written comprehension : a biography

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 ?
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2 – Where and when was he born ?
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3 – What was his father’s job ?
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4 – Where was he educated ?
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5 – What was his mother’s handicap ?
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6 – What was her talent ?
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7 – How old was Alexander when he became his father’s assistant ?
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8 – Where did the family move in 1870 ?
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9 – Where did Alexander move in 1872 ?
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10 – What was the name of his assistant ?
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11 – When was the telephone invented ?
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12 – What did Alexander say to his assistant ?
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13 – When did Alexander get married ?
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14 – Where and when did he die ?
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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 : __________________________________________________
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