World Literature 271/272 J. Roth

 

Reading Skills Assessment Exercise

 

Directions:  This following excerpt is a representative example of the reading level required for this course. If you are able to read the excerpt comfortably and answer most of the quiz questions correctly, your reading level likely meets the requirement for our course.  If you found the excerpt difficult, there is a very good chance the reading assignments will be a struggle for you.

 

        Please read this excerpt from our text and then take the six-question quiz that follows. 

 

AN EXCERPT FROM OUR TEXT

 

          The stories told in the Homeric poems are set in the age of the Trojan War, which archaeologists (those, that is, who believe that it happened at all) date to the twelfth century B.C.E. Though the poems do preserve some faded memories of the Mycenaean Age, as we have them they probably are the creation of later centuries, the tenth to the eighth B.C.E.-the so-called Dark Age that succeeded the collapse (or destruction) of Mycenaean civilization. This was the time of the final settlement of the Greek peoples, an age of invasion perhaps and migration certainly, which saw the foundation and growth of many small independent cities. The geography of Greece-a land of mountain barriers and scattered islands-encouraged this fragmentation. The Greek cities never lost sight of their common Hellenic heritage, but it was not enough to unite them except in the face of unmistakable and overwhelming danger, and even then they came together only partially and for a short time. They differed from each other in custom, political constitution, and even dialect: their relations with each other were those of rivals and fierce competitors.

 

These cities, constantly at war in the pursuit of more productive land for growing populations, were dominated from the late eighth century B.C.E. by aristocratic oli­garchies, which maintained a stranglehold on the land and the economy of which it was the base. At the same time, cultural horizons were expanding. In the eighth and seventh centuries B.C.E. Greeks (perhaps including the landless) founded new cities (always near the sea and generally owing little or no allegiance to the home base) all over the Mediterranean coast . . . . Many of these new outposts of Greek civilization experienced a faster economic and cultural development than the older cities of the mainland (4-5).

 

 

Lawall, Sarah, and , ed. The Norton Anthology of Western Literature, Volume 1. 8th ed.

 

New York: WW. Norton & Company, 2006.

 

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COMPREHENSION QUIZ

NOTE: Please find the correct answers in the CANVAS Week #1 module.

 

Comprehension Quiz:  Please circle the best answer in each of the following.

1. According to this article, the Trojan War is believed to have occurred approximately how many years ago?

 

  1. 1200 years ago

 

  1. 3300 years ago

 

  1. 800 years ago

 

2. According to this article, the poems likely were created

 

  1. After the Mycenaean Age

 

  1. Before the Mycenaean Age

 

  1. During the Mycenaean Age

 

3. According to this article, which of the following contributed to the breaking apart of a single Greek culture?

 

  1. years of inclement weather and torrential rains—hence, the Dark Age

 

  1. Nomadic invaders from western Asia

 

  1. The geography of the land which they inhabited

 

4. According to the article, one event likely to unify the otherwise independent Greek cities was

 

  1. A call from the chief priest to rededicate oneself to the gods.

 

  1. An unusually high death rate among the infant population.

 

  1. An easy-to-see and serious threat to their collective welfare.

 

5. The context in which the phrase aristocratic oli­garchies occurs in paragraph 2 suggests that aristocratic oli­garchies

 

  1. are able to hold control of a people

 

  1. are combinations of various cultures

 

  1. are brutal and unsuccessful without a religious component

 

 

6. The article suggests that

 

  1. Life was difficult in the outposts

 

B.      Often outposts flourished

 

  1. Outposts held a strong attachment to their counterparts on the mainland

 

 

NOTE: Please find the correct answers in the CANVAS Week #1 module.