tailieunhanh - IELTS Academic Reading Sample 77 - A Chronicle of Timekeeping

giới thiệu đến bạn IELTS Academic Reading Sample 77 - A Chronicle of Timekeeping nhằm giúp các bạn có tài liệu ôn tập, luyện tập nhằm nắm vững được những kiến thức, kĩ năng cơ bản, đồng thời vận dụng kiến thức để giải các bài tập đề thi một cách thuận lợi. Chúc các bạn thi tốt! | You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage below. A Chronicle of Timekeeping Our conception of time depends on the way we measure it A According to archaeological evidence at least 5 000 years ago and long before the advent of the Roman Empire the Babylonians began to measure time introducing calendars to co-ordinate communal activities to plan the shipment of goods and in particular to regulate planting and harvesting. They based their calendars on three natural cycles the solar day marked by the successive periods of light and darkness as the earth rotates on its axis the lunar month following the phases of the moon as it orbits the earth and the solar year defined by the changing seasons that accompany our planet s revolution around the sun. B Before the invention of artificial light the moon had greater social impact. And for those living near the equator in particular its waxing and waning was more conspicuous than the passing of the seasons. Hence the calendars that were developed at the lower latitudes were influenced more by the lunar cycle than by the solar year. In more northern climes however where seasonal agriculture was practised the solar year became more crucial. As the Roman Empire expanded northward it organised its activity chart for the most part around the solar year. C Centuries before the Roman Empire the Egyptians had formulated a municipal calendar having 12 months of 30 days with five days added to approximate the solar year. Each period of ten days was marked by the appearance of special groups of stars called 6 decans. At the rise of the star Sirius just before sunrise which occurred around the all- important annual flooding of the Nile 12 decans could be seen spanning the heavens. The cosmic significance the Egyptians placed in the 12 decans led them to develop a system in ZIM ACADEMY Room 2501 Ocean Group Building 19 Nguyen Trai Thanh Xuan Dist Hanoi which each interval of darkness and later