SAT Reading Practice Test Questions-History based-Set 3

Questions 11-12 are based on the following passage.

Recently excavated artifacts from Pakistan have inspired a reevaluation of one of the great early urban cultures-the enigmatic Indus Valley civilization, one of the four great early Old World state-cultures, along with Mesopotamia, Line 5 Egypt, and China’s Yellow River civilization. Much less is known about the Indus civilization than these other states because linguists have yet to decipher the Harappan script found on recovered objects. Attempting to understand these vanished people and their social structures, my colleagues Line 10 and I have drawn clues from the miscellaneous objects we uncover and sites we excavate. In this effort, the Harappan writings have not been totally useless; we have gleaned insights by examining the context of the writing’s use.

11. A major assumption of the passage is that

1. the spot within an excavated site where an object is found is a clue to its social significance
2. it is a great help in understanding a civilization to be able to decode its language
3. there are similarities among the social structures of ancient urban civilizations
4. an effective archaeologist should learn the language of the civilization being studied
5. ancient languages are all very difficult to decipher

12. The author’s tone in the final sentence is best described as

1. frustrated
2. resigned
3. ambivalent
4. somewhat encouraged
5. unshakably confident