The Life of Sir Isaac Newton IELTS Reading Passage with Answers

READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on
Reading Passage 1 below.
The Life of Sir Isaac Newton
A
Isaac Newton was born on January 4, 1643, in Lincolnshire, England. The son of a
farmer, who died three months before he was born, Newton spent most of his early
years with his maternal grandmother after his mother remarried. Following an
education interrupted by a failed attempt to turn him into a farmer, he attended the
King’s School in Grantham before enrolling at the University of Cambridge’s
Trinity College in 1661, where he soon became fascinated by the works of modern
philosophers such as René Descartes. When the Great Plague shut Cambridge off
from the rest of England in 1665, Newton returned home and began formulating
his theories on calculus, light and color, his farm the setting for the supposed
falling apple that inspired his work on gravity.
B
Newton returned to Cambridge in 1667. He constructed the first reflecting
telescope in 1668, and the following year he received his Master of Arts degree
and took over as Cambridge’s Professor of Mathematics. In 1671 he was asked to
give a demonstration of his telescope to the Royal Society of London in 1671, the
same year he was elected to the prestigious Society. The following year, fascinated
with the study of light, he published his notes on optics for his peers. Through his
experiments, Newton determined that white light was a composite of all the colors
on the spectrum, and he asserted that light was composed of particles instead of
waves. His methods were heavily criticized by established Society member Robert
Hooke, who was also unwilling to compromise again with Newton’s follow-up
paper in 1675. Known for his temperamental defense of his work, Newton engaged
in heated correspondence with Hooke before suffering a nervous breakdown and
withdrawing from the public eye in 1678. In the following years, he returned to his
earlier studies on the forces governing gravity.
C
In 1684, English astronomer Edmund Halley paid a visit to the reclusive Newton.
Upon learning that Newton had mathematically worked out the elliptical paths of
celestial bodies, such as the movement of the planets around the sun, Halley urged
him to organize his notes. The result was the 1687 publication of “Philosophiae
Naturalis Principia Mathematica” (Mathematical Principles of Natural
Philosophy), which established the three laws of motion and the law of universal
gravity. Principia made Newton a star in intellectual circles, eventually earning
him widespread acclaim as one of the most important figures in modern science.
D
As a now influential figure, Newton opposed King James II’s attempts to reinstate
Catholic teachings at English Universities, and was elected to represent Cambridge
in Parliament in 1689. He moved to London permanently after being named
warden of the Royal Mint in 1696, earning a promotion to master of the Mint three
years later. Determined to prove his position wasn’t merely symbolic, Newton
moved the pound sterling from the silver to the gold standard and sought to punish
forgers.
E
The death of Hooke in 1703 allowed Newton to take over as president of the Royal
Society, and the following year he published his second major work, “Opticks.”
Composed largely from his earlier notes on the subject, the book detailed Newton’s
experiments with refraction and the color spectrum, and also contained his
conclusions on such matters as energy and electricity. In 1705, he was knighted by
Queen Anne of England.
F
Around this time, the debate over Newton’s claims to originating the field of
calculus, the mathematical study of change, exploded into a nasty dispute. Newton
had developed his mathematical concept of ‘fluxions’ (differentials) in the mid-
1660s to account for celestial orbits, though there was no public record of his
work. In the meantime, German mathematician Gottfried Leibniz formulated his
own theories and published them in 1684. As president of the Royal Society,
Newton oversaw an investigation that ruled his work to be the founding basis of
the field, but the debate continued even after Leibniz’s death in 1716. Researchers
later concluded that both men likely arrived at their conclusions independent of
one another.
G
Newton was also obsessed with history and religious doctrines, and his writings on
those subjects were collected into multiple books that were published after his
death. Having never married, Newton spent his later years living with his niece at
Cranbury Park, near Winchester, England. He died on March 31, 1727, and was
buried in Westminster Abbey. A giant even among the brilliant minds that drove
the Scientific Revolution, Newton is remembered as an extraordinary scholar,
inventor and writer. His theories about the movement of bodies in the solar system
transformed our understanding of the universe and his precise methodology helped
to give birth to what is known as the scientific method. Although his theories of
space-time and gravity were eventually superseded by those of Einstein his work
remains the foundation stone of modern physics was built.
Questions 1-6
The text has seven paragraphs labeled A–G.
Reading passage 1 has seven paragraphs, A-G.
Choose the correct headings for paragraphs B-G from the list of headings
below.
Write the correct number, i-viii, in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
List of Headings
i Continued breakthroughs in research
ii Competing claims of originality
iii The early years of Sir Isaac Newton
iv The legacy of an exceptional mind
v Routine life at a 17th century university
vi Heated academic disputes
vii A new venture
viii His crowning achievement
ix A controversial theory about planets
Answer Example
iii Paragraph A
1 Paragraph B
2 Paragraph C
3 Paragraph D
4 Paragraph E
5 Paragraph F
6 Paragraph G
Questions 7-8
Answer the questions below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for each answer
Write your answers in boxes 7-8 on your answer sheet.
7 With which scientific organization was Newton associated for much of his
career?
8 With whom did Newton live as he got older?
Questions 9-13
Complete the notes below.
Choose ONE WORD from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers in boxes 9-13 on your answer sheet.
Sir Isaac Newton’s achievements
Created first reflecting 9_________, subsequently made a professor at Cambridge
at the age of 25.
Helped develop the scientific method with his experiments in 10_________, the
study of light; showed that it is 11_________, not waves, that constitute light.
Worked out the laws of the movement of bodies in space (planets etc.), published
Principia Mathematica with laws of gravity and 12_________.
Joint founder (with Leibniz) of 13_________, a new branch of mathematics.

The Life of Sir Isaac Newton IELTS Reading PassageAnswers

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1. vi
2. viii
3. vii
4. i
5. ii
6. iv
7. royal society
8. niece / his niece
9. telescope
10. optics
11. particles
12. motion
13. calculus