Alexander Graham Bell by Noah Remnick

How did Alexander Graham Bell revolutionize communications?

• He invented the telephone.
• He invented the hearing aid.
• He invented the grain mill.
• He invented the television.

What does the author describe in the passage?

• how Bell's mother overcame her difficulties
• why Bell chose to tutor deaf students
• how the telephone was invented
• the rules of the United States patent system

Bell and Watson were not expecting the telephone to work the day that the first telephone call was made. What evidence from the text supports this conclusion?

• "But in the 1870's, when Bell was experimenting with his new project, such an idea was like a fantasy."
• "Watson heard those words and was startled. They had come crackling across the earpiece of what the two inventors had labeled the telephone."
• "Alexander Graham Bell was in his laboratory, working on a device that would allow people to talk to one another across wires, even when they were not in the same room"
• "It is unclear what exactly unfolded that day, but one story says that while working on his voice transmitter, Bell accidntally knocked over a bottle of transmitting fluid, burning his skin."

If Bell had not invented the telephone, what would probably have happened?

• Someone else would have registered a similar device with the United States patent office.
• The modern telephone would not have been invented for another hundred years.
• Mabel Hubbard would have married Watson instead of Bell.
• The parents of Bell's deaf students would have hired someone to replace Watson as Bell's assistant.

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What is this passage mostly about?

• the life of Thomas Watson, Alexander Graham Bell's assistant
• the challenges faced by deaf people
• the invention of the telephone
• Alexander Graham Bell's childhood in England

Read the following sentence: "The perseverance and success of his mother in the face of such adversity taught young Alexander that problems were surmountable and that he could help people to overcome them." What does "surmountable" mean?

• able to be solved
• able to be warmed up
• able to fly
• able to survive underwater