from Exploring the Titanic by Robert D. Ballard

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1 Directions: Read the passage below. Then answer questions 1 through 4. On April 14, 1912, the passenger ship R.M.S. Titanic hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank. Robert Ballard led a search for the sunken ship in At the beginning of this selection, Ballard and his team are nearing the end of their scheduled time at sea. from Exploring the Titanic by Robert D. Ballard Then we had only five days left to go. The crunch had come. Suddenly the ocean seemed huge, and our doubts began to grow. Was the Titanic really in our carefully plotted search area? If so, surely something would have shown up on our monitor screens by now. Were we looking in the wrong place? Would we return empty-handed? I began to feel a rising panic. In a last-ditch effort, we decided to check out a tiny portion of ocean bottom that Jean- Louis and his SAR sonar system had missed because of strong currents. We headed to that spot ten miles away. But as we began to tow Argo 1 back and forth across the new search area, our hopes really began to fade. There was nothing down there. By now the routine inside our control room had become mind-numbing: hour after hour of staring at video images of flat bottom mud. On top of that, we were exhausted. The strain of it all was getting to us, and the boredom was becoming unbearable. Then, with a bad turn in the weather and only four days left, we reached our lowest point. I began to face total defeat. Just after midnight, on September 1, I went to my bunk for some rest, and the night shift led by Jean-Louis manned their stations. About an hour into their watch, one of the team members asked the others, What are we going to do to keep ourselves awake tonight? All they d seen so far was mud and more mud, endless miles of nothing. Stu Harris, who was busy flying Argo, didn t answer. His eyes were glued to the Argo video monitor. There s something, he said, pointing to the screen. Suddenly every member of the sleepy watch was alive and alert. No one could believe it wasn t just another false alarm, or a joke. But, no, there on the screen were clear images of things man-made. Stu yelled, Bingo! The control room echoed with a loud Yeah! from the whole team, and then wild 1 1 Argo the underwater vessel that contained a video camera

shrieks and war-whoops. All sorts of wreckage began to stream by on the screen. Then something different appeared something large and perfectly round.

2 shrieks and war-whoops. All sorts of wreckage began to stream by on the screen. Then something different appeared something large and perfectly round. Jean-Louis checked in a book of pictures of the Titanic. He came across a picture of the ship s massive boilers, used to burn coal and drive the engines. He couldn t believe his eyes. He looked from book to video screen and back again. Yes, it was the same kind of boiler! I scrambled out of my bunk when I got the news and ran to the control room. We replayed the tape of the boiler. I didn t know what to say. I turned to Jean-Louis. The look in his eyes said everything. The Titanic had been found. We d been right all along. Then he said softly, It was not luck. We earned it. Our hunt was almost over. Somewhere very near us lay the R.M.S. Titanic. Word had spread throughout the ship. People were pouring into the control room. The place was becoming a madhouse. Everyone was shaking hands and hugging and slapping each other on the back. It was now almost two in the morning, very close to the exact hour of the Titanic s sinking. Someone pointed to the clock on the wall. All of a sudden the room became silent. Here at the bottom of the ocean lay not only the graveyard of a great ship, but of more than 1,500 people who had gone down with her. And we were the very first people in seventy-three years to come to this spot to pay our respects. Images from the night of the disaster a story I now knew by heart flashed through my mind. Wreckage of the Titanic Out on the stern of the Knorr 2, people had started to gather for a few moments of silence in memory of those who had died on the Titanic. The sky was filled with stars; the sea was calm. We raised the Harland & Wolff flag, the emblem of the shipyard in Belfast, Ireland, that had built the great liner. Except for the shining moon overhead, it was just like the night when the Titanic had gone down. I could see her as she slipped nose first into the glassy water. Around me were the ghostly shapes of lifeboats and the piercing shouts and screams of passengers and crew freezing to death in the water. Our little memorial service lasted about ten minutes. Then I just said, Thank you all. Now let s get back to work. 2 Knorr the research ship used by Robert Ballard

3 1. According to the selection, how did crew members make certain that they had found the correct ship? A They sent a diver down to explore the wreckage. B They compared what they saw to old photographs. C They had an expert examine the items they picked up. D They saw the name of the ship on a piece of wreckage. 2. Which statement best describes how the crew felt before they found the Titanic? A They felt angry that their mission was not a success. B They felt discouraged that they were still searching. C They felt unlucky that they had not located the Titanic. D They felt excited that they would be returning to land soon. 3. Based on paragraphs 9 and 10, which reason best explains why the room became silent? A The crew members realized they had a lot of work left to do. B The crew members did not want to wake others who were asleep. C The crew members were thinking about the tragedy of the Titanic. D The crew members were not certain that they actually found the Titanic. 4. What statement best states the central idea of this passage? A Ballard is not a sympathetic person and made everyone get back to work after finding the Titanic. B Ballard s team felt both joy and sadness after their discovery of the Titanic. C The sinking of the Titanic was a horrific event in which 1,500 people died. D Technology made the discovery of the Titanic possible.

4 Directions: Read the passage below. Then answer questions 1 and 2. Thomas Edison except from Extraordinary People with Disabilities by Deborah Kent and Kathryn A. Quinlan In 1847, people read at night by the light of candles or lanterns. If they wanted music, they had to make their own by singing or playing an instrument. And nobody had ever heard of going to a movie on a Saturday night. The electric light, the phonograph, and the motion picture projector all sprang from the creative genius of a single man Thomas Alva Edison. But few people realize that from childhood, Thomas Edison had severely impaired hearing. Thomas Edison was born on February 11, 1857 in Milan, Ohio, the seventh and last child of Samuel and Nancy Edison. From the beginning, Tom was intrigued by the way things worked. His parents called him the nervous little question box. His curiosity sometimes led Tom into misadventures. When he was four years old, he nearly drowned while exploring the workings of a shipyard. In 1854, the Edison Family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, where Tom spent the rest of his youth. Shortly after the move, Tom caught scarlet fever. The illness permanently damaged the hearing in both of his ears and left him too weak and frail to begin school until he was over eight years old. His experience in the classroom was discouraging. The teacher, Mr. Engle, expected his students to memorize their lessons quietly. He found Tom s constant questions and nonstop activity very disruptive. After Tom had struggled at school for three months, his mother decided to teach him at home. Because when was such an eager reader, she knew he could learn without going to school. Through extensive reading, Tom began to learn about electricity. He decided that he was going to become an inventor and immediately began conducting experiments. By the time he was twelve, he needed money for equipment and supplies. He found work selling candy, sandwiches, and newspapers on a train of the Grand Trunk Railway. Tom worked on the train for three years. He made friends with many of the telegraph operators along the train line. One friend was J.U. MacKenzie. Tom loved to watch Mackenzie operate the train s telegraph machine. MacKenzie taught Tom how to operate the telegraph. Tom learned quickly. By the time he was sixteen, he was a fully qualified telegraph operator. For the next five years, he wandered from town to town, supporting himself by working as a telegrapher.

5 When Thomas Edison was twenty-one, he moved to New York City, where he found work fixing and improving machines used in large factories. He continued to work on inventions, and he secured his first patent, for a vote-counting machine. While living in New York, Edison met and married a quiet, gentle young woman named Mary Stilwell. In 1870, Edison completed his first commercially successful invention, a more efficient ticker tape machine for the stock market. He earned a small fortune by manufacturing his Edison Universal Stock Printer in Newark, New Jersey. At age twenty-nine, Thomas Edison had save enough money to begin pursuing his dreams. He and Mary moved to Menlo Park, New Jersey, where he built an invention factory. With a crew of clockmakers, mechanics, and mathematicians, he worked tirelessly to turn his ideas into realities. One of his projects was a machine that could talk. In 1877, Edison developed the phonograph, a machine that could reproduce sounds, speech, and music. Soon after inventing the phonograph, Edison began his search for a cheap, reliable way of lighting homes and businesses. In those days, people used gas-fueled lights, which were expensive and sometimes dangerous. Many people had tried unsuccessfully to create an electric light that would burn steadily without going out. Edison s initial efforts were not promising. He ran electricity through two metal wires and a carbon filament. The gadget gave off light for a moment, but quickly became too hot and burned the filament. Edison pondered the problem for several months. In 1879, Edison discovered that air caused the light to become too hot and burn out. By putting the wires and filament in an airless vacuum, he created an electric light that burned for forty continuous hours. The nation hailed Thomas Edison as the inventor of the electric bulb. As Edison approached middle age, he pursued his dreams with his usual unflagging energy. In 1889, he began tinkering with a machine that would project moving pictures onto the wall. Before long, he had created the movie projector. This was by no means his last invention. During his lifetime, he patented 1,093 inventions, more than any other American inventor. Thomas Edison died on October 18, He was eighty-four years old. His wife turned out the light in their window to signal to the world that the great inventor was gone. In homes throughout the nation, people turned off their lights in silent homage to the man who had given us the electric light and so much more.

6 1. How do the stories from Thomas Edison s childhood contribute to the central idea of the excerpt? Use two details from the story to support your answer.

7 2. What is the author s point of view on Thomas Edison? How does the information in lines develop this point of view? Use details from the article to support your response. In your response, be sure to explain the author s point of view explain how the information in lines develops the point of view use details from the passage to support your response Check your writing for correct spelling, grammar, capitalization, and punctuation.

Suddenly, I tripped over a huge rock and the next thing I knew I was falling into a deep, deep, deep hole. The ground had crumbled.

Suddenly, I tripped over a huge rock and the next thing I knew I was falling into a deep, deep, deep hole. The ground had crumbled. Stone Age Boy As I light heartedly trampled over the dark-brown broken twigs I could hear the snap and then the crunch of them breaking and then they would splinter and lie there lifeless.the smell of