Srinivasa Ramanujan: How One Life Changed the World

Questions

1. Sequence Which of these happened first?

   Ramanujan helped equip ambulances with X-ray machines to treat soldiers in World War I Ramanujan returned home to India Ramanujan sent pages of his results to the mathematician G. H. Hardy in England Ramanujan travelled to Cambridge University to work with Hardy
2. Sequence Which of these happened last?

   Ramanujan returned home to India Ramanujan sent pages of his results to the mathematician G. H. Hardy in England Ramanujan was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society Ramanujan travelled to Cambridge University to work with Hardy
3. Details In what year did this happen? "Ramanujan sent pages of his results to the mathematician G. H. Hardy in England."

   1913 1918 1914 1919
4. Timeline math How many years passed between these two events? First: "Ramanujan travelled to Cambridge University to work with Hardy." Later: "He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society."

   14 3 4 5
5. Timeline math About how old was Ramanujan in 1913?

   31 26 21 38
6. Vocabulary In the passage, what does "theorem" mean?

   the wearing away of soil or rock by wind or water the remains or traces of a living thing from long ago, preserved in rock a set of step-by-step instructions for solving a problem a statement in mathematics that has been proved true
7. Character traits Which word best describes Srinivasa Ramanujan?

   bored self-taught careless forgetful
8. Evidence Which detail from the passage shows that Ramanujan was self-taught?

   He kept working through months of failed experiments in a hot, cramped laboratory. He questioned why objects fall and why the Moon stays in the sky. He learned advanced mathematics largely on his own, working through a borrowed book of formulas. He tested every idea with experiments, even when the results surprised everyone.
9. Main idea What is this passage mostly about?

   the life and work of Alexander Graham Bell the life and work of Srinivasa Ramanujan the life and work of George Washington Carver the life and work of Marie Curie
10. Text structure How does the author organize the middle of the passage?

    as a problem and its solution as a list of steps to follow in time order, from earlier events to later ones from most important to least important event
11. Author's purpose Why does the author end with the final paragraph?

    to show that his work still matters today to explain how to do an experiment to list every prize the person won to describe where the person grew up

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