Read the following passage and answer the questions set on it.
Thomas Alva Edison lit up the world with his invention of the electric light. Without him, the world might still be a dark place. However, the electric light was not his only invention. He also invented the photograph, the motion picture camera and over 1200 other things. About every two weeks he created something new. Thomas Alva Edison was born in Milan, Ohio on February 11, 1847. His family moved to Fort Huron, Michigan when be was seven years old. Surprisingly, he attended the school for only two months. His mother, a farmer teacher taught him a few things, but Thomas was mostly self-educated. His natural curiosity led him to start experimenting at a young age with electrical and mechanical things at home.
When he was twelve years old, he got his first job. He became a newspaper boy in a train that ran between Fort Huron and Detroit. lie set up a laboratory in a baggage car of the train so that he could continue his experiments in his spare time. Thomas worked for five years as a telegraph operator, but he continued to spend much of his time on the job of conducting experiments. He got his first patent in 1868 for a vote recorder run by electricity. However, the vote recorder was not a success. In 1870, he sold another invention, a stock-ticker, for $40,000. A stock- ticker is a machine that automatically prints stock prices on a tape. lie was then able to build his first shop in Newark, New Jersey.
Thomas Alva Edison was totally deaf in one ear and hard of hearing in the other, but he thought of deafness as a blessing in many ways. It kept conversations short, so that he could have more time for w’ork. He called himself a “two-shift man” because he worked for sixteen out of every twenty four hours. Sometimes, he worked so intensely that his wife had to remind him to sleep and cat.
Thomas Alva Edison **** at the age of 84 on October 18, 1930 at his estate in West Organic, New Jersey. He left numerous inventions that improved the quality of life all over the world.
(f) Though Edison worked as a telegraph operator for five years, he spent much of his time on
(i) reading books
(ii) conducting experiments
(iii) writing novels
(g) Thomas Alva Edison got his first patent in 1868 for a ......
(h) What is a stock ticker?
(i) What made Edison consider his deafness a blessing?
(j) Why did Edison call himself a “two-shift man”?
