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Pharos University in Alexandria

English Language Centre

E1
Reading Comprehension Supplementary sheet
Reading Comprehension: Reading the text then answer the following questions:

Alfred Nobel

1Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist who lived from 1833 to 1896. Alfred and his brother
made explosives, but in 1864 there was an accident in the laboratory and Alfred’s brother was killed.
Alfred then decided to spend his life trying to make explosives safer to use.

(1)______________________________________________.

2One of the strongest explosives at that time was nitro-glycerin. This explosive, which looks like oily
water, is very dangerous to use or even to carry. Nobel wanted to study nitro-glycerin, because he could
find a way to make it safer, but the Swedish government would not let him make any more explosives in
his laboratory. It was too dangerous. Nobel had the idea of taking nitro-glycerin out on a boat in the middle
of a lake and working with it there.

(2)______________________________________________.

3When Nobel wanted to take the nitro-glycerin he was working with from one place to another, he put
it into small boxes. Then he put them into a larger box made of clay. One day, when he opened the large
clay box, he found that nitro-glycerin was coming out of one of the small boxes. To his surprise, the large
clay box was still dry. This gave him the idea of mixing clay with nitro-glycerin. The clay would take the oil
out of nitro-glycerin and make it safer. He called this new explosive “dynamite”.

4Dynamite can be useful, but people use it as a destructive substance in wars. Alfred Nobel made and
sold so much of it that he became a very rich man. He gave in his will a lot of his money to the Swedish
Academy of Arts and Sciences. He wanted the money to be used to give prizes to people who did excellent
work. They get a lot of money.

(3)_______________________________________________.

5Nobel wanted one of the prizes to be given to people who work for peace because he hated war and
he did not want people to remember him as ‘the dynamite man’. Some very famous people have won the
Nobel Peace Prize, including Nelson Mandela and Anwar El-Sadat. Nobel Prizes are given out on the 10th of
December – the day that Nobel died.

ELC Pre-Intermediate Level Spring 2016

Adapted from http://www.collins.co.uk/file/AmtMhGb/Classroom-Acts---Nobel.pdf

by: Mrs. Magda Al Awady and Ms. Maram Mostafa


Pharos University in Alexandria
English Language Centre

E1
Reading Comprehension Supplementary sheet
Answer the following questions:

I) Match each of the following headings to the suitable paragraph in the text.

1. Nobel Prize is made for peace.


2. Studying an explosive.
3. A surprise that changed Nobel's life.

II) Answer the following questions:

1. What is the main idea of the text?......................................................................................................................................


2. How did Alfred's brother die?.............................................................................................................................................
3. Why did Alfred Nobel begin studying nitro-glycerin?.........................................................................................................
4. What made the nitro-glycerin safer?..................................................................................................................................
5. Why did Nobel dedicate a prize for people who work for
peace?.....................................................................................
III) Put true (T) or false (F) in front of each of the following sentences.

1. Alfred was the first one to win the Nobel Prize. ( )


2. Nobel was born in Sweden. ( )
3. To move nitro-glycerine from one place to another, it was put in small boxes of clay. ( )
4. The Swedish government stopped Alfred from doing experiments. ( )
5. Dynamite is useful, but nitro-glycerine is not. ( )
6. Mandela won a Nobel Prize in winter. ( )
IV) What does the underlined pronoun refer to:

1. His (paragraph 2/ line3) refers to ________________________________________.


2. It (paragraph 2 / line 3) refers to ________________________________________.
3. It (paragraph 4 / line 2) refers to ________________________________________.
4. They (paragraph 4 / line 3) refers to ________________________________________.
V) Find a word in the text that means:

a. Less dangerous. (paragraph 1/ adj.) ( …………………………………………..….. )


b. A place for doing scientific experiments (paragraph 1/ n) . (………..…………..…………………………. )
c. A person who studies chemistry. ( paragraph 1/ n) ( ………………………………………………. )

Post-reading Activities
Imagine that you are Alfred Nobel and write three Tweets tat Alfred might have written if Twitter
had existed in his day. Each Tweet must be a maximum of 140 characters.
Example: @Nobel: Can't forget the day you die, I'll dedicate my life to research.

ELC Pre-Intermediate Level Spring 2016

Adapted from http://www.collins.co.uk/file/AmtMhGb/Classroom-Acts---Nobel.pdf

by: Mrs. Magda Al Awady and Ms. Maram Mostafa

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