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MCAP Practice ELA 7 Section 3

Last updated 12 months ago

7 questions

Read the passages. You will then answer questions about the passages and write a response. 

Guardian on the Plateau by Salima Ikram and Janice Kamrin Lower Egypt Upper Egypt Giza Nile River Karnak Temple Philae Temple Abu Simbel Cairo  
Just outside the city of Cairo lie the pyramids of Giza— three of the best-known monuments in the world. There, too, nestled in a hollow at the foot of the plateau is a huge statue in the form of a strange half-lion, half-human beast. This is the Great Sphinx, guardian of the Giza pyramids. Its head and neck are in the shape of a man wearing a striped headcloth that flares out to the sides and falls over the shoulders, with a pigtail in the back. This type of headcloth is called a nemes and was worn only by kings. A rearing cobra, called the uraeus, adorns the king’s forehead. The ancient Egyptians believed this snake protected the king and was always ready to spit fire and poison at his enemies. The body of the Sphinx is in the shape of a crouching lion, with his tail curled around his right side. Carved of Living Rock  

The largest statue ever sculpted, the Sphinx is 235 feet long and 66 feet tall. Instead of using separate stone blocks to fashion the gigantic creature, artisans carved it from the living rock of the plateau. The Sphinx is actually limestone that is still attached to the ground along its belly and legs. It reclines in the middle of a quarry. This quarry was not used just to build the Sphinx. Workers used many of its stones to build the pyramids and some of the temples associated with them.  

The Sphinx was carved with very simple tools. Among them were copper chisels and pounders of harder stone such as granite and diorite to knock off bits and pieces of the limestone. To do the final shaping and to smooth the surface, the master artisans used sand and sandstone. Colors With Meaning  

The entire statue was painted. The stripes of the nemes were painted blue and yellow, and bits of red paint can still be seen on the face. Statues and paintings of Egyptian men have reddish-brown skin to show that they spent a lot of time in the sun.  

The body of the Sphinx probably would have been painted golden-yellow, to look like a lion’s fur. The red and yellow paint was made of ochers, which are soft, colored minerals found in the deserts of Egypt. The blue was probably made from azurite, a mineral found in the Sinai Peninsula. To paint, Egyptian artists would have used very large brushes that were made of reeds or palm fibers.  

Parts of the body— those made of the softer limestone— started to fall apart in ancient times. Workers repaired the damage with blocks of stone. These repairs, however, have had to be made again and again. The last time was in the 1990s. A Temple for the Creature  

The structure in front of the Sphinx is called the Sphinx Temple. It has a courtyard with 24 granite pillars, a sacred chamber facing east, and another sacred chamber facing west. The floor was made of Egyptian alabaster, a beautiful creamy stone that came from Middle Egypt. The temple was never completely finished, and some scholars think that it was never actually used.

For thousands of years, people have been fascinated by this curious creature. They have wondered about who made it and tried to figure out what it meant. Most archaeologists agree that it was carved in about 2550 B.C. for Khafre, the king who built the middle pyramid on the Giza Plateau. Some, however, suggest that the Sphinx might be Khufu, Khafre’s father.  

Whether it was Khufu or Khafre who had the Sphinx carved is not as important as the message the statue was meant to convey. It represented the king as a god, with the wisdom of a human and the power of a lion, the mightiest of all beasts. Sphinxes were also linked to the sun. The Great Sphinx was associated with the god Horemakhet, the god Horus in the Horizon. This was the sun as it rose each morning and set each evening.  

The sun would have been worshipped in the Sphinx Temple, with the rising sun honored in the eastern sanctuary and the setting sun in the western sanctuary. Through its connection with the sun, the Sphinx itself would also have been worshipped in the temple. At the same time, the Sphinx might have represented the king praising his spiritual father, the sun god, for eternity. 

“Guardian on the Plateau” by Salima Ikram and Janice Kamrin. Copyright January 2008 by Cobblestone Publishing Company. Reproduced with permissions of Cobblestone Publishing Company via the Copyright Clearance Center.

The Great Wall of China 
© Jakub Halun / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 4.0  

The Great Wall of China, perhaps the most recognizable symbol of China and its long and vivid history, was originally conceived by Emperor Qin Shi Huang in the third century B.C. as a means of preventing attacks from barbarian nomads. The best- known and best- preserved section of the Great Wall was built in the 14th through 17th centuries A.D. during the Ming dynasty. Though the Great Wall never effectively prevented invaders from entering China, it came to function as a powerful symbol of the Chinese civilization’s enduring strength. Qin Dynasty Construction  

Though the beginning of the Great Wall of China can be traced to the third century B.C., many of the fortifications date from hundreds of years earlier, when China was divided into a number of individual kingdoms.  

Around 220 B.C., Qin Shi Huang, the Qin Dynasty’s first emperor of a unified China, ordered that earlier fortifications between states be removed and a number of existing walls along the northern border be joined into a single system that would extend for more than 10,000 li (a li is about one- third of a mile) and protect China against aggressions from the north.  

Construction of the “Wan Li Chang Cheng,” or 10,000- Li- Long Wall, was one of the most ambitious building projects ever undertaken by any civilization. The famous Chinese general Meng Tian directed the project, and was said to have used a massive army of soldiers, convicts and commoners as workers.

Made mostly of earth and stone, the wall stretched from the China seaport of Shanhaiguan to Gansu province, more than 3,000 miles west. In some strategic areas, sections of the wall overlapped for maximum security.  

From a base of 15 to 50 feet, the Great Wall rose some 15 to 30 feet high and was topped by ramparts 12 feet or higher; guard towers were distributed at intervals along it. Wall Building During the Ming Dynasty  

The Great Wall of China as it exists today was constructed mainly during the Ming Dynasty (1368- 1644). The period saw an immense amount of construction in addition to the Great Wall, including bridges, temples and pagodas.  

The construction of the Great Wall as it is known today began around 1474. After an initial phase of expansion, Ming rulers extended the wall from the Yalu River in Liaoning Province to the eastern bank of the Taolai River in Gansu Province, and winded its way from east to west through today’s Liaoning, Hebei, Tianjin, Beijing, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Ningxia and Gansu.

Starting west of Juyong Pass, the Great Wall was split into south and north lines, respectively named the Inner and Outer Walls. Strategic “passes” (i.e., fortresses) were placed along the wall. The Juyong, Daoma and Zijing passes, closest to Beijing, were named the Three Inner Passes, while the Three Outer Passes, located further west, were Yanmen, Ningwu and Piantou.  

All six passes were heavily garrisoned during the Ming period and considered vital to the defense of the capital.

Significance of the Great Wall of China  
In the mid- 17th century, the Manchus from central and southern Manchuria broke through the Great Wall, eventually forcing the fall of the Ming Dynasty and beginning of the Qing Dynasty.  

Between the 18th and 20th centuries, the Great Wall emerged as the most common emblem of China for the Western world. Today, the Great Wall is generally recognized as one of the most impressive architectural feats in human history. In 1987, UNESCO designated the Great Wall a World Heritage site.  

Over the years, roadways have been cut through the wall in various points, and many sections have deteriorated after centuries of neglect. The best- known section of the Great Wall of China— Badaling, located 43 miles (70 km) northwest of Beijing— was rebuilt in the late 1950s, and attracts thousands of national and foreign tourists daily.