【高校英語】共通テストの英文解釈 vol.1245≪2022年共通テスト追試第6問B≫第5段落

□--■--□--■--□--■--□--------------------------------------------◆ 　　　【高校英語】共通テストの英文解釈 vol.1245 　　　　　　　　≪2022年共通テスト追試第6問B≫　　　　　2022/9/17配信 ◆----------------------------------------□--■--□--■--□--■--□--■ 目次・・・■　問題　■　全文訳　■　解答・解説　■　語句　■　解答一覧 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 今回は2022年共通テスト追試第6問Bを解説します。 ■　問題 第６問 Ｂ　You are in a student group preparing a poster for a presentation contest. You have been using the following passage to create the poster. [A Brief History of Units of Length] Since ancient times, people have measured things. Measuring helps humans say how long, far, big, or heavy something is with some kind of accuracy. While weight and volume are important for the exchange of food, it can be argued that one of the most useful measurements is length because it is needed to calculate area, which helps in the exchange, protection, and taxation of property. Measuring systems would often be based on or related to the human body. One of the earliest known measuring systems was the cubit, which was created around the 3rd millennium BC in Egypt and Mesopotamia. One cubit was the length of a man's forearm from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger, which according to one royal standard was 524 millimeters (mm). In addition, the old Roman foot (296 mm), which probably came from the Egyptians, was based on a human foot. A unit of measurement known as the yard probably originated in Britain after the Roman occupation and it is said to be based on the double cubit. Whatever its origin, there were several different yards in use in Britain. Each one was a different length until the 12th century when the yard was standardized as the length from King Henry I's nose to his thumb on his outstretched arm. But it was not until the 14th century that official documents described the yard as being divided into three equal parts -- three feet -- with one foot consisting of 12 inches. While this description helped standardize the inch and foot, it wasn't until the late 15th century, when King Henry VII distributed official metal samples of feet and yards, that people knew for certain their true length. Over the years, a number of small adjustments were made until the International Yard and Pound Agreement of 1959 finally defined the standard inch, foot, and yard as 25.4 mm, 304.8 mm, and 914.4 mm respectively. The use of the human body as a standard from which to develop a measuring system was not unique to western cultures. The traditional Chinese unit of length called chi -- now one-third of a meter -- was originally defined as the length from the tip of the thumb to the outstretched tip of the middle finger, which was around 200 mm. However, over the years it increased in length and became known as the Chinese foot. Interestingly, the Japanese shaku, which was based on the chi, is almost the same as one standard foot. It is only 1.8 mm shorter. The connection between the human body and measurement can also be found in sailing. The fathom (6 feet), the best-known unit for measureing the depth of the sea in the English-speaking world, was historically an ancient Greek measurememt. It was not a very accurate measurement as it was based on the length of rope a sailor could extend from open arm to open arm. Like many other British and American units, it was also standardized in 1959. つづく