1. Will you be here before 3 pm? a. Yes, I will be here by 3 pm
b. Yes, I will be here at 3 pm

2. Make sure to be here before 6 pm! Aunt Mary is coming!

a. Okay, I will be back by 6 pm
b. Okay, I will be back at 6 pm​

Which is the most effective paraphrase of the passage "six benches were left empty in every ship that evening when we pulled away from death. and this new grief we bore with us to sea: our precious lives we had, but not our friends" - the odyssey

What is meant by “eternally burning black pipes”? what is this implying about the personality of the firemen?

The greatest gift the sumerians gave the world was the invention of writing. the sumerians were wealthy people. they needed some way to keep track of what they owned. they began drawing pictures. they used a reed as a pen. they drew on soft pieces of clay. the soft clay was then dried in the sun. the tablet became a permanent record. later, the sumerian drawings changed into wedge-shaped symbols. this kind of writing is called cuneiform. by putting symbols together, the sumerians could write entire sentences.