Directions: Read the following three texts. Answer the questions on each text by choosing A, B, C or D. Mark your answers on ANSWER SHEET 1.
Between the eighth and eleventh centuries A. D., the Byzantine Empire staged an almost unparalleled economic and cultural revival, a revival that is all the more striking because it followed a long period of severe internal decline. By the early eighth century, the empire had lost roughly 2/3 of the territory it had possessed in the year 600, and its remaining area was being raided by Arabs and Bulgarians, who at times threatened to take Constantinople and extinguish the empire altogether. The wealth of the state and its subjects was greatly diminished, and artistic and literary production had virtually ceased. By the early eleventh century, however, the empire had regained almost half of its lost possessions, its new frontiers were secure, and its influence extended far beyond its borders. The economy had recovered. The treasury was full. And art and scholarship had advanced.
To consider the Byzantine military, cultural and economic advances as differentiated aspects of a single phenomenon is reasonable. After all, these three forms or progress have gone together in a number of states and civilizations. Rome under Augustus and fifth-century Athens provide the most obvious examples in antiquity. Moreover, an examination of the apparent sequential connections among military, economic, and cultural forms of progress might help explain the dynamics of historical change.
The common explanation of these apparent connections in the case of Byzantium would run like this: when the empire had turned back enemy raids on its own territory and had begun to raid and conquer enemy territory, Byzantine resources naturally expanded and more money became available to patronize art and literature. Therefore, Byzantine military achievements led to economic advances, which in turn led to cultural revival. No doubt this hypothetical pattern did apply at times during the course of the recovery. Yet it is not clear that military advances invariably came first, economic advances second, and intellectual advances third. In the 860's the Byzantine Empire began to recover from Arab incursions so that by 862 the military balance with the Abbasid Caliphate had been permanently altered in the empire's favor. The beginning of the empire's economic revival however can be placed between 810 and 830. Finally the Byzantine revival of learning appears to have begun even earlier. A number of notable scholars and writers appeared by 788 and by last decade of the eighth century a cultural revival was in full bloom, a revival that last until the fall of Constinople in 1453. Thus the commonly expected order of military revival followed by economic and then by cultural recovery was reversed in Byzantium. In fact the revival of Byzantine learning may itself have influenced the subsequent economic and military expansion.
The central idea of this passage is that ______ .
A．the Byzantine Empire was a unique case in which the usual order of military and economic revival coming before cultural revival was reversed
B．after 810 Byzantine economic recovery stimulated a military and later cultural expansion that lasted until 1453.
C．the eighth-century revival of Byzantine learning is a phenomenon that is difficult to explain
D．the revival of the Byzantine Empire between the 8th and 11th Centuries shows cultural rebirth preceding economic and military revival reversed the commonly accepted order of progress
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