VULCAN AND HIS INVENTIONS

All the gods and goddesses had perfect bodies, except one. Vulcan, the son of
Jupiter and Juno, was a bright, sweet-tempered lad, but he was born disabled. It is
said that Juno was so displeased that her baby was imperfect that she threw him
down from heaven. Many tales are told of the wonderful works this god created.
He made the first robots—gold and silver handmaidens with mechanical brains and
tongues who became his faithful servants. Vulcan also invented the first
wheelchairs —moving tripods which carried him around and even scurried out of
the way when not in use. Vulcan worked at a forge on Mount Olympus and there
he designed and built brass palaces for the other gods. He made armor which could
not be pierced by any weapon. Vulcan also invented special golden shoes for the
gods and their horses. These shoes enabled their owners to walk on air and water
as easily as they could walk upon land. The ancients believed that Vulcan had
made the thunderbolts they saw descending fearsomely from the sky. Vulcan made
them for his father, Jupiter. When Jupiter became angry, they believed, he would
hurl these weapons from Mt. Olympus at the earth below. Vulcan also worked at
his forges, which were built inside special mountains on earth. These mountains
were hollow, and one could see smoke and flame rising from them. The ancients
named these special mountains after the god they believed to work within them.
Can you guess the name?
1. Ancient people believed that thunderbolts were a sign of
A. Jupiter’s anger.
B. Vulcan making shoes.
C. Juno’s displeasure.
D. Vulcan making robots.

2. The “special mountains” said to hold Vulcan’s forges are most likely called
A. smoky mountains.
B. hollow hills.
C. volcanoes.
D. eminences.
. How was Vulcan different from the other gods?
A. He was bright.
B. He was perfect.
C. He was sweet-tempered.
D. He was disabled.
4. In the fourth paragraph, the word fearsomely means
A. carefully.
B. frighteningly.
C. fearfully.
D. quietly.
5. Which of the following statements is an opinion?
A. Vulcan created special shoes for the gods and their horses.
B. No weapon could break through the armor that Vulcan had made.
C. The gods looked ridiculous in Vulcan’s golden shoes.
D. Vulcan created the first form of a wheelchair.

6. The author asks a question about mountains

A. to show that Vulcan is a real person.
B. to connect Vulcan’s story with real life.
C. to complain about the dangers of nature.
D. to prove that all mountains are alike.
7. According to the passage, which of these is true of the gods of ancient Greece?
A. They were important to the people.
B. They were actually humans.
C. They were cruel to one another.
D. They were hidden away in mountains.
from “THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE” — Part II
by Stephen Crane
The guns squatted in a row like savage chiefs. They argued with abrupt violence. It
was a grim pow-wow. Their busy servants ran hither and thitherA A small
procession of wounded men were going drearily toward the rear. It was a flow of
blood from the torn body of the brigade. To the right and to the left were the dark
lines of other troops. Far in front he thought he could see lighter masses protruding
in points from the forest. They were suggestive of unnumbered thousands. Once he
saw a tiny battery go dashing along the line of the horizon. The tiny riders were
beating the tiny horses. From a sloping hill came the sound of cheerings and
clashes. Smoke welled slowly through the leaves. Batteries were speaking with
thunderous oratorical effort. Here and there were flags, the red in the stripes
dominating. They splashed bits of warm color upon the dark lines of troops. The
youth felt the old thrill at the sight of the emblems. They were like beautiful birds
strangely undaunted in a storm. As he listened to the din from the hillside, to a
deep pulsating thunder that came from afar to the left, and to the lesser clamors
which came from many directions, it occurred to him that they were fighting, too,
over there, and over there, and over there. Heretofore he had supposed that all the
battle was directly under his nose.
As he gazed around him the youth felt a flash of astonishment at the blue, pure sky
and the sun gleamings on the trees and fields. It was surprising that Nature had
gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.
1. According to the passage, the word emblems means
A. shapes.
B. scenery.
C. soldiers.
D. symbols.

2. By the end of the passage, what did the youth come to realize?
A. He had the power to change the things around him.
B. The troops on both sides of the battle were the same.
C. Nature continued to go on even in troubled times.
D. The battle was much smaller than he had first imagined.
3. Which word BEST describes the mood of this passage?
A. hopeful
B. cheerful
C. wild
D. angry
4. Which of the following BEST describes how the youth felt about the flag?
A. He was pleased every time he saw it.
B. He felt that the flag was too small.
C. He was fearful every time he saw it.
D. He felt that the flag was too colorful.

Observing Mars
from Mars and the Search for Life by Elaine Scott
1 From the beginning of history, Mars, the small red planet that is fourth from the
Sun, has always fascinated—even frightened—those who have watched it move
from east to west across the night sky. Ages ago, people may have looked at
Mars’s reddish color and thought of all the blood that is spilled during war.
Perhaps that is why the ancient Assyrians called Mars the “Shedder of Blood,” and
the Greeks, Romans, and, later, the Vikings named the planet after their gods of
war. Mars was ancient Rome’s god of war, and that is the name that has endured.
2 Our earliest ancestors used stories and myths to explain the mysteries of nature.
They knew little about science, as we think of it today. Nevertheless, astronomy,
the study of the universe beyond Earth, is one of the world’s oldest sciences. The
earliest astronomers, like Ptolemy (tole-uh-me) (approximately a.d. 100–179),
who lived in Roman Egypt, didn’t have telescopes or other instruments to help
them study the moon and the stars. They had to rely on their own eyesight. Then,
in 1608, the telescope was invented by a Dutch optician, Hans Lippershey (lip-er-
shy), who lived from 1570 to 1619. Lippershey’s invention had two lenses at
either end of a tube. One, called a convex lens, curved outward. It made objects
appear bigger than they were, but blurry. The smaller lens, called a concave lens,
curved inward. It made objects look smaller, but clearer. When light passed
through both lenses, objects appeared three to four times larger and closer than
they were. Just a year later, in 1609, the Italian Galileo Galilei (ga-luh-lay-oh ga-
luh-lay-ee) (1564–1642) made improvements to the instrument that enabled it to
make objects appear 20 times larger than their true size.
3 Telescopes continued to improve. Galileo’s was five to six feet in length, but by
the middle of the 17th century, telescopes had grown. In 1656, a telescope made by
Dutch mathematician Christiaan Huygens (hoy-gehns) (1629–1695) was 23 feet
long and could magnify 100 times.
4 The telescope changed astronomy forever. Knowledge of the universe grew, and
ancient ideas gave way to new ones. The belief that Earth was at the center of our
solar system gave way to the theory that the Sun was at the center.
5 Astronomers continued to observe the planets and stars and make notes about
what they saw. In 1877, an Italian astronomer, Giovanni Schiaparelli (joh-von-ne
skyah-puh-rel-lee) (1835–1910) trained his telescope on Mars and made a
surprising discovery. He announced that the planet seemed to be crisscrossed by a
series of channels—or, in Italian, canali. Unfortunately, when Schiaparelli’s work
was translated into English, a mistake was made. The word canali was translated as
the word “canals.” Though both are waterways, a canal is built by people, while a
channel is created by nature. Debate raged among the astronomers of the day: Had
the waterways on Mars been created by intelligent beings, or were they natural
Martian formations? Throughout his life, Schiaparelli remained neutral left:
Percival Lowell with his telescope at the Lowell Observatory. He was convinced
that intelligent life existed on Mars.below: Lowell’s 1905 drawing of Mars,
showing the “canals” he believed were there.on the question. However, many of
those who read Schiaparelli’s papers in English believed they were reading about
constructed canals, and they drew the conclusion that these canals had been made
by a civilization living on Mars. The American astronomer Percival Lowell (1855–
1916) was among the biggest believers.
6 In 1894, Percival Lowell established the Lowell Observatory on top of Mars Hill
in Flagstaff, Arizona. For 23 years, Lowell worked at his observatory, studying
Mars and making drawings of the features he saw through his telescope. As he
observed Schiaparelli’s “canals,” he became convinced they had been built by
intelligent beings. Lowell promoted his views in three books: Mars, published in
1895, Mars and Its Canals (1906), and Mars as the Abode of Life (1908). In Mars,
Lowell wrote, “Certainly what we see hints at the existence of beings who are in
advance of, not behind us, in the journey of life.” Though we know now that he
was incorrect, Percival Lowell was relying upon scientific “evidence” to formulate
a hypothesis, or prediction, about what Martian life might be
7 At the same time, another man, the English writer H. G. Wells (1866–1946), was
using his imagination to form a very different picture of life on Mars. In 1898,
Wells’s science fiction novel The War of the Worlds—which was later used as the
basis for thefamous radio broadcast—was published. It was one of the first books
to describe an alien invasion from another planet.
8 Thanks to the scientific efforts of Lowell and others, and the creative effort of H.
G. Wells, the idea of a habitable world somewhere else in our solar system began
to capture the world’s imagination.“Observing Mars” by Elaine Scott, from Mars
and the Search for Life. Copyright © 2008 by Elaine Scott. Reprinted by
permission of Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
Company.
More About Mars
· Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun.
· Mars orbits the Sun at an average distance of 141.5 million miles.
· Mars’s distance from Earth varies, according to the orbits of both planets. At its
closest, Mars is 33.9 million miles away. At its farthest, it is 249 million miles
away.
· Mars is about half the size of Earth, though its land area is about the same. This is
because our planet is covered with oceans, and Mars is not.
· Because it is smaller than Earth, Mars’s gravity is only 38 percent as strong as
Earth’s.
A human weighing 160 pounds on Earth would weigh only about 60 pounds on
Mars.
· Mars has two tiny moons—Phobos and Deimos. Phobos means “fear,” and
Deimos
means “panic.” In mythology, Phobos and Deimos were the offspring of Mars.
The moons were discovered in 1877 by Asaph Hall, working at the U.S. Naval
Observatory.
· The month of March takes its name from Mars.
· One Martian day, or “sol,” lasts 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35 seconds.
· Traveling at an average speed of 53,979 mph, it takes Mars 687 Earth days to
make
one orbit around the Sun.
· Mars boasts both the largest volcano and the largest canyon system in the solar
system.
· The average temperature on Mars is –64 degrees Fahrenheit, but at its poles the
temperature can dip to –225°F and at the equator it can rise to 80°F.
· Martian wind can blow at hurricane force—more than 75 miles per hour.
●1 Based on paragraph 1 and the section
titled “More About Mars,” how do the
names of Mars’s moons mainly reflect
ancient thinking?
A. The names of the moons come
from myths.
B. The names of the moons show that
they are small.
C. The moons were named over one
hundred years ago.
D. The moons were named by a
scientist who was mistaken.
 ●2 What does the explanation of Lippershey’s
telescope in paragraph 2 indicate?
A. The telescope was considered
a useless invention.
B. The telescope needed a pair of
lenses to work properly.
C. The telescope’s tube was too heavy
to make it practical.
D. The telescope’s design copied that of
ancient instruments.

 ●3 Based on paragraph 5, what is the most

likely reason people began to believe in
life on other planets?
A. A popular novel spread
the idea.
B. An unclear translation caused
confusion.
C. Ruins of prehistoric structures
were found.
D. Respected scientists made an
important discovery.

 ●4 What is the main purpose of the section

titled “More About Mars”?
A. to compare Mars to other
planets
B. to highlight recent discoveries
made on Mars
C. to provide additional information
about Mars
D. to review information presented
earlier about Mars

 ●5 In paragraph 8, the word habitable most

likely means
A. comfortable.
B. imaginable.
C. predictable.
D. liveable.