Checking comprehension
Below are the sentences from the text in jumbled order.
Read the passage and then re-arrange these sentences into the correct order. Try to look back at the passage as little as possible.
He planned to turn out minor inventions every ten days and a 'big trick' every six months.
In 1869, he borrowed a small amount of money and became a freelance inventor.
In 1876 he built a new laboratory so that he could spend all his time inventing.
He was born in Milan, Ohio and he was always an inquisitive boy.
They later commissioned him to improve the Wall Street stock ticker that was just coming into use. He did so and produced the Edison Universal Stock Printer, which immediately brought him a fortune of $40,000.
By the time he was 10 he had set up a small chemical laboratory in his house after his mother had shown him a science book.
The following year, Edison moved to New Jersey in order to build the Edison Laboratory (now a national monument) which was 10 times bigger than his first laboratory.
Thomas Edison was born on 11 February 1847. He was one of the outstanding geniuses of technology and he obtained patents for more than one thousand inventions including the electric light bulb, the record player and an early type of film projector.
In the same summer, there was a crisis in Wall Street when the new telegraphic gold-price indicator broke down.
Edison died on 18 October 1931 having had a remarkably productive life.
Before long he had 40 different inventions going at the same time and was applying for as many as 400 patents a year.
In time it was surrounded by factories employing 5,000 people and producing many new products.
With this money, he set up as a manufacturer in order to produce electrical machines.
He also created the world''s first industrial research laboratory.
He soon became fascinated with electrical currents and it remained the main interest of his life.
Edison was called in to repair it and he did it so well that he was given a job as supervisor with the Western Union Telegraph Company.