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English Test

The document discusses Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, detailing his collaboration with Thomas Watson and their experiments with sound transmission. Bell successfully transmitted recognizable voice sounds and received a patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876, leading to its commercial development. By 1877, the telephone became a business venture, with Bell becoming a wealthy man as a result.

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34 views2 pages

English Test

The document discusses Alexander Graham Bell's invention of the telephone, detailing his collaboration with Thomas Watson and their experiments with sound transmission. Bell successfully transmitted recognizable voice sounds and received a patent for the telephone on March 7, 1876, leading to its commercial development. By 1877, the telephone became a business venture, with Bell becoming a wealthy man as a result.

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2025europeapril
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We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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QI. Read the text and answers the questions that follow.

Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of the telephone

While experimenting with how to improve the telegraph machine, scientist Alexander Graham Bell came up with a
clever idea. He realised that rather than sending a code along an electrical wire, it might be possible to send the actual
sound of a human voice. 3

Bell started to experiment, but lacked the time and skill to make the equipment he needed. So, he engaged the help of
Thomas Watson, who worked in a nearby electrical shop. The two became fast friends, and worked together to
produce sounds over the ‘harmonic telegraph’, an early machine for transmitting sound. One day in June 1875, Bell was
at one end of the wire while Watson worked on a broken transmitter in another room. By chance, Bell heard the
twanging sound of Watson plucking a string coming to him along the wire. 9

The next day, Bell used the same instrument to transmit the sound of his voice along the wire to Watson. Recognisable
voice sounds could be heard but not actual words. Bell and Watson experimented all summer, and in September 1875,
Bell completed the documents asking for his first telephone patent*. The patent was granted to Bell on 7 March, 1876.
It wasn’t until three days later that Bell managed to transmit the first understandable words. The telephone was born!
14

Bell announced his discovery, first to scientists in Boston and then to a group of influential people in Philadelphia
including Brazilian Emperor Dom Pedro II and eminent British physicist William Thomson. The emperor exclaimed, ‘My
gosh! It talks!’ Thomson took news of the discovery to other countries and

proclaimed it ‘the greatest by far of all the marvels of the electric telegraph.’ 18

By the summer of 1877, the telephone had become a business. The first private telephone exchange was built in
Connecticut and the Bell Company was created. Bell was the owner of a third of the company’s shares and quickly
became a wealthy man. 21

Glossary

patent: permission to be the only person to sell a new invention


Q1. What was Alexander Graham Bell’s job? [2]

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Q2. Give one word from the first paragraph (lines 1–3) that tells you that Bell was trying different
ways of doing something. [2]

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