Summative Assessment 2 for the unit “Timekeeping Devices” – 11 grade

Learning objective 11.3.7 Use appropriate subject-specific vocabulary and syntax to talk about a range of
familiar and some unfamiliar general and curricular topics
11.6.7 Use a wide variety of simple perfect active and passive forms and a variety of
perfect continuous forms on a wide range of general and curricular topics
11.4.2 - understand specific information and detail in extended texts on a wide range of
familiar and unfamiliar general and curricular topics.

Assessment criteria - Apply topic related words and phrases in speech

-Apply simple perfect and perfect continuous active and passive forms
-Identify specific information and details in a text.

Reading
Task 1. Read the text and do the task below
These days, time is everything. We worry about being late, we rush to get things done or to be
somewhere and our daily schedules are often planned down to the minute. Of course, none of this would have
been possible without the humble clock.
Nearly 3000 years ago, societies were using the stars in order to keep track of time to indicate
agricultural cycles. Then came the sundial, an Egyptian invention in which the shadow cast by the sun was
used to measure the time not of the seasons but of the day.
The first manufactured clock, believed to have come from Persia, was a system which recreated the
movements of the stars. All the celestial bodies which had been used to tell the time of year were plotted unto
an intricate system in which the planets rotated around each other. Not being dependent on either sunlight or
a clear night, this was one of the earliest systems to divide a complete day. Although ingenious for its time,
this method suffered from incorrect astrological assumptions of the period in which it was believed that the
Earth was the centre of the universe.
The Greeks were next to develop a more accurate water clocks. A water clock was made of two
containers of water, one higher than the other. Water traveled from the higher container to the lower
container through a tube connecting the containers. The containers had marks showing the water level, and
the marks told the time.
In 1656 Christiaan Huygens, a Dutch scientist, made the first pendulum clock. This was a huge step
forward, as it only lost one minute per week. Some years later, Huygens abandoned the pendulum for a
balance wheel and spring assembly which allowed for a whole new generation of time piece – the
wristwatch.
The invention of the cuckoo clock, designed and made by Franz Anton Ketterer, really caught
people’s imagination. The design was not particularly complex. The clock was mounted on a headboard,
normally a very elaborate carving reflecting the tastes of the artist. Using the traditional circular pendulum
design, the clock could run accurately or up to a week, using a weight to keep the pendulum in motion.
Again, the weight was often carved with a design making it as much an art form as a timepiece. The most
innovative feature of these cuckoo clocks, as the name implies, is that a small carved cuckoo came out of the
clock to chime the hour. Particularly ingenious was the placement of bellows inside the clock, which were
designed to recreate the sound made by the bird, although later models included a lever on the bottom of the
clock which could be used to stop this hourly chime.
The next major change happened in 1927, when the mineral quartz was incorporated into clocks.
This made clocks more precise at telling the time.
 Then after World War II, there was another development: atomic clocks. But although atomic
clocks almost never lose or gain time, they are so expensive that it is unlikely we'll be wearing atomic clocks
very time soon.

-2 -

Match a type of clock with a description.

1. Quartz clock
2. Cuckoo clock
3. Sundial
4. Persian clock
5. Wristwatch
6. Pendulum
7. Atomic clock
8. Water clock

A. Relied on basic scientific principles

B. was the first to replace the pendulum
C. Is the most common method of timekeeping
D. Is the most accurate clock
E. Is the earliest known method of measuring time during the day
F. Was inaccurate because of misconceptions of the age
G. Was often highly ornamental
H. Had only a 10-second margin of error per day

Writing
Task 2. Write down an essay on one of the following topics: (150-180 words)

- How did ancient people measure the time? What clocks did they use? What kind of ancient inventions
about clocks do you know?

- Are Hourglasses popular nowadays? What do you know about their modern practical uses?

Grammar: Use simple perfect and perfect continuous active and passive forms

11 grade SA2, 2 term

Assessment criteria Task Descriptors Mark

№
A learner
Identify specific 1 1.C 1
information and details 2.G 1
 3.E 1
4.F 1
5.B 1
in a text. 6.H 1
7.D 1
8.A 1
Identify the detail of 2 presents a clear position; 2
an argument in supports viewpoints with examples/reasons; 2
unsupported extended uses simple perfect and perfect continuous active and 2
talk passive forms.
uses topic-related vocabulary 2
Identify
inconsistencies in
argument in extended
talk

Total marks 16