor of his own birthdate. This wasn’t enough. He would not sponsor a month with fewer days than 31. he borrowed one day from February so that “his month would also have 31 days. This left 29 days in February.
　　When Caesar’s nephew Augustus became Emperor of Rome (27 B.C.- A.D. 14) he made a minor change in the Julian calendar. Augustus decreed that he too should have a month named for himself. This he did, and changed the name of the month of Sextillis to Augustus for the same reason as Caesar’s. this month also had 30 days, so, not to be out-done by his Uncle Julius, he borrowed another day from February to make his 31-day month. Thus is the reported development of the Julian calendar which then remained unchanged until A.D. 1582.
　　GREGORIAN CALENDAR ---- (A.D. 1582) By this time it was realized that the calendar was still “slow” by almost one quarter of a day per solar year. So Pope Gregory XIII persuaded the government to add one day to February in every year which could be equally divided by the number four. These individual changes were to be called “Leap Year”. The only exceptions were to be those years which are equally divided by “400”. Therefore, the years 2000 and 2400 will not have the added Leap Year day if the Gregorian calendar still extists.
　　In the Old Roman and Greek calendars the days of the week were named for the seven principal planets in the solar system. The first and second were for the Sun and Moon. The third, fourth and fifth were named for Venus and Saturn.
　　The origins of the current names of the days of the week are as follows:
　　Sunday ---- God of the Sun (Babylonian)
　　Monday ---- Goddess of the Moon (Babylonian)
　　Tuesday ---- Tiw, God of War (Norse Mythology)
　　Wednesday ---- Woden, Chief God (Norse Mythology)
　　Thursday ---- Thor, God of Thunder, (Norse Mythology)
　　Friday ---- Freyja, Goddess of love (Norse Mythology)
　　Saturday ----- Saturn, Goodness of Harvest (Babylonian)

Total Words: 1240 words
Total Reading Time ______
______
The text is based on “The Calendar” in It’s About Time! By Robert L. Clark, copyright 1978 by Robert L. Clark.

Detailed Study of Text A

◆ Reading Skill ─ Inference
Choose the letter of the best answer.　

1. From Paragraph 4, it is safe to say that primitive people _______.
A. did not know how to divide time
B. did not consciously divide time to arouse future societies’ interest
C. regard dividing time as an art
2. From Paragraph 7, we can infer that _______.
A. primitive division of time did not suit Babylonian culture
B. the Babylonian priests and scholars invented the way of dividing time
C. the Babylonianists did not have the idea of time
3. From the creation of the Babylonian calendar, we can conclude that _______.
A. the Babylonists knew a lot about stars
B. agriculture was important in the Babylonian society
C. Both A and B
4. From the creation of the calendars mentioned in the article, we can say that _______.
A. dictators could create calendars in whatever way they liked
B. calendars are based on the cycle of heavenly bodies and cannot be changed by anybody
C. although calendars had scientific basis, dictators could and did make some changes
5. We can conclude from the article that “Leap Year” _______.
A. was created to honor Pope Gregory XIII.
B. Was created so that the calendar is not slow by one quarter a day per solar year
C. was created for unknown reasons
6. The author does not state in the article, but we can infer that _______.
A. we should create a new calendar because the existing one is not accurate
B. dictators who made changes to calendars onlu made them a confusion.
C. Almost everyone calendar underwent some changes to become more accurate

Key : 1. B 2. A 3. C 4. C 5. B 6. C

Vocabulary Building

I. Fill in the blanks with the given words in their correct forms.

identify　 logical 　　practice　　 found
occur 　arbitrarily 　revision 　dictator

1. The body had been badly burned so _______ was difficult.
2. I didn’t know anything about any of the books so my choise was quite _______.
3. Be _______ ---- we can’t afford both a car and a holiday.
4. The university has been famous for medical studies ever since its _______.
5. There is no _______ in spending money on things you don’t need.
6. A constitutional president has not _______ powers.
7. This sort of incident is an everyday _______.
8. I can see I’ll have to _______ my ideas about Tom ---- he is really quite clever after all.

Key : 1. identification 2. arbitrary 3. practical 4. foundation
　　　5. logic 6. dictatorial 7. occurrence 8. revise

II. Fill in the blanks with words that are often confused.

1. representation, presentation
a. They were preparing for the _______ of a new musical.
b. Parliament needs effective _______ of voters’ interests.
c. She needs to improve the _______ of her arguments.
d. The company wanted to have more _______ in China through their agents.
2. base, basis
a. This agenda will form the _______ of our next meeting.
b. The monument has a large _______.
c. Their wages are calculated on a weekly _______.
d. She used her family’s history as a _______ for her novel.

Key : 1. a. presentation b. representations c. presentation d. representations
　　2. a. basis b. base c. basis d. base

Ⅲ. Glossary
A.D. (Anno domini)　 A.C. (ante Christum)　 B.C. (before Christ)
the lapse of time　　 the course of time 　　　Time’s hour-glass
noiseless foot of time　 era　　　　　　　　　 epoch
millennium 　　　　　pre-Christian　　　　　 post-Christian
solar calendar　　　 lunar calendar 　　　　　solar time
Greenwich Time 　　　time zone 　　　　　　time-keeper
light year 　　　　　B.C.E. (before the Christian era)

4. Cloze
Fill in each blank with one suitable word.

　　Why “grandfather” clock? Well, these ______ were passed down through the family and so were always thought of as “grandfather’s clock”. But the first domestic timepieces were hung from a nail on the ______. Unfortunately dust got into the works and even worse children used to swing from the weights and the pendulum. So first the face and works and then the weights and the ______ were protected by wooden cases. Before long the clock was nearly all case and was stood on the ______ and called, not surprisingly; a long-case clock. These “grandfather” clocks were very expensive, made as they were from the ______, often beautifully carved or decorated with ivory. Famous ______ of this period included Thomas Topmpion, John Harrison and Edward East, but don’t get too excited if you find that the clock Grandma left you has one of these ______ on the back. Before you start jumping up and down and shouting, “We’re rich, we’re rich,” remember that plenty of people before the 20th century had the idea of making cheap ______ of famous original and “borrowing” the names of their betters. And don’t forget that the first chiming mechanism wasn’t ______ until 1695, so a chiming clock, however charming it sounds, will date from the 18th century. A ______ late 17th century grandfather clock made by East sold recently for just under 20 000.

Key : 1. clocks 2. wall 3. pendulum 4.ground 5. materials
　　6. makers 7. names 8. counterfeits 9. created 10. chiming