Loading question...
You are in free guest mode. Timed Practice Revision List Attempt History Progress Tracking Create a free account to unlock these tools
Back to Questions
Prev Next
CELPIP Practice Reading: Reading for Information ID: #63150 Medium Gerhard Herzberg and the light of molecules

Read the following passage.

A. Gerhard Herzberg was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1904 and trained there as a physicist. By 1933 he was a lecturer at the university in Darmstadt, but under a new Nazi law he lost the right to teach because his wife, Luise, was Jewish. In 1935 the couple left his native Germany and arrived in Saskatoon with $2.50 and some optical equipment. John Spinks, a chemist from the University of Saskatchewan who had lived in the same Darmstadt rooming house, raised their case with the university's president, Walter Murray, who arranged a guest professorship paid for by the Carnegie Corporation. In his first four years there, Herzberg taught two classes and published 20 papers.

B. Herzberg worked in molecular spectroscopy, the study of how atoms and molecules give off or absorb light. His main tool was the spectrogram, a glass plate coated with photographic chemicals, on which each molecule leaves its own pattern of lines. By measuring the spacing of these lines and applying mathematical formulas, he could work out a molecule's energy levels and the probable locations of its electrons. He was especially interested in free radicals, short-lived molecules that form during chemical reactions. In 1959, after 18 years of study, he obtained the spectrum of methylene, a free radical made of one carbon atom and two hydrogen atoms.

C. After a decade in Saskatchewan and several years at the University of Chicago, Herzberg joined the National Research Council in Ottawa in 1948. A short time later he was made director of its Physics Division, and his spectroscopy laboratory became a Mecca for hundreds of scientists from around the world. In 1971 he won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, even though he was a physicist. He was also a vigorous participant in the national debate on science policy that followed the Lamontagne report of 1970, stressing that no one can foresee the practical uses of pure research.

D. Some sides of Herzberg are less familiar. The National Research Council made him its first Distinguished Research Scientist in 1969 so that he could keep working past the retirement age of 65, and he officially retired only in 1994. As a boy in Hamburg he built a telescope with a school friend, but he turned to physics after being told that astronomy was suitable only for the wealthy. He had a strong bass-baritone voice, loved opera and took singing lessons in Saskatoon. He also protested the Soviet treatment of intellectuals, twice demonstrating outside the Soviet embassy in Ottawa.

E. Not given in any of the above paragraphs.

Decide which paragraph, A to D, has the information given in each statement below. Select E if the information is not given in any of the paragraphs.

 - 1. Because of his wife's family origins, Herzberg was barred from lecturing in the country of his birth.

 - 2. His first choice of subject was dropped because people said it was a field for those with money.

 - 3. He learned about the inner make-up of tiny particles by studying gaps between marks on specially prepared images.

 - 4. It took him nearly two decades to capture the light signature of one fleeting chemical.

 - 5. His employer created a new title for him so he could carry on past the normal age for stopping work.

 - 6. The views he voiced drew more press attention than those of any other scientist in the policy argument.

 - 7. Researchers from other countries travelled to Ottawa to use the laboratory he led.

 - 8. In Saskatoon, Luise carried out a large share of the laboratory work herself.

 - 9. Someone he had come to know in Europe helped secure outside funding for his first Canadian post.

With a free account: Retry and compare every attempt.
Be the first! No community answers here yet. Submit yours and help others learn.
Saving...