Multiple Choice: Practice Test - 1 | Reading for Academic IELTS PDF Download

Directions: Analyse the given passage carefully!

The invention of rockets is linked inextricably with the invention of 'black powder'. Most historians of technology credit the Chinese with its discovery. They base their belief on studies of Chinese writings or on the notebooks of early Europeans who settled in or made long visits to China to study its history and civilization. It is probable that sometime in the tenth century, black powder was first compounded from its basic ingredients of saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur. But this does not mean that it was immediately used to propel rockets. By the thirteenth century, powder-propelled fire arrows had become rather common. The Chinese relied on this type of technological development to produce incendiary projectiles of many sorts, explosive grenades and possibly cannons to repel their enemies. One such weapon was the 'basket of fire' or, as directly translated from Chinese, the 'arrows like flying leopards'. The 0.7 meter-long arrows, each with a long tube of gunpowder attached near the point of each arrow, could be fired from a long, octagonal-shaped basket at the same time and had a range of 400 paces. Another weapon was the 'arrow as a flying saber', which could be fired from crossbows. The rocket, placed in a similar position to other rocket-propelled arrows, was designed to increase the range. A small iron weight was attached to the 1.5m bamboo shaft, just below the feathers, to increase the arrow's stability by moving the center of gravity to a position below the rocket. At a similar time, the Arabs had developed the 'egg which moves and burns'. This 'egg' was apparently full of gunpowder and stabilized by a 1.5m tail. It was fired using two rockets attached to either side of this tail.
It was not until the eighteenth century that Europe became seriously interested in the possibilities of using the rocket itself as a weapon of war and not just to propel other weapons. Prior to this, rockets were used only in pyrotechnic displays. The incentive for the more aggressive use of rockets came not from within the European continent but from far-away India, whose leaders had built up a corps of racketeers and used rockets successfully against the British in the late eighteenth century. The Indian rockets used against the British were described by a British Captain serving in India as ‘an iron envelope about 200 millimeters long and 40 millimeters in diameter with sharp points at the top and a 3m-long bamboo guiding stick’. In the early nineteenth century, the British began to experiment with incendiary barrage rockets. The British rocket differed from the Indian version in that it was completely encased in a stout, iron cylinder, terminating in a conical head, measuring one meter in diameter and having a stick almost five meters long and constructed in such a way that it could be firmly attached to the body of the rocket. The Americans developed a rocket, complete with its own launcher, to use against the Mexicans in the mid-nineteenth century. A long cylindrical tube was propped up by two sticks and fastened to the top of the launcher, thereby allowing the rockets to be inserted and lit from the other end. However, the results were sometimes not that impressive as the behavior of the rockets in flight was less than predictable.
Questions 1 – 4 Choose the appropriate letters A-E.
Q.1. black powder - First invented or used by
(a) the Chinese
(b) the Indians
(c) the British
(d) the Arabs
(e) the Americans
Q.2. rocket-propelled arrows for fighting - First invented or used by
(a) the Chinese
(b) the Indians
(c) the British
(d) the Arabs
(e) the Americans
Q.3. rockets as war weapons - First invented or used by
(a) the Chinese
(b) the Indians
(c) the British
(d) the Arabs
(e) the Americans
Q.4. the rocket launcher - First invented or used by
(a) the Chinese
(b) the Indians
(c) the British
(d) the Arabs
(e) the Americans

Solution of 1:

A - the Chinese

Solution of 2:

A - the Chinese

Solution of 3:

B - the Indians

Solution of 4:

E - the Americans