Passage Excerpt from “How We Made the First Flight”
Excerpt from “How We Made the First Flight”
by Orville Wright
In 1903 brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright conducted experiments related to flying machines. These experiments would eventually lead to air travel becoming a reliable form of transportation.
During the night of December 16, 1903, a strong cold wind blew from the north. When we arose on the morning of the 17th, the puddles of water, which had been standing about camp since the recent rains, were covered with ice. The wind had a velocity of 10 to 12 meters per second (22 to 27 miles an hour). We thought it would die down before long, and so remained indoors the early part of the morning. But when ten o’clock arrived, and the wind was as brisk as ever, we decided that we had better get the machine out and attempt a flight. We hung out the signal for the men of the Life Saving Station.1 We thought that by facing the flyer into a strong wind, there ought to be no trouble in launching it from the level ground about camp. We realized the difficulties of flying in so high a wind, but estimated that the added dangers in flight would be partly compensated for by the slower speed in landing.
Final Preparations
We laid the track on a smooth stretch of ground about one hundred feet north of the new building. The biting cold wind made work difficult, and we had to warm up frequently in our living room, where we had a good fire in an improvised stove made of a large carbide2 can. By the time all was ready, J. T. Daniels, W. S. Dough and A. D. Etheridge, members of the Kill Devil3 Life Saving Station; W. C. Brinkley of Manteo, and Johnny Moore, a boy from Nags Head,4 had arrived.
We had a “Richard” hand anemometer with which we measured the velocity of the wind. Measurements made just before starting the first flight showed velocities of 11 to 12 meters per second, or 24 to 27 miles per hour. . . .
Audacity—and Calculation
Wilbur having used his turn in the unsuccessful attempt on the 14th, the right to the first trial now belonged to me. After running the motor a few minutes to heat it up, I released the wire that held the machine to the track, and the machine started forward in the wind. Wilbur ran at the side of the machine, holding the wing to balance it on the track. Unlike the start on the 14th, made in a calm, the machine, facing a 27-mile wind, started very slowly. Wilbur was able to stay with it till it lifted from the track after a forty-foot run. One of the Life Saving men snapped the camera for us, taking a picture just as the machine had reached the end of the track and had risen to a height of about two feet. The slow forward speed of the machine over the ground is clearly shown in the picture by Wilbur’s attitude. He stayed along beside the machine without any effort.
Flight
The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling this machine. The control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center. This gave it a tendency to turn itself when started; so that it turned too far on one side and then too far on the other. As a result the machine would rise suddenly to about ten feet, and then as suddenly dart for the ground. A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the end of the track, or a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air, ended the flight. As the velocity of the wind was over 35 feet per second and the speed of the machine over the ground against this wind ten feet per second, the speed of the machine relative to the air was over 45 feet per second, and the length of the flight was equivalent to a flight of 540 feet made in calm air. This flight lasted only 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it started.
From “How We Made the First Flight” by Orville Wright—Public Domain/Federal Aviation Administration
1Life Saving Station: one of the rescue stations along the Atlantic coastline that provided assistance to mariners in distress
2carbide: a very hard material composed of carbon and other heavy metals
3Kill Devil: the town of Kill Devil Hills in eastern North Carolina
4Nags Head: a town in eastern North Carolina
Question
Read this sentence from paragraph 5.
A sudden dart when a little over a hundred feet from the end of the track, or a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air, ended the flight.
How does the sentence contribute to the paragraph?
- AIt details the need for the pilot to have quick reflexes while flying the machine.
- BIt presents the idea that the difficulty of operating the machine shortened the flight.
- CIt describes the shift in wind speed that made flying nearly impossible.
- DIt provides an overview of the flight’s progression from takeoff to landing.
Show the answer
Correct answer: B
The question asks how the sentence contributes to paragraph 5.
A. Incorrect. The sentence focuses on the “sudden dart” of the plane, which ended the flight. According to the paragraph, this sudden dart was caused by the difficulty of controlling the front rudder “on account of its being balanced too near the center.” The sentence does not detail the need for the pilot to have quick reflexes.
B. CORRECT. The sentence presents the idea that the difficulty of operating the machine brought the flight to a quicker end than it might otherwise have had. According to paragraph 5, “control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center. This gave it a tendency to turn itself when started.” These sentences show that one such “dart” shortened the flight.
C. Incorrect. Although it describes the abrupt end of the flight, the sentence does not describe the shift in wind speed. The word “dart” refers instead to a change in the height, or altitude, of the machine.
D. Incorrect. Although it includes the detail that the flight ended “a little over 120 feet from the point at which it rose into the air,” the sentence does not provide an overview of the entire flight’s progression. The sentence from paragraph 5 omits the flight’s takeoff and only describes its rather abrupt ending.
Question analysis
This question on “How We Made the First Flight,” Orville Wright’s account of the first airplane flight in 1903, quotes the sentence from paragraph 5 reporting that a sudden dart ended the flight a little over 120 feet from where the machine rose into the air. Students must decide what the sentence contributes to the paragraph, which also traces the machine’s erratic course and its speed against the wind.
- Grade level
- Grade 8 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Explaining what one sentence adds to its paragraph is regular grade 7 work. This sentence is long, measured in feet and written in early twentieth-century prose, and its role becomes clear only within the paragraph, which keeps the task typical but careful.
- Estimated difficulty
- Moderate: several steps, or a close reading with one strong distractor.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly analyze
- What makes it hard
- How, not what moderate
- Complex sentences minor
- Reading between the lines minor
- Evidence
- Answered from one paragraph or stanza
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 7, 816 words; question and choices: about grade 7, 100 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
Read alone, the sentence is just a report of where the flight stopped, so its contribution has to come from the paragraph around it. The two distances, from the end of the track and from the point of liftoff, make it look like a start-to-finish summary, which is the strongest pull. Students who reread the sentences about the badly balanced rudder see that the dart ending the flight was one of those control problems, so the sentence shows the flight cut short by them.
How, not what moderate Working it out
The question asks what the sentence does in paragraph 5, and its role shows only beside the sentences before it: the rudder balanced “too near the center,” its tendency to turn itself, and the darts toward the ground. (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Complex sentences minor Understanding the question
The sentence’s subject, “A sudden dart,” and its verb, “ended,” are 29 words apart, separated by two distance phrases joined by “or,” so a reader can lose sight of the main statement. (Abedi & Lord, 2001; Freedle & Kostin, 1993; Messick, 1989)
Reading between the lines minor Working it out
The sentence names no cause; students must infer from “As a result the machine would rise suddenly … and then as suddenly dart for the ground” that this dart came from the hard-to-control rudder. (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1998)
Strategy: Reread the sentences on either side of the quoted one, say in your own words what this sentence adds to them, and reject any choice that claims details the sentence does not contain.
Traps
- Reads too much in: A reasonable-sounding conclusion that goes further than the text allows.
- Wrong purpose or structure: Names a purpose, structure or effect that the part does not serve, or describes what a part says when the question asks what it does.
- Twists what the text says: Uses the text's topic and ideas but changes what it says: who did it, how much, when, or why.
The wrong answers, classified
A Reads too much in (Graesser, Singer & Trabasso, 1994)
Reasons from the erratic course and the “lack of experience” that piloting needed quick reflexes, but the sentence reports only how the flight ended and says nothing about the pilot’s reactions.
C Twists what the text says (King et al., 2004)
Connects the dart with the “irregularity of the air” and the wind figures that follow, but the dart was the machine diving toward the ground, and the sentence mentions no wind.
D Wrong purpose or structure (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001)
Sees the end of the track and the point of liftoff named in the sentence and takes it for an overview of the whole flight, though both serve only to locate where it ended.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
This asks what one sentence does for its paragraph. The sentence says a “sudden dart” ended the flight. To see its job, read the sentences just before it.
Read the sentences before it
Paragraph 5 explains why the flight was hard to control. “The control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center.” A rudder is a flat part that swings to steer. Because it was badly balanced, it turned too far one way, then too far the other. “As a result the machine would rise suddenly to about ten feet, and then as suddenly dart for the ground.”
Work out what the sentence adds
Here, a dart is a quick dive toward the ground. The sentence says one of these dives, a little over 120 feet from where the machine took off, “ended the flight.” So the dart was not just bad luck. It came from the steering problem just described. The sentence shows the result: the hard-to-control machine cut its own flight short.
Check each choice
- A is wrong. Reflexes are quick, automatic reactions. The sentence never mentions the pilot or how fast he reacts.
- B is right. The dart came from the hard steering, and it ended the flight early.
- C is wrong. The sentence says nothing about wind. The dart was the machine diving, not the wind changing.
- D is wrong. The sentence tells only how the flight ended. The two distances just show where it stopped.
Watch out: D is tempting because the sentence names both the end of the track and the point where the machine “rose into the air.” But those places only measure where the flight ended.
Choose the answer
The sentence shows that the machine’s steering problem brought the flight to a quick end. So the answer is B.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
D is the closest wrong answer, since the sentence gives two distances that seem to cover the whole flight. But it skips the takeoff and the time in the air. B explains why the sentence matters in paragraph 5: it shows the result of the hard-to-control rudder.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Excerpt from “How We Made the First Flight”” as printed (pages 13–14)
