Question

Read the following passage carefully. 1. 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, bluish-purple glow. 1. On the basis of your reading of the passage, answer the following questions in a sentence or two. (a) Who researched on radium and where? (b) How did they discover radium? (c) Why did they decide to name the element so? (d) Why was the discovery of radium important? 2. Find words/phrases from the passage which mean the same as the following: (a) run-down (para 1) (b) difficult to find (para 3) (c) a crowded and disorderly collection of things (para 5)

Answer 1

Answer:

1. Marie Curie and her husband, Pierre, researched in a large dilapidated wooden shed near their lodgings and discovered Radium.

Explanation:

2. They had spent a long time pouring measures of purified pitchblende into some 6,000-evaporating bowls as they knew that the compound had some unique and dynamic characteristics.

3. they decided to name it radium as it was emitting rays.

4. The discovery of radium is important as it helps to treat cancer.

Answer 2

Answer:

a crowded and disorderly collection of things in phrases