Name : Date : Class : WRITTEN COMPREHENSION : A BIOGRAPHY Lis attentivement et plusieurs fois le texte ci-dessous, puis fais les exercices suivants. What would we do if telephones didn’t exist? How would we live without them? What a genius the inventor was! His name was Alexander Graham Bell. He was born in Edinburgh in 1847. Bell’s father was a well-known educator, and the Bell family were famous for teaching elocution and speech correction to the deaf. Alexander’s parents wanted him to continue in this family tradition. He was mainly educated at home by his deaf mother, and like her, he became a talented musician. At the age of 16 Alex was already teaching elocution and music in Scotland, and at 21 he became his father’s assistant in London. The family moved to Canada in 1870 and then, two years later, Alexander moved again, this time to Boston, in the USA, where he opened his own school specialized in training teachers for the deaf. Bell’s invention of the telephone was directly related to his work on an artificial ear which could transmit sounds by electricity. With a young mechanic, whose name was Thomas Watson, they finally managed to transmit a human voice over a telephone. “Mr Watson, come here. I want to see you” were the first words spoken over the new invention on March 10th, 1876. At that time the telephone was regarded as a joke and its creator as an eccentric! Isn’t that incredible? But the Bell story does not end with that discovery. With his collaborators, Bell worked on the newly-invented “Gramophone” – the first machine for sound recording, and on many other revolutionary concepts, such as aviation. Bell had married a deaf woman in 1877 and lived a happy family life until his death in Canada in 1922. A – Réponds aux questions suivantes en anglais et en faisant des phrases complètes. 1 – Who invented the telephone ? _______________________________________________________________________ 2 – Where and when was he born ? _______________________________________________________________________ 3 – What was his father’s job ? _______________________________________________________________________ 4 – Where was he educated ? _______________________________________________________________________ 5 – What was his mother’s handicap ? _______________________________________________________________________ 6 – What was her talent ? _______________________________________________________________________ 7 – How old was Alexander when he became his father’s assistant ? _______________________________________________________________________ 8 – Where did the family move in 1870 ? _______________________________________________________________________ 9 – Where did Alexander move in 1872 ? _______________________________________________________________________ 10 – What was the name of his assistant ? _______________________________________________________________________ 11 – When was the telephone invented ? _______________________________________________________________________ 12 – What did Alexander say to his assistant ? _______________________________________________________________________ 13 – When did Alexander get married ? _______________________________________________________________________ 14 – Where and when did he die ? _______________________________________________________________________ B – Pour chacun des temps donnés, trouve dans le texte une phrase conjuguée à ce temps. Présent simple : _________________________________________________________ Prétérit simple : _________________________________________________________ Prétérit BE+ing : _________________________________________________________ C – Relève dans le texte : un adjectif composé : _____________________________________________________ un cas possessif : ________________________________________________________ une forme passive : _______________________________________________________ D – Réponds aux questions suivantes. « they finally managed to transmit a human voice over a telephone. » Quelle est la nature du mot souligné ? (nom, verbe, adjectif, …) _______________________ Comment le sais-tu ? ______________________________________________________ Que veut dire le mot qui le précède ? __________________________________________ Selon toi, que veut dire le mot souligné ? ________________________________________ Traduis la phrase entière : __________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________