TOEFL Reading test
New Women of the Ice Age
P1 The status of women in a society depends in large measure on their role in the economy. The reinterpretation of the Paleolithic past centers on new views of the role of women in the food-foraging economy. Amassing critical and previously overlooked evidence from Dolni Vestonice and the neighboring site of Pavlov, researchers Olga Soffer, James Adovasio, and David Hyland now propose that human survival there had little to do with men hurling spears at big game animals. Instead, observes Soffer, one of the world’s leading authorities on Ice Age hunters and gathers and an archeologist at the University of Lllinois in Champaign-Urbana, it depended largely on women, plants and a technique of hunting previously invisible in the archeological evidence – net hunting. “This is not the image we’ve always had of Upper Paleolithic macho guys out killing animals up close and personal, “ Soffer explains.” Net hunting is communal, and it involves the labor of children and women. And this has lots of implications.”
1. The word authorities in the passage is closest in meaning to
A) Policies
B) Experts
C) Interpretations
D) tradition
2. How do Soffer’s theories compare with those of more conservative researchers?
A) They are in agreement for the most part regarding the activities that women performed
B) Soffer has based her theories on archeological evidence that her colleagues had not considered
C) Conservative researchers are doubtful about the studies of stone tools and big-game bones
D) Her theories are much more difficult to prove because she relies on modern cultural evidence.
P2 Many of these implications make her conservative colleagues cringe because they raise serious questions about the focus of previous studies. European archeologists have long concentrated on analyzing broken stone tools and butchered big-game bones, the most plentiful and best-preserved relics of the Upper Paleolithic era. (which stretched from 40,000 to 12,000 years ago). From these analyses, researchers have developed theories about how these societies once hunted and gathered food. Most researchers ruled out the possibility of women hunters for biological reasons. Adult females, they reasoned, had to devote themselves to breast-feeding and tending infants. “Human babies have always been immature and dependent,” says Soffer. “If women are the people who are always involved with biological reproduction and the rearing of the young, then that is going to constrain their behavior. They have to provision that child. For fathers, provisioning is optional.”
4. What can be inferred about Dr. Soffer from paragraph 2?
A) She does not agree that women should be the primary caretakers for children
B) She is probably not as conservative in her views as many of her colleagues
C) She is most likely a biologist who is doing research on European women
D) She has recently begun studying hunting and gathering in the Upper Paleolithic era
P3 To test theories about Upper Paleolithic life, researchers looked to ethnography, the scientific description of modern and historical cultural groups. While the lives of modern hunters do not exactly duplicate those of ancient hunters, they supply valuable clues to universal human behavior. In many historical societies, Soffer observes, women played a key part in net hunting, since the technique did not call for brute strength nor did it place young mothers in physical peril. Among Australian Aborigines, for example, women as well as men knotted the mesh, laboring for as much as two or three years on a fine net. Among Native American groups, they helped layout their handiwork on poles across a valley floor. Then the entire camp joined forces as beaters. Fanning out across the valley, men, women, and children alike shouted and screamed, flushing out game and driving it in the direction of the net. “Everybody and their mother could participate,” says Soffer. “Some people were beating, others were screaming or holding the net. And once you got the net on these animals, they were immobilized. You didn’t need brute force. You could club them, hit them any old way.”
7. Based on the information in paragraph 3, which of the following best explains the term “net hunting”?
A) An approach to hunting developed by Australian fishermen
B) A very dangerous method of hunting large animals
C) A way for the camp to protect women and children from wild animals
D) A hunting technique that includes the entire community
8. Why does the author mention "Native American and Aborigine" groups in paragraph 3?
A) To give examples of modern groups in which women participate in net hunting
B) To demonstrate how net hunting should be carried out in modern societies
C) To describe net hunting techniques that protect the women in the group
D) To contrast their net hunting techniques with those of the people in the Congo
P4 People seldom returned home empty-handed. Researchers living among the net hunting Mbuti in the forests of the Congo report that they capture game every time they lay out their woven traps, scooping up 50 percent of the animals encountered. 'Nets are a far more valued item in their panoply of food-producing things than bows and arrows are, "says Adovasio. So lethal are these traps that the Mbuti generally rack up more meat than they can consume, trading the surplus with neighbors. Other net hunters traditionally smoked or dried their catch and stored it for learner times.
9. According to paragraph 4, which of the following is true about hunting in the Congo?
A) The Mbuti value nets almost as much as their bows and arrows
B) Trade with other tribes is limited because all food must be stored
C) Net hunters are successful in capturing half of their prey
D) Vegetables are the staple part of the diet for the Mbuti people
P5 Soffer doubts that the inhabitants of Dolni V stonice and Paviov were the only net makers in the ice Age Europe. B Camps stretching from Germany to Russia are littered with a notable abundance of small-game bones, from hares to birds like ptarmigan. And at least some of their inhabitants whittled bone tools that look much like the awls and net spacers favored by historical net makers. C
10. According to paragraph 5, why does Soffer conclude that net hunting was widespread in Europe during the Ice Age?
A. Becasue there are a lot of small game still living in Europe
B. Because tools to make nets have been found in camps throughout Europe
C. Because the bones of small animals were found in Dolni Vestonice and Paviov
D. Because German and Russian researchers have verified her data
P6 Although the full range of their activities is unlikely ever to be known for certain, there is good reason to believe that ice Age women played a host of powerful roles. D and the research that suggests those roles are rapidly changing our mental images of the past. For Soffer and others, these are exciting times.
11. The word roles in the passage is closest in meaning to
A. problems
B. developments
C. locations
D. functions
12. Look at the four squares that show where the following sentence could be inserted in the passage.
Such findings, agree Soffer and Adovasio, reveal just how shaky the most widely accepted reconstructions of Upper Paleolithic life are.
Where could the sentence best be added?
Click on a square to insert the sentence in the passage.
13. Directions:
An introduction for a short summary of the passage appears below. Complete the summary by selecting the Three answer choices that mention the most important points in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not included in the passage or are minor points from the passage. This question is worth 2 points.
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Answer Choices
A. The Upper Paleolithic era extended from 40,000 to 12,000 years ago, a time also referred to as the Ice Age.
B. Net hunting involves the entire community, including women and children as well as men in the hunt for animals.
C. Australian Aborigines work for as many as three years weaving and knotting a net for hunting small game.
D. Modern net hunting in the Congo and Australia supports new theories that identify woman as participants in Paleolithic hunting.
E. The introduction of farming methods during the agricultural revolution changed the status of women.
F. Paleolithic sites such as Dolni Vestonice and Pavlov provide evidence of net hunting that was previously overlooked.
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