Question

For more than four exhausting years, the Polish-bom Marie Curie and her husband,

Pierre, worked in a large dilapidated wooden shed near their Paris lodgings. This

shed, which was like a hothouse in summer and draughty and cold in winter, was the

place where they spent the happiest years of their lives. It was here on a September

night in 1902 that they finally discovered the radioactive element that they named

‘radium’ from the Latin word radius, meaning ‘ray’.

2. Radium provided the first effective treatment for some types of cancer, destroying

the diseased human cells by bombarding them with radioactive particles.

3. The Curies had spent the historic day pouring measures of purified pitchblende into

some 6,000-evaporating bowls. Marie Curie believed that the black mineral ore

contained a completely new and dynamic element whose rays could destroy

unhealthy body tissues. By constantly filtering and re-filtering the pitchblende, she

hoped that the elusive element would crystallize in the bowls.

4. When they went home that evening the miracle had still not occurred. Then, just

as they were about to go to bed, Marie decided to have another look at the particles

in the bowls. She and Pierre hurried through the dimly-lit streets.

5. They let themselves into the darkened shed—with its rows of wooden tables and

clutter of laboratory equipment—and Marie asked Pierre not to light the lamps. They

moved cautiously forward and there, all around them, rays of light came from inside

the small glass-covered bowls. Marie turned to her husband and said quietly, ‘Do you

remember the day you said to me: “I should like radium to have a beautiful colour?”

Look … Look!’

6. The bowls that lined the tables and the shelves on the walls gave off a soft, bluishpurple glow.


Find words/phrases from the passage which mean the same as any four of

the following:

(a) run-down (para 1)

(b) letting in sharp currents of air (para 1)

(c) attacking with vigor and persistence (para 2)

(d) difficult to find (para 3)

(e) a crowded and disorderly collection of things (para 5)​

Answer 1

Explanation:

Find words/phrases from the passage which mean the same as any four of the following:

(a) run-down (para 1)

(b) letting in sharp currents of air (para 1)

(c) attacking with vigour and persistence (para 2)

(d) difficult to find (para 3)

(e) a crowded and disorderly collection of things (para 5)