Text B    Benjamin Franklin

Directions: Go through the following passage quickly and finish the multiple-choice questions.

1. Benjamin Franklin did not invent ______________.

A. Franklin stove                B. bifocals

C. lightning rod              D. electricity

2. Franklin lived in the __________ century.

A. nineteenth                 B. seventeenth

C. twenty- first              D. eighteenth

3. Franklin did not use ___________ to test for electricity in a thunderstorm.

A. lightning rod                B. lightning bells

C. bifocals                    D. kite

4. David Rittenhouse was _____________. 

A. a scientist who studied electricity 

B. an inventor who improved on Franklin's stove

C. a famous athlete

D. a customer who bought Franklin stoves

5. Rittenhouse made his improvements on Franklin’s stove in the ______________.

A.1790s                        B. 1750s

C.1600s                        D. 1760s

1.    What makes a person famous -- great looks, athletic ability, musical talent, or star quality?

2.    Benjamin Franklin has been famous for a long time. Maybe he had all of qualities, or maybe he did not. Either way, that is not what he is remembered for. Ben Franklin is remembered for his many great achievements, including some great inventions. None of those “star qualities” would have helped him invent the Franklin stove, but another great quality did, curiosity. Franklin was curious about how things worked. When something did not work very well, he liked to go to his workshop and see what he could come up with. He liked to experiment to see if his ideas were right. His curiosity led to some more inventions too, including bifocal （双焦点）glasses and the lightning rod(避雷针).

3.     Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning rod in 1752, during the time that he was experimenting with electricity. Everyone has heard the tale about how he flew a kite in a thunderstorm to see if lightning was really electricity. He also used other creations to test out his ideas about electricity. One of them was called lightning bells, which were bells that would jingle when there was electricity in the air. He first set up a lightning rod to test for electricity too. Later when he observed a house that had been struck by lightning he noticed that the entire house had burned down except for the parts that had metal in them. This gave him the idea to use his lightning rod to protect a house in a storm.

4.     In 1760，Franklin invented bifocal glasses. He had reached the age where he needed glasses both to read and to see things far away. Of course this meant two pairs of glasses:  one that focused near, for reading and looking at things up close, and one that focused far away, for the rest of the time. Ben always had to change from one pair of glasses to the other, and that probably became a nuisance（麻烦事）. He thought that there must be a better way, and so he cut the lenses from two pair of glasses in half, fastened half of each together, and created the first pair of bifocals. This was an invention that Ben could use every day.

5.     In 1790, he invented the Franklin stove. This time, the problem that he had been thinking about was fireplaces. Fireplaces used lots of wood, wasted lots of heat, made lots of smoke, and could be dangerous. Franklin’s idea for an improvement was an iron stove that would take in cool air through the bottom, and radiate heat from all sides. There was one problem with Franklin's design, and that had to do with the chimney. Another inventor, David Rittenhouse, improved Franklin's stove with a better chimney. Franklin stoves have been around ever since. 

6.     How did Benjamin Franklin learn all that he needed to know to create these great inventions? He did not spend a lot of years in school, like most people do today, but he did spend many years on his education. How was that possible? Franklin was mainly self- taught. His own curiosity led him to search for information. Franklin educated himself in the fields of math, science, and English, as well as s several foreign languages. By experimenting and trying our new inventions, he continued his education throughout his whole life.

7.     Benjamin Franklin accomplished many things during his lifetime. If you follow Ben's simple advice, maybe you will too. He said “Employ thy time well.”