Oluwatoyin111
QUESTION Carefully read the essay. Then answer the questions that…
QUESTION
Carefully read the essay. Then answer the questions that follow it.
A Penny for Your World-Saving Thoughts
Most people in the developed world think of technology as the newest $300 cell phone or the best $50,000 hybrid vehicle or one of our many $40,000,000 predator drones. In the developing world, however, a whole different breed of entrepreneurs is working on technologies that cost very little and use materials as simple as corncobs and discarded two-liter bottles. These inventors don’t care so much about the future as about the present, in which more than a billion people live without access to safe drinking water (World). With a rare combination of creativity and compassion, a generation of inventors is fixing the world’s worst problems with the simplest solutions.
For example, Amy Smith, an instructor at MIT, works in the Peruvian Andes to turn corncobs into charcoal. Like 800 million others in the world, the locals of El Valle Sagrado de los Incas currently heat their homes with agricultural waste products such as dung, straw, and corncobs. These fuels produce a great deal of smoke, which causes respiratory* infections, the leading cause of death for those under five in such homes. By turning corncobs into charcoal, Smith converts a high-smoke fuel to a low-smoke one, not only heating homes but saving lives. Her process involves corncobs, matches, a 55-gallon drum with a lid, and patience. She jokingly calls her creations “carbon macro-tubes” (Ward).
Also, a man called “Solar Demi” is working to bring light to the slums of Manila, Philippines. In these tight-packed quarters, electricity is scarce, and most people live in total darkness. Demi takes discarded two-liter bottles, strips off their labels, cleans them, and fills them with a mixture of distilled water and bleach. He then cuts a hole in the roof of a home and fits the bottle in place with a watertight flange. This simple arrangement costs $1 per installation and produces 55 watts of free solar lighting. The Liter of Light Project aims to bring solar bottle lighting into one million homes in the Philippines (Ambani).
In South Africa, the problem is not lack of light but lack of water. Traditionally in many tribes, women and girls carry water in containers on their heads, a technique that requires numerous trips (keeping girls out of school) and causes stress injuries to necks. To solve this problem, architect Hans Hendrikse and his brother Piet have developed a wheel-shaped plastic drum that can hold up to 50 liters and is durable* enough to roll across the ground behind a person. Four trips for water turn into one, and backbreaking loads turn into an easy stroll with a sloshing drum behind. By working with global partners, the Hendrikses are providing the Q-drum cheaply to those who need it most (Hendrikse).
Throughout the developing world, unsafe drinking water is a huge problem. It causes diarrhea, which kills 1.5 million children every yearmore than AIDS and malaria combined. The company Vestergaard Frandsen wants to put a stop to it, so it has developed the LifeStrawa compact filtering device that is about the size of a fat ballpoint pen. Children can carry this straw with them and drink surface water without fear of getting waterborne diseases. The straw costs about $20 in the developed world, but Vestergaard Frandsen is working with international partners to provide the straw affordably to those elsewhere who do not have safe supplies of water (“LifeStraw”).
It’s become fashionable to talk about how the future belongs to the innovators, and people who say such things are often thinking about space elevators and the like. But the present also belongs to the innovatorsthose who make corncob coal and soda-bottle lights and drums and straws that deliver water. All of these inventions are simple, elegant solutions to the world’s oldest problems. With thinking like this, not only is our future bright, but our present can be as well.
*respiratory – pertaining to breathing
*durable – strong and sturdy
1. Which sentence in the opening paragraph states the thesis or main idea of the piece?
a. These inventors don’t care so much about the future as about the present, in which more than a billion people live without access to safe drinking water.
b. With a rare combination of creativity and compassion, a generation of inventors is fixing the world’s worst problems with the simplest solutions.
c. Most people in the developed world think of technology as the newest $300 cell phone or the best $50,000 hybrid vehicle or one of our many $40,000,000 predator drones.
2. What pattern of organization does paragraph 4 follow?
a. Problem-solution
b. Chronological
c. Comparison
3. Which sentence or sentences in the closing paragraph restate the main idea or thesis of the essay?
a. In the developing world, however, a whole different breed of entrepreneurs is working on technologies that cost very little.
b. It’s become fashionable to talk about how the future belongs to the innovators, and people who say such things are often thinking about space elevators and the like.
c. But the present belongs to the innovators. … All of these inventions are simple, elegant solutions to the world’s oldest problems.
4. What additional information is shared in the closing paragraph?
a. The author wishes that in the past more could have been done for the poor.
b. The author shares a final thought about the future and the present.
c. The author makes a call to action to other entrepreneurs.
