How people, ideas and events shape one another
Grade 11 Reading Worksheet
Circle the best answer.
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Mosquitoes and the Canal (history article)
[1] When Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the Suez Canal, began digging across Panama in 1881, he planned a sea-level channel that would be finished in eight years. [2] The French company hired thousands of workers from the Caribbean and Europe, and by 1889, when it went bankrupt, disease had cost many of them their lives, most often yellow fever and malaria, which were thought to spread through bad air and soiled clothing.
[3] The Cuban physician Carlos Finlay had proposed in 1881 that mosquitoes carried yellow fever, but few doctors believed him. [4] In 1900 an American army commission led by Walter Reed went to Cuba, where U.S. troops were falling ill, and tested the idea by exposing volunteers to infected mosquitoes under controlled conditions. [5] The results confirmed Finlay's theory, and the army surgeon William Gorgas, who had been put in charge of sanitation in Havana, ordered crews to drain standing water, screen houses and oil the pools where mosquitoes bred. [6] Yellow fever disappeared from Havana within a year.
[7] In 1904 the United States took over the canal project, and Gorgas arrived in Panama with the same program. [8] At first the chief engineer, John Wallace, and the canal commission doubted the need, treating the sanitation budget as a distraction from the digging. [9] After a wave of cases in 1905 prompted engineers and clerks to flee and Wallace to resign, the new chief engineer, John Stevens, backed Gorgas, and by the end of 1906 yellow fever had been eliminated from the Canal Zone. [10] Stevens rebuilt the railroad and the work camps and recommended a canal with locks, and George Goethals took over the excavation in 1907. [11] The canal opened in August 1914.
[12] Historians still disagree about how much credit sanitation deserves, since improved machinery, the lock design and the larger American budget also mattered. [13] What they accept is that a French effort that ignored the cause of the epidemic had failed, and that an American effort that attacked it could go forward.
Kira traces the chain from Finlay's idea to the end of yellow fever in the Canal Zone. Which chain does the article give?
- Finlay's idea, the French bankruptcy of 1889, the American takeover in 1904, and no yellow fever in the Canal Zone by 1906.
- Reed's test in Cuba, then Finlay's idea, Gorgas's mosquito control in Havana, Stevens backing it in Panama, and no yellow fever by 1906.
- Finlay's idea, Reed's test, Gorgas's mosquito control in Havana, Stevens backing it in Panama, and no yellow fever by 1906.
- Finlay's mosquito idea, then Gorgas's mosquito program in Panama under Stevens, and no yellow fever in the Canal Zone by 1906.
Luz sees two rungs: Wallace's doubt about sanitation (sentence 8) and yellow fever gone from the Canal Zone (sentence 9). Which step joins them?
- Gorgas's crews had already drained Havana's standing water and screened its houses by 1901.
- The canal commission voted to double Gorgas's budget after reading the report from Cuba.
- Goethals, who took over in 1907 and ordered crews to screen the camps and drain the pools.
- A wave of cases in 1905 sent Wallace out, and his successor Stevens then backed Gorgas.
Milo meets a claim: "Yellow fever left the Canal Zone in 1906, so better machinery saved the canal." What is wrong with it?
- The claim has the cause backward, since the end of the fever paid for the new machinery on the canal.
- Nothing is wrong, since the fever ended in the same years that digging machinery improved on the project.
- It credits machinery for ending the fever; sentences 5 to 9 tie that to mosquito control.
- The claim is sound, since the American budget explains both the end of the fever and the canal's success.
The Day of Two Noons (history article)
[1] Before 1883, towns across the United States kept their own time, setting clocks by the sun, so that noon in St. Louis came about ten minutes after noon in Chicago. [2] For most of the nineteenth century this caused little trouble, because a traveler on a stagecoach crossed few such lines in a day. [3] The railroads changed that. [4] By the 1870s a passenger heading from Maine to California might cross dozens of local times, and the railroads themselves ran on about fifty different times, each line choosing the time of its home city. [5] Stations that served several lines sometimes displayed three or four clocks, and timetables listed arrivals "by Boston time" or "by Chicago time," with footnotes the traveler had to decode.
[6] In 1883 William F. Allen, the secretary of the General Time Convention, an association of railroad managers, proposed a plan that divided the continent into zones an hour apart, with a single standard for each. [7] On 18 November the railroads put the plan into effect at noon, and the telegraph carried the signal from the Naval Observatory. [8] In many towns the clocks stopped, then restarted, and a few local papers called it the "day of two noons."
[9] Cities adopted the railroad time one by one, often because the station set the rhythm of the town, though some did so unwillingly. [10] Some city councils passed ordinances to keep local time, and Detroit changed its clocks back and forth for years. [11] The federal government, which had not ordered the change, did not give it the force of law until the Standard Time Act of 1918, which also introduced daylight saving time during the First World War.
[12] The system made travel simpler, but it also moved authority over the clock from the sun and the town to a private industry and then to Washington.
Noah traces how standard time became law. Which chain does the article give?
- Fifty railroad times, then a federal law in 1918 that created the zones the towns used.
- Fifty railroad times, Allen's zones in 1883, towns following one by one, and a federal law in 1918.
- A federal law in 1918, Allen's zones put into effect in 1883, and towns following the railroads one by one.
- Fifty railroad times, Detroit changing its clocks back and forth, and a federal law in 1918 on zones.
Ren meets a claim: "Congress passed the Standard Time Act of 1918, so that is why railroads and towns used zones." What is wrong with it?
- Nothing is wrong, since the Act is the first federal law on the subject and must have started the zones.
- The Naval Observatory, not Congress, made zones law in 1918 and sent the first signal in 1883.
- Railroads put zones into effect in 1883, thirty-five years before the law made them official.
- The railroads adopted zones in 1883 because they expected Congress to pass the Act in 1918.
From Mold to Medicine (history article)
[1] In September 1928, Alexander Fleming, a bacteriologist at St. Mary's Hospital in London, returned from a holiday to find that a mold had contaminated one of his culture plates and that the bacteria around it had dissolved. [2] He identified the mold as a species of Penicillium and showed that a liquid from it stopped the growth of several disease-causing bacteria, but he found it hard to purify, and it lost its strength within days. [3] He published his results in 1929, suggested its use as an antiseptic, and then turned to other work.
[4] A decade later, a team at Oxford led by Howard Florey and Ernst Chain, a chemist who had fled Germany, began a systematic study of natural antibacterial substances and came upon Fleming's paper. [5] With the biochemist Norman Heatley, they developed a way to extract the substance and, in May 1940, injected it into mice infected with streptococci. [6] The treated mice survived, and the untreated mice did not. [7] In 1941 they treated a police officer with a severe infection, and he improved until the small supply ran out.
[8] British drug companies, busy with the war, could not produce penicillin in quantity, so Florey and Heatley carried samples to the United States in the summer of 1941. [9] At a Department of Agriculture laboratory in Peoria, Illinois, researchers grew the mold in large tanks with corn steep liquor, a by-product of corn processing, and the yield rose many times over. [10] A moldy cantaloupe found in a Peoria market produced a strain that yielded still more. [11] By D-Day in June 1944, American companies were producing enough penicillin to treat Allied wounded, and after the war the price fell sharply.
[12] Fleming, Florey and Chain shared the Nobel Prize in 1945, though the work of Heatley and the Peoria laboratory is less often mentioned.
Zee sees two rungs: the 1941 patient who improved (sentence 7) and enough penicillin by D-Day (sentence 11). Which step joins them?
- Florey and Heatley carried samples to the United States, where Peoria researchers raised the yield.
- Fleming, who personally supervised the tanks of corn steep liquor in the Peoria laboratory in 1943.
- British drug companies built new plants in Peoria to take over production from the American laboratory.
- Fleming published his results in 1929 and suggested using penicillin as an antiseptic on wounds in London.
Ari meets a claim: "Fleming discovered penicillin in 1928, so Fleming saved the wounded of D-Day." What is wrong with it?
- The credit belongs to Heatley, who found the cantaloupe strain in a Peoria market and raised the yield.
- The claim has the cause backward, because the need to treat wounded soldiers led Fleming to look for the mold.
- Nothing is wrong, since the discovery came first and nothing else could have followed without it.
- It skips the steps between: Oxford purified and tested the mold, and Peoria raised the yield.
A Ditch Across New York (history article)
[1] In 1817 the New York legislature authorized a canal 363 miles long from Albany on the Hudson River to Buffalo on Lake Erie, a project that critics called "Clinton's Ditch" after its chief promoter, Governor DeWitt Clinton. [2] The state had no experienced canal engineers and borrowed seven million dollars after the federal government declined to help, so the workers learned as they dug; two lead engineers, James Geddes and Benjamin Wright, had trained as surveyors. [3] The canal opened in October 1825, and a chain of cannon shots carried the news from Buffalo to New York City.
[4] Before the canal, carrying a ton of flour from Buffalo to New York cost about a hundred dollars and took twenty days by wagon; afterward the cost fell to roughly ten dollars, and the trip took about eight days. [5] Farmers in the Great Lakes region began shipping grain east, and settlers from New England and Europe moved west along the same route. [6] Towns along the canal grew rapidly, and Rochester, which used the falls of the Genesee River to power flour mills, rose from a village of a few hundred to a city of nearly ten thousand within a decade.
[7] New York City was already the nation's largest city by 1810, but its position as the leading port grew stronger after the canal opened, and more cargo from the interior passed through its harbor than through the harbors of Philadelphia, Baltimore or Boston. [8] Those cities built or planned their own canals and railroads in response, though few matched the Hudson River route.
[9] Historians continue to debate how much of New York's rise belongs to the canal. [10] The city's deep harbor, its early lead in banking and trade, and its regular packet ships to Liverpool also helped, and the canal's success may have depended partly on those advantages. [11] The canal did, however, link the state's farms to world markets at a cost few could previously afford, and its debt was repaid from tolls within about twelve years.
Bo traces the chain from the canal's opening to the rivals' response. Which chain does the article give?
- The canal opened, Rochester's mills grew, and Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston planned canals and railroads of their own.
- The canal opened in 1825, and Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston planned canals and railroads of their own in response.
- Freight costs fell, farmers shipped grain east, more cargo reached New York, and rival cities planned canals and railroads.
- Philadelphia, Baltimore and Boston planned their own canals, which lowered freight costs, and then more cargo reached New York.
Esme sees two rungs: the drop in freight costs (sentence 4) and New York's stronger position as the leading port (sentence 7). Which step joins them?
- Great Lakes farmers began shipping grain east, and settlers moved west along the same route.
- The state of New York cut harbor fees to attract the grain boats and keep cargo in its ports.
- Rochester used the falls of the Genesee River to power its flour mills and grew into a city.
- Philadelphia merchants, who sent the grain east to compete with the merchants of New York.
Jun meets a claim: "New York City became the leading port after the canal opened, so the canal made it great." What is wrong with it?
- Nothing is wrong, since the port's rise came after 1825 and the canal was the big change in those years.
- The claim is right except that the deep harbor, not the canal, explains the whole rise of the port.
- The claim has the cause backward, since New York's size led the state to dig the canal in the first place.
- It treats timing as the cause; the city was already the largest by 1810 and had other advantages.