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  3. Today I will tell you about the research I have been conducting into the history of soap. While you may be able to find some inf

Today I will tell you about the research I have been conducting into the history of soap. While you may be able to find some inf

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问题
   Today I will tell you about the research I have been conducting into the history of soap. While you may be able to find some information on the origins of soap, it is not a substance which has excited a great deal of study so far. What we do know is that even as long ago as 2500 BC soap was being used. Of course, initially it was only ever used on clothing rather than the body itself. In fact, although soap has existed for so many years, the use of soap for personal hygiene was unheard of until fairly recently and is considered to be a relatively modem notion. So we can only assume that other activities must have provided the basis from which this key concept arose.
   To make soap you need to combine three materials in relatively exact proportions. So, how is it that these primitive people from over two thousand years ago could have discovered soap? What these people lacked in technology they certainly made up for in practical skills. I carried out some experiments using basic technigues to try to find out what people without any chemical knowledge might have observed. And I was able to demonstrate that they would indeed have been able to make a soap-like substance that is not dissimilar to the one we know today.
   However, it is fair to assume that, as the process requires a certain amount of time and specialization, soap would most likely have only been available in the wealthy communities. Although there are claims that the British Celts and their European counterparts used soap, there is no real evidence that the British colonies of the Iron Age had access to such a product.
   The history of soap is not easy to discover. As soap is an organic substance no traces of it remain in archaeological sites, so we have had to rely almost entirely on written texts for our discoveries. Fortunately there are many of these. The first known written mention of soap was on Sumerian clay tablets dating from about 2500 BC. The tablets spoke of the use of soap in the washing of wool. In another incidence, a medical document from about 1500 BC mentions that Egyptians bathed regularly. It also describes how they made soap by combining alkaline salts and oil which they extracted from vegetables.
   We also know that the Romans used a mixture of earth, soda and wine to clean their clothes and pots. For the Romans bathing was not just a matter of hygiene; it was a form of relaxation, a social activity. The bather moved from room to room, getting progressively hotter, until they reached a steamy room where dirt was sweated out and scraped away with a metal blade. The Romans used scented bath oils but these were used to moisturize the skin rather than to cleanse it and there is no evidence that they used soap in this way. This is not to say that the Romans did not have soap. During the excavation of Pompeii, a city that was buried under the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, an entire soap factory was revealed, showing that they did in fact have access to soap but that they simply did not use it for personal hygiene.
Questions 71-75
Complete the summary below with information from the passage, using no more than two words for each blank.
   In ancient times soap was used to clean clothing. It was not seen as a means of personal hygiene as 【A1】______times. Ancient people had little technology but many practical skills so they were able to discover soap by chance. Soap was probably only used in 【A2】______societies. There is no evidence that tribes people at the time of the British Iron Age used soap. The history of soap has mostly been discovered from 【A3】______. The earliest known use of soap in 2500 BC was to wash wool. The Egyptians made soap by mixing salts with oil taken from 【A4】______.
   The Roman saw washing themselves as a social activity. They removed dirt using steam and a metal blade. When Pompeii was excavated, they discovered a 【A5】______ for making soap.
【A1】
选项
答案modern
解析 文章第一段倒数第二句提到“事实上，尽管肥皂已经存在了这么多年，但直到最近，人们才听说到可以使用肥皂来保持个人卫生，人们认为，这是一个相对现代的概念”，空白处同“ancient times”是相对的，而且，肥皂用于个人卫生是相对现代的概念。因此，应填入modern。
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本试题收录于： A类竞赛（研究生）题库大学生英语竞赛（NECCS）分类
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