教材试题 Unit 3 Reading

Unit 3 Inventors and inventionsALEXANDER GRAHAM BELLAlexander Graham Bell was born in 1847 in Scotland, but when he was young his family moved to Boston, USA. His mother was almost entirely deaf, so Alexander became interested in helping deaf people communicate and in deaf education. This interest led him to invent the microphone. He found that by pressing his lips against his mothers forehead, he could make the bones move in such a way that she could understand what he was saying. He believed that one should always be curious and his most famous saying was: “Leave the beaten track occasionally and dive into the woods. Every time you do you will be certain to find something that you have never seen before. Follow it up, explore all around it, and before you know it, you will have something worth thinking about to occupy your mind. All really big discoveries are the result of thought. ”It was this exploring around problems that led to his most famous invention the telephone in 1876. Bell never set out to invent the telephone and what he was trying to design was a multiple telegraph. This original telegraph sent a message over distances using Morse code (a series of dots tapped out along a wire in a particular order). But only one message could go at a time. Bell wanted to improve it so that it could send several messages at the same time. He designed a machine that would separate different sound waves and allow different conversations to be held at the same time. But he found the problem difficult to solve. One day as he was experimenting with a straw joined to a deaf mans ear, Bell noticed that when he spoke into the ear, the straw drew sound waves on a piece of smoked glass. Suddenly he had a flash of inspiration. If sound waves could be reproduced in a moving electrical current, they could be sent along a wire. In searching to improve the telegraph, Bell invented the first telephone!Bell was fully aware of the importance of his invention and wrote to his father: “The day is coming when telegraph wires will be laid on to houses just like water or gas and friends will talk to each other without leaving home.”The patent was given in 1876, but it was not until five days later that Bell sent the first telephone message to his assistant, Watson. The words have now become famous: “Mr Watson come here I want to see you.”Alexander Graham Bell was not a man to rest and he interested himself in many other areas of invention. He experimented with helicopter designs and flying machines. While searching for a kite strong enough to carry a man into the air, Bell experimented putting triangles together and discovered the tetrahedron shape. Being very stable, it has proved invaluable in the design of bridges. Bell was an inventor all his life. He made his first invention at eleven and his last at the advanced age of seventy-five years old. Although he will always be known for his invention of the telephone, he was in truth a continuing searcher after practical solutions to improve the quality of everybodys life. Read the passage and answer the questions. 1 How did curiosity make Alexander Graham Bell into a great inventor?_2 What did he think was the key to his success as an inventor?_3 What inventions did Bell make by chance?_4 Why will he always be known as the inventor of the telephone? _Answer key for the exercise: 1 It made him ask questions, think of practical ways to solve problems, be prepared to try solutions（and alter them）several times and finally publish his findings for others. 2 He believed that his curiosity was the key to his success. 3 Bell invented the telephone and the tetrahedron shape by chance. Bot