Reading comprehension. I. True or False? Alfred Nobel had deep knowledge in different fields of science

I. True or False?

1. Alfred Nobel had deep knowledge in different fields of science.
2. He studied at the University where he learned languages.
3. He got interested in chemistry and by the time he was twenty became a skillful chemist.
4. His father was a very successful businessman and died very rich.
5. Alfred Nobel was a man of imagination and at the same time showed great financial and business sense.
6. Nobel was very happy in his private life.
7. He was always cheerful and lived the life of a very rich man.
8. He spent much time and money for the cause of peace and brotherhood between nations.
9. His famous will in which he left money to provide prizes for outstanding work in Science and Peace is a memorial to his ideals.

 

II. Form sentences matching word groups on the left and on the right with but and make the necessary changes. You will see that Nobel’s life was really full of contrasts.

 

Example:

To be a millionaire (but) to live a simple life

He was a millionaire but lived a simple life.

 

to be an industrialist to live more than 20 years in Russia

to be cheerful in company to be sad in private

to love all mankind to be a skillful chemist and an excellent

linguist

to invent dynamite BUT to show great business and financial science

improve peacetime industries

to be a Swede not to have a wife or a family to love him

to be a patriot of his native country to die alone in a foreign land

never to study at school or University to see it is used as a weapon to kill people

to be a man of imagination to remain an idealist

 

III. Choose the information from the text about:

1. Alfred Nobel’s father;
2. Nobel’s interests and activity;
3. The contrasts in his life;
4. Alfred Nobel as a scientist;
5. Alfred Nobel’s will;

6. Nobel prize winners

and make a brief retelling in oral or written form.