Câu hỏi:

Give the correct form of the words in brackets to complete the following passage.

Nowadays, we use different products for personal cleanliness, laundry, dishwashing and household cleaning, but this is very much a 20^th-century development. The origins of cleanliness date back to (36. HISTORY)…………….times. Since water is essential for life, the (37. EARLY)……………. people lived near water and knew something about its cleansing properties - at least that it rinsed mud off their hands.

During the excavation of ancient Babylon, evidence was found that (38. MAKE - SOAP)…………….was known as early as 2800 BC. Archaeologists discovered cylinders

made of clay, with inscriptions on them saying that fats were boiled with ashes. This is a method of making soap, though there’s no (39. REFER)…………….to the purpose of

this material.

The early Greeks bathed for (40. AESTHETE)…………….reasons and apparently

didn’t use soap. Instead, they cleaned their bodies with blocks of sand, pumice and ashes, then anointed themselves with oil, and scraped off the oil and dirt with a metal instrument known as a strigil. They also used oil mixed with ashes. Clothes were washed without soap in streams. The ancient Germans and Gauls are also (41. CREDIT) ……………. with discovering how to make a substance called ‘soap’, made of melted animal fat and ashes. They used this (42. MIXTURE)…………….to tint their hair red.

Soap got its name, according to an ancient Roman legend, from Mount Sapo, where animals were sacrificial, leaving deposits of animal fat. Rain washed these deposits, along with wood ashes, down into the clay soil along the River Tiber. Women found that this mixture (43. GREAT)…………….reduced the effort required to wash their clothes.

As Roman (44. CIVIL) ……………. advanced, so did bathing. The first of the

famous Roman baths, supplied with water from their aqueducts, was built around 312 BC. The baths were luxurious, and bathing became very popular. And by the second century AD, the Greek physician Galen recommended soap for both (45. MEDICINE) ……………and cleansing purposes.

(adapted from learnenglish.britishcouncil.org)

The origins of cleanliness date back to (36. HISTORY)…………….times.