👩‍🏫 For Teachers

Use this 15-minute B1 reading module to train passage analysis and evidence location for historical timelines.

Monitor students as they answer independently, then review answers together using the provided evidence lines.

🎓 For Learners

First, read the article carefully to understand the timeline of inventions from paragraphs A to D.

Next, complete the exercises and check your answers using the explanations provided after each question.

Reading Passage

Clocks and watches through history

A

NIST says that Egyptians built the first sundials about 5,000 years ago. The Science Museum Group has a wooden shadow clock from Egypt that dates from between 1000 and 800 BCE. A bar casts a shadow on a marked base, and the shadow shows the time. People used it to time work and the flow of water in the fields.

B

NIST says that the Egyptians later built the first water clocks. The Science Museum Group has a copy of one. A vessel was filled with water, and the water leaked out slowly through a small hole near the bottom. The museum dates the original to the time of King Amenhotep III, between 1390 and 1352 BC, and says people probably used it at night.

C

NIST says that the first truly mechanical clock was built in Europe in the 14th century. These early mechanical clocks were not very accurate. They were wrong by about 15 minutes a day, which is about the same as a sundial.

D

A Dutch scientist, Christiaan Huygens, made the first successful pendulum clock in December 1656, says the Science Museum Group. He used a pendulum to control a clock that had a spring. NIST gives 1657 and says that clocks became more precise with pendulums in the 17th century.

1

Egyptians used wooden shadow clocks to manage working hours and water distribution in agricultural areas.

____ True ____ False ____ Not Given

2

Water clocks were very expensive to manufacture, so only royal families in ancient Egypt could afford them.

____ True ____ False ____ Not Given

3

the daily rate of inaccuracy found in early 14th-century mechanical timekeepers

____ Paragraph A ____ Paragraph B ____ Paragraph C ____ Paragraph D

4

a description of a device specifically designed to tell time when sunlight was unavailable

____ Paragraph A ____ Paragraph B ____ Paragraph C ____ Paragraph D

5

According to paragraph B, how did the ancient Egyptian water clock measure time?

____ a. Water dripped slowly into a wooden bar to mark each hour. ____ b. Liquid escaped gradually through a small opening near the bottom of a container. ____ c. A spring inside the vessel controlled the speed of the escaping water. ____ d. Shadows created by water cast readings onto a marked base.

6

What can be inferred from paragraph D about Huygens' pendulum clock compared to earlier clocks?

____ a. It was the first clock to rely entirely on sunlight for accurate calibration. ____ b. It made clocks more precise by using a pendulum to control the spring. ____ c. It replaced mechanical clocks because it did not require any moving springs. ____ d. It was created in 1656 but proved less reliable than 14th-century European clocks.

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