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2014 ‫מועד יולי‬ - 49 - ‫ פרק שנ י‬- ‫ אנגלית‬

Text II (Questions 18-22)

(1) Mark Twain once said that accident is the greatest of all inventors. If you have any
doubt about this, go into your kitchen and look around. You might find a Teflon pan, a
microwave oven, or a box of matches. Accident played a role in the invention of all
these common household items. But not everyone can make the most of an accident.

(5) The difference between inventors and the rest of us is that they see possibilities where
we see only everyday events. In the words of Louis Pasteur, "Chance favors only the
prepared mind."

One such mind belonged to a pharmacist named John Walker. One day in 1826, he
was using a wooden stick to mix potassium chlorate and antimony sulphide. Unable

(10) to clean the mixture off the stick, he tried to scrape it off against the stone floor and was
startled to see the stick burst into flames. He realized that he had stumbled upon a
compound that could be used to light a fire easily. In no time at all, Walker was
marketing the first friction match, or to use his catchy name, the "sulphuretted peroxide
strikeable."

(15) Sometimes, when an inventor is seeking a solution to a problem, the answer appears
out of nowhere. In 1928, Alexander Fleming was searching for a means of treating
bacterial infections. One day some dust drifted through the open window of his
laboratory, landing in a petri dish where he was growing a culture of bacteria. It caused
parts of the culture to change color. What Fleming did next earned him and two

(20) colleagues a Nobel Prize: instead of throwing out the contaminated petri dish, he
looked at its contents under the microscope. He realized that the bacteria were being
destroyed by mold found in the dust and that some substance in the mold could be used
to make an antibacterial medicine. From this beginning came penicillin, a medicine that
has saved countless lives.

Questions .

18. It can be understood from the first paragraph that Mark Twain believed that

(1) most inventions involve an element of chance
(2) inventors are more intelligent than other people
(3) the greatest inventions took place in the kitchen
(4) inventors must be careful to avoid accidents

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.‫ בלא אישור בכתב מהמרכז הארצי לבחינות ולהערכה‬- ‫ כולה או חלקים ממנה‬- ‫ או ללמדה‬,‫אין להעתיק או להפיץ בחינה זו או קטעים ממנה בכל צורה ובכל אמצעי‬