MCAP Practice ELA 6 Section 1

In this passage, you will learn the true story of how two young brothers, Joseph and Étienne Montgolfier of France, became inventors of hot- air balloon flight in 1783. Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

Flying Balloons: The Story of the Montgolfier Brothers by Joseph Taylor

1 Greek, Latin, and theology were the subjects taught in his school, but it was science and mathematics that interested Joseph Montgolfier. As often as he could, he would steal time from his studies to escape outdoors, where he could let his mind wander and ponder nature.

2 One day, he found himself considering the possibility of flight. Though many had tried, no human had ever flown before. Most people thought it impossible. One noted scientist put it bluntly: “It has been proved that we human beings are incapable of rising from the ground and soaring in the air. Why waste time on attempts at changing nature’s basic laws?”

3 Joseph had other ideas. He saw that many things in nature— bubbles, steam, clouds— did rise. “Surely, a human could lift off the ground and fly, too,” he told his brother Étienne.

4 Étienne nodded his agreement. “But how?”

5 Joseph grew so frustrated with his formal studies and his father’s rigid ways that he left school. He found a job picking mulberry leaves on a farm that raised silkworms. It wasn’t exactly the life of a prosperous merchant’s son, and his father soon had him returned to school. Joseph only grew more determined to study science and mathematics.

6 Meanwhile, Étienne excelled in school, much to his father’s delight. When he grew up, he became an architect, then, when his father retired, manager of the family business.

7 Joseph, though, stumbled from one failed career endeavor to the next. Although he devised new kinds of paper and manufacturing techniques, most of the family was dismissive of his attempts at papermaking. Meanwhile, Joseph’s dream of flight remained just a dream. Perhaps, he started to think, it always would.

8 Then one dreary November day in 1782, as forty-two-year-old Joseph warmed himself beside the fire in his apartment in Avignon, an idea came to him. He noticed how quickly the smoke rose up the chimney. Could it be, he wondered, that something could float up with it?

9 He glued together a few pieces of paper to make a small bag, then carefully held it upside down above the flame. When he released it, the bag flew up the chimney with the smoke.

10 His heart racing, Joseph borrowed some green silk taffeta from his landlady and sewed a larger bag using the dress material. When he filled the bag with smoke, he could hardly believe his eyes. It lifted out of his hands and rose up to the ceiling.

11 After sending a hurried note to Étienne, Joseph made for Annonay to show his younger brother his discovery. “It’s incredible!” Étienne agreed.

12 The brothers quickly set to work experimenting. For months they tested many different bags— small and large, paper and cloth, square and round, some inflated over a smoky fire on the ground, others carrying kettles of fire up with them. Finally, they designed a large, round bag constructed of layers of paper and cloth that did not carry a kettle. It was 110 feet in circumference, weighed approximately 500 pounds— and was held together by more than 1,800 buttons!

13 Rumors of the Montgolfier brothers’ experiments eventually aroused curiosity, and they were invited to give a public demonstration of their “machine.” On 4 June 1783, surrounded by a crowd of local officials and townspeople, Joseph and Étienne built a smoky fire in a grate using straw and wool and sent their balloon aloft. It rose more than 3,000 feet and drifted for ten minutes before landing in a vineyard. The brothers agreed that the machine could have stayed up longer had the smoke not escaped from its buttoned sides. But the crowd was far from disappointed. Everyone rushed to congratulate them.

14 Soon the Academy of Sciences and the king and queen themselves, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, invited the Montgolfiers to Paris to demonstrate their invention. Joseph and Étienne were overjoyed. All they needed was some time to construct a better “aerostat,” as they now called the balloon.

15 But time was something they did not have. A few weeks after their triumph, they learned that their demonstration had prompted a prominent Parisian scientist, Jacques Charles, to begin work on a similar machine. Stunned, the brothers decided that the more worldly Étienne should go to Paris to keep up with events and oversee the construction of their new aerostat.

16 On 27 August 1783, thousands of people assembled in Paris to witness the flight of Charles’s Le Globe. When it was unveiled, Étienne and his new friend, Jean- François Pilâtre de Rozier, an ambitious young scientist, gasped at its small size. Then Étienne realized why it was so small. “He’s using inflammable air!”

17 Indeed, unlike the Montgolfiers’ aerostat, Charles’s was filled with a gas discovered seventeen years earlier that would soon become known as hydrogen. It was lighter than air— but also explosive. When Charles heard first reports of the Montgolfiers’ flight, he may have believed, with other scientists, that their balloon was lifted with this gas.

18 Forty- five minutes after Le Globe lifted off, the Charles aerostat burst. Although Charles’s flight was not completely successful, Paris now buzzed with excitement. People talked about exploring the “air ocean” the way they had the sea.

19 A few weeks later, on 12 September, Étienne demonstrated his new, handsewn aerostat to members of the Academy of Sciences. Though the balloon rose up into the air, a sudden rain sent it crashing to the ground, destroying it. Étienne was horrified. The great demonstration before the king and queen was scheduled in less than a week! Trying not to panic, he and his workers quickly began to construct an entirely new aerostat.

20 Not only did they finish in time, but Étienne took the opportunity to add a wicker basket to the new design. This aerostat would carry passengers.

21 On 19 September, near the royal palace at Versailles, the king and queen watched expectantly as the Montgolfier aerostat took off, with a sheep, a rooster, and a duck in its basket. A gust of wind knocked the balloon against its support mast, tearing it slightly. Once in the air, another gust tilted it and sent a plume of smoke streaming out its side. Étienne grimaced and closed one eye. But the aerostat continued at an angle, traveling two miles in eight minutes before landing safely in a small meadow.

Read the passage. Then answer the questions.

How a Foolish Wolf Learned to Be Satisfied

1 A dissatisfied wolf, sitting one day in the door of his house, saw a crow fly by.

2 “How is it,” thought he, “that so good for nothing a creature can fly, while I can not? I would indeed be happy were I able to soar through the air.”

3 With that he set about planning to get some wings, and being clever, as creatures go, he soon had an idea that he thought very fine. So he polished his boots; laid out his best clothes; and went to bed chuckling with glee, over what he was going to do.

4 Next morning, looking very fine, he was out betimes, and met a fat grey goose on her way to market, with her basket on her wing.

5 “Good morning!” said the goose. And having no more than a bowing acquaintance, she would have passed with a courtesy, but the wolf, as if quite by accident, scraped against her and caught his buttons in her feathers.

6 “Oh, madam, excuse me!” he cried, making such a fuss about getting loose that the goose was quite flurried, and glad enough to excuse him and go on her way. But that was not the end of the matter, for she had gone but a few steps when the wolf called after her.

7 “Madam, madam, you have lost something!” and came running up with a feather. “Oh!” said the goose, “is that all you have? You might have saved your breath, for feathers are of no use to me after they fall out.”

8 “Oh!” cried the wolf, “I could not think it was worthless, for I so admire your beautiful wings. I wonder you are not flying all the time, instead of going along the ground, as we poor creatures must be content to do. Perhaps you will give me this beautiful feather for a keepsake.”

9 The goose, too honest to be puffed up by this flattery, gave him the feather, wondering how it was that no one had ever before called her modest plumage “beautiful.”

10 “Well begun is half done,” thought the wolf, as he trotted off; for having won the good will of the honest goose by his flattery, she made no objection to his walking along the road with her every morning.

11 “Dear me, something is pinching me!” the goose would say, as they parted at the crossroads.

12 “It is the sun beating down,” the wolf would reply, or else, “A fly is biting you.” And he would be off through the woods with another feather, while the poor goose preened her wings, never guessing why they were ruffled.

13 At last the wolf had enough feathers and sat at home, with wire and string, making a pair of wings; nor was he the least bothered that he had not come by the feathers honestly.

14 When the wings were finished he fastened them to his sides, twisting the wire and string around his poor body till he could scarcely breathe; but he paid no attention to that, since he thought he looked so grand, and strutting before the glass he cried:

15 “How the birds and the fowls will envy me! I will outfly them all, and the ugly black crows will not dare caw at me anymore!”

16 Now he must show the goose what a handsome bird he made— not a delicate thing to do, you’ll agree, since his wings were made of the goose’s feathers.

17 When the grey goose saw him she was indeed surprised.

18 “Do not, I beg of you, try to fly!” she cried. Whereupon the wolf thought she was angry because he had stolen her feathers.

19 “Oh, no!” cried the goose. “Of what use are they to me now? I have new ones in place of them. If it were meant for you to fly, you would have wings. What should we all come to, I would like to know, if each wished to do the other’s work, instead of what we are fitted for? If I tried to be a canary what kind of singing do you think I could do? I am indeed thankful that I am a goose, and shall be the best goose I know how to be!”

20 And this was wisdom from a goose, for aught people say they are silly.

21 But what did the wolf care for all this!

22 Only sorry that he had delayed trying his wings, he bade her good-bye, and trotted off, looking too vain and silly for anything. It is true he could not go very fast, as his wings did not lie flat when he tried to run, as did those of the goose.

23 “But one cannot have everything!” thought he, “and it will be so glorious to fly that I shall not want to run anymore.”

24 Finally he reached the top of a hill so high that his nose was poking into the clouds, while the cattle in the valley below looked like specks.

25 “Ah!” exclaimed the wolf, trying to spread his wings, “this is something like it!”

26 His wings did not spread and flap as he expected, but he was quite certain that when he started to fly the wind would make them go; so swelling out his chest, he looked about to see if anyone was watching.

27 “Ha, ha!” he laughed, seeing the fox and the weasel and some other of his comrades below on the hill, “now they shall see a sight that will open their eyes!”

28 He gave a mighty leap into the air!

29 Crash, bang! crash, bang! down through tree- tops and bushes; rolling over and over; bumping on stones; scraping his shins on the sharp rocks, and into the creek at the bottom, came the wolf with his fine wings!

30 “Oh, let me get rid of these!” he cried, but they were so twisted about him that there was no getting them loose.

31 “Ho, ho!” laughed a hunter coming along, “you are caught in a trap, my fine fellow!” So he tied a rope round the wolf’s neck, and led him along like a calf.

32 “Oh, sir!” cried the wolf, “let me go! I have harmed no one but myself. I was trying to fly.”

33 “He, ho!” laughed the hunter, “so these are your wings, and it is you who have been plucking the feathers from my good goose. It is true that you have harmed no one but yourself; but that you may have time to think over your folly, I shall take you home with me and set you to churning my butter.”

34 While the wolf was treading the milk into fine butter he thought somewhat in this wise1:

35 “Had I heeded the grey goose and been satisfied to be a good wolf, I should be safe in my house to- day!”

36 So much for being envious! For what was it but envy that got the wolf into all this trouble? And of what use are other creatures’ wings to us, when we do not know how to use them?