28.04.2021
Form 11
Hello, boys and girls.
Today we
have got summative test in reading.
Open your
copybooks, write down today’s date and do this test.
Good luck!
From “Failure
Is an Option” by Hannah Bloch, National
Geographic Magazine, September 2013
At
the end of the 19th century a middle-aged Swedish engineer, a patent
officer captivated by the promise and possibilities of technology, came up with
a radical idea: Why not fly in a hydrogen balloon to become the first to
discover the North Pole, a place that at that time was as mysterious and
unknown as Mars? For years explorers had attempted to reach the Pole overland;
many died trying. An air expedition, Salomon August Andrée reasoned, would
eliminate much of the risk. And so, on a windy day in July 1897, with support
from Alfred Nobel and Sweden’s king, Andrée and two younger colleagues climbed
into the basket of a 67-foot-diameter balloon on Danes Island in the Svalbard
archipelago. The team packed wooden sledges, food for several months, carrier
pigeons to relay messages, even a tuxedo Andrée hoped to wear at the end of the
journey. As journalists and well-wishers cheered and waved, they soared into
the air, aiming to float to a place no human had seen.
As
soon as they lifted off, wind battered the balloon. Fog froze on it, weighing
it down. For 65 and a half hours the Eagle skittered along, sometimes
grazing the Arctic Ocean. Thirty-three years later, sealers stumbled across the
frozen corpses of Andrée and his crew—along with their cameras and diaries,
which revealed that they’d been forced to land on pack ice 298 miles from the
North Pole. The three had perished during a grueling three-month trek south.
Failure—never
sought, always dreaded, impossible to ignore—is the specter that hovers over
every attempt at exploration. Yet without the sting of failure to spur us to
reassess and rethink, progress would be impossible. Today there is growing
recognition of the importance of failure. Educators ponder how to make kids
more comfortable with it. Business schools teach its lessons. Psychologists
study how we cope with it, usually with an eye toward improving the chance of
success. Indeed, the very word “success” is derived from the
Latin succedere, “to come after”—and what it comes after, yes, is
failure. One cannot exist without the other. Oceanographer Robert Ballard, a
veteran of 130 undersea expeditions and discoverer of
the Titanic, calls this interplay the yin yang of success and
failure.
Andrée’s
balloon expedition was cutting-edge for its day, and fail it did, but “you don’t
know until you try in aviation,” a historian of science at Norway’s University
of Tromsø, points out. Improved technology ultimately helped solve the problems
of Arctic aviation and has opened countless other doors. But even Ballard,
whose major discoveries were aided by robots, notes that technology “doesn’t
make everything possible.”
And
that’s a good thing. “If you take away uncertainty, you take away motivation,”
says mountain climber Pete Athans. “Wanting to exceed your grasp is the nature
of the human condition. There’s no magic to getting where we already know we
can get.”
From “Failure Is an Option” by Hannah Bloch,National Geographic Magazine, September
2013
Statements
1 through 10 (on your answer sheet circle + if the statement is true, - if it
is false).
- Another possible title for this text could
be “The Quest to Reach the North Pole”.
- Andrée came up with his “radical idea” in
the 1900s.
- Andrée’s expeditionwasbackedby prominent
Swedes.
- The bodies of Andrée and his crew were ultimately
found by a group of sealers who had been hoping to solve the mystery of
their disappearance.
- Andrée was not able to personally explain
in detail how his exploration had ended and how long it had taken.
- The author would most likely agree with the
English expression, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.”
- Andrée’s expedition flew from Danes Island
on a windy day in June 1897.
- According to Pete Athans, the absence of
uncertainty woulddiscourage the ambitions of some people.
- The phrase “skittered along, sometimes
grazing the Arctic Ocean” could be reworded as “skimmed and occasionally
touched the Arctic Ocean”.
- Oceanographer Robert Ballard believes that
technology is the solution for all problems in exploration.
Questions 11
through 20 (on your answer sheet circle the correct letter A, B, C, or D).
11. The mention of Andrée’s tuxedo in the first paragraph most likely serves the purpose of:
- demonstratingAndrée’s confidence.
- illustratingAndrée’s poor planning.
- providing colorful but irrelevant details
about Andrée’s expedition.
- lampooning Andrée’s amateurism.
- The text mentions that all the of
following items were brought byAndrée and his team on their expedition
EXCEPT:
A. cameras
B. eagles
C. wooden sleighs
D. pigeons
- The line “Failure…is the specter that
hovers over every attempt at exploration” most likely means that:
A. failure is a sad reality which, like death, is
inevitable in all exploration.
B. the fear of failure haunts explorers like a
ghost and hurts their chances of success.
C. failure is anever-present possibility in the
back of every explorer’s mind.
D. the possibility of failure is an unreal
distraction best ignored by explorers.
- According to the text, Andrée’s expedition
had difficulty flying their balloon because:
A. they had packed too many items and the balloon
was too heavy.
B. they had not chosen the right kind of balloon
for their task.
C. they were patent officers without any real
exploring experience.
D. the balloon was encumbered by the freezing
temperatures.
- As it is used in the sentence “The three
had perished in a grueling three-month trek south”, a good synonym for the
word “grueling” would be:
A. arduous.
B. unsuccessful.
C. pointless.
D. cold.
- According to the text, failure is
currently thought of as:
A. the result of incompetence or unpreparedness.
B. an important learning experience.
C. essentially identical to success.
D. something that stands in the way of progress.
- According to the text, what is the
relationship between the words “success” and “succedere”?
A. The word “success”comes from the word “succedere”.
B. The words “success” and “succedere” are
synonyms.
C. The word “succedere” is an antonym for the word
“success”.
D. The word “succedere” is an old and outdated
form of the word “success”.
- According to the text, which of the
following is NOT true about Robert Ballard?
A. He has gone on over one hundred underwater
expeditions.
B. He discovered the remains of the Titanic.
C. He developed important aviation technology.
D. He used robots in his ocean exploration.
- According to the article, failure is
significant because:
A. it shows us our realistic and insurmountable
limits.
B. it forces us to rethink and reassess our
tactics.
C. it hinders our chances of success.
D. it is always a possibility.
- A historian suggests that “in aviation”:
A. technology is not very important.
B. anything is possible with the right technology
and preparation.
C. it isn’t clear whether or not something will
work until it is attempted.
D. there is no way to know what can be achieved.
Good bye!
