Telephones Past and Present
Students will read a passage about the history of the telephone. Then students will answer questions about details, cause and effect, compare and contrast, and words with affixes.
Reading Comprehension Passage
Telephones Past and Present
Reading Comprehension Questions
Vocabulary List
Vocabulary List
Each of the vocabulary words below are used in the reading passage. As you read the passage, pay attention to context clues that suggest the word’s meaning.
- device
- referred
- patented
- transmitter
- impulses
- rotary
- bypassing
- converse
Context Clues
Context Clues
Using context clues from the sentences in the passage, underline the correct meaning of the word in boldface.
1) "The word telephone is even older than the device."
a. idea b. machine or instrument c. inventor or creator d. the knowledge of writing
2) "It first referred to the tin-cans-and-string toys that kids played with."
a. referenced or named b. was sold c. was advertised with d. was adapted
3) "That was the year that Alexander Graham Bell patented a new invention"
a. discarded; threw away b. got a government license c. stole d. sold
4) "a transmitter (into which the user speaks)"
a. electronic tool for sending information b. wooden box c. person who interprets d. round hole
5) "Electrical impulses transmitted speech over long distances through the wires of a 'landline system'"
a. fluid; plasma b. gamma rays c. air waves d. single flow of current; pulses
6) "After the early 1920s, though, rotary phones became common."
a. old-fashioned b. wired c. circular motion d. common; everyday
7) "Mobile phones powered completely by batteries appeared in the mid-1980s, bypassing landline systems altogether.
a. helping b. sidestepping; going around c. enhancing; improving d. destroying
8) "Today, phones take pictures, connect us to the Internet, and even enable us to see one another as we converse."
a. meet b. invent or create c. exercise; work d. talk; discuss