英銘 / 2015-09-26
閱讀測驗是很多考生畏懼的英文題型之一，其實閱讀測驗的解題並不難，記得先從題目看起，再去看文章。如果是與題目無關的句子，不要浪費太多時間去鑽研，這 樣還可以節省作答的時間。此篇文章的第一段中，有提到“language” (語言)、“develop” (發展)，所以文章一定是跟語言的發展有關。
| Linguists subscribe to the belief that the languages of about | |
| one-third of the human race all developed from one Indo-European | |
| language. But who were the speakers of this ancient language? | |
| Linguistic detective work offers some clues: you can deduce a | |
| 5 | people’s history from the words they use. Study of some fifty ancient |
| vocabularies has led to a reconstruction of the lifestyle of the first | |
| Indo-Europeans, a vanished people. From the words they used, it | |
| seems likely that they lived a half-settled, half-nomadic existence. | |
| They worshipped gods who are clear ancestors of Indian, | |
| 10 | Mediterranean, and Celtic deities. However, exactly who the original |
| Indo-Europeans were and when they lived remain a hotly debated | |
| mystery. According to an early theory, they lived in Mesopotamia, but | |
| this idea was exploded by nineteenth-century archaeology. Today, | |
| some argue for the Krugan culture of the Russian steppes, others for | |
| 15 | the farming culture of the Danube valley. The most widely accepted |
| theory locates the Indo-Europeans in a cold, northern climate where | |
| common words for snow and wolf were important. None of these | |
| prehistoric languages had a word for the sea. From this, and from | |
| our knowledge of nature, it is clear that the Indo-Europeans must | |
| 20 | have lived somewhere in northern central Europe. |
| ( ) 1. According to the passage, what does the underlined word “exploded” mean? |
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