Passage 1 T1
Passage 1 T1
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1–13, which are based on Reading
Passage 1 below.
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production techniques to pencils. At although other grades can still be
the same time Nicolas-Jacques Conte, found, and England's pencil industry
a French officer in Napoleon continues to thrive in the nearby town
Bonaparte's army during the late of Keswick.
1700s, developed a method of mixing
powdered graphite and clay together The pencil has turned out to be a
for firing in a kiln. Adding more clay to remarkably resilient and valuable tool
the mixture helped make the pencil whose use has survived well into our
harder, sharper, and more precise in high-tech times, as a well-known story
its mark. More graphite helped make a shows. It is sometimes said that the
pencil mark that was softer, thicker American space programme spent
and darker. millions of dollars to invent a pen
capable of writing in the zero gravity of
The varying quality of pencil leads space. The Russians, by contrast,
eventually gave rise to a system for simply equipped their astronauts with
categorizing the fineness of the pencil good old-fashioned pencils that never
mark. Pencil manufacturers all over let them down. It should be pointed out
the world still use this so-called HB though, that the popular myth about
grading system today. The H stands Americans overlooking the practical
for the hardness of the pencil while the advantages of pencils in zero gravity is
B stands for its blackness. An HB merely fiction. In actual fact, both
pencil is a standard pencil and a American and Russian astronauts
variety of letters and numbers are were equipped with pencils in their
used to designate different types of respective country's first space flights.
lead. A private company later developed
pens for writing in zero gravity. In fact,
Significant seams of graphite exist in astronauts of every nation now use
parts of China, which now produces pens. But no matter – pencils remain
most of the world's pencils. in use in every classroom, every
Interestingly, the Borrowdale mine in planning, building and drawing office,
the Lake District remains the only and in every art studio in the world.
significant source of graphite in its And there is nothing to suggest that we
near-pure form in the world. Nowadays are likely to invent anything better than
the highest grade of graphite at graphite to use in our pencils.
Borrowdale is totally exhausted,
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Questions 1-6
Choose ONE WORD ONLY from the passage for each answer.
• Graphite came to the notice of the government for military and commercial
purposes.
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Questions 7–13
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
10 After the HB code was introduced, it very quickly became used by all
manufacturers.
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