A Short History of Nearly Everything

Also, as a writer, Bryson is a master of tone and it's impossible to read this without being infected by his enthusiasm. He writes like a good friend, sharing his joy, and as a lesson for student writers this is invaluable. Writing clearly and succinctly doesn't mean writing without character; writing intelligently doesn't mean writing dull prose.

The collection here contains six selected extracts from Bryson's book, with topics ranging from the life of Newton to the life of cells to the life of Henry Cavendish, who weighted the world in the 1797. Each piece comes with comprehension questions, vocabulary exercises and (most) have a creative writing task. They are perfect for cover work, homework or in-class reading.

There is an example paper below - this is the shortest in the collection -
or you can download all six by clicking here

A Short History of Nearly Everything, Pub. Black Swan, 2003  

By Bill Bryson   

In the early 1680s, at just about the time that Henry Cavendish was first preparing to weigh the Earth, on the island of Mauritius, far out in the Indian Ocean, some eight hundred miles off the east coast of Madagascar, some forgotten sailor or sailor's pet was harrying to death the last of the dodos. This famously flightless bird’s dim but trusting nature and lack of leggy zip made it a rather irresistible target for bored young lads on shore leave. Millions of years of peaceful isolation had not prepared it for the erratic behaviour of human beings.  

We don't know precisely the circumstances, or even year, attending the last moments of the last dodo, so we don't know which arrived first: a world that knew its own weight or one that had no dodos; but only know that they happened at more or less the same time. You would be hard pressed, I believe, to find a better pairing of occurrences to illustrate the divine and downright nasty nature of the human being—an organism that is capable of unpicking the deepest secrets of the heavens while at the same time pounding into extinction, for no purpose at all, a creature that did us no harm and wasn't even remotely capable of understanding what we were doing to it. Indeed, dodos were so spectacularly short on insight, or so astonishingly desirous of being helpful, that, it is reported, if you wished to find all the dodos in a vicinity you had only to catch one and set it to squawking, and all the others would waddle along to see what was up.  

The indignities to the poor dodo didn't end quite there. In 1755, some seventy years after the last dodo's death, the director of the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford decided that the institution's stuffed dodo was becoming unpleasantly musty and ordered it tossed on a bonfire. This was a surprising decision as it was by this time the only dodo in existence, stuffed or otherwise. A passing employee, aghast, tried to rescue the bird but could save only its head and part of one limb. That is now all that remains of a bird that lived into modern times and required nothing of us to survive except our absence.  

Over the past few thousand years, animal populations have disappeared hand in hand with the progress of humankind. Some of the creatures that were lost were spectacular and would take a little managing if they were still around. Imagine ground sloths that could look into an upstairs window, tortoises nearly the size of a small Fiat, monitor lizards twenty feet long basking beside desert highways in Western Australia. Alas, they are gone and we live on a much diminished planet. Today, across the whole world, only four types of really hefty land animals survive: elephants, rhinos, hippos, and giraffes. Not for tens of millions of years has life on Earth been so tame.  

The question that arises is whether the disappearances of the Stone Age and the disappearances of more recent times are, in effect, part of a single extinction event—whether, in short, humans are inherently bad news for other living things. The sad likelihood is that we probably are. According to the University of Chicago palaeontologist David Raup, the background rate of extinction on Earth throughout biological history has been one species lost every four years on average. According to one recent calculation, human-caused extinction now may be running as much as 120,000 times that level. 

Where did the last known dodo live?  

A. Madagascar
B. East coast of Africa
C. Indian Ocean
D. Mauritius 

Why were dodos such easy targets for humans?  

A. They were aggressive.
B. They lived in large, visible flocks.
C. They were trusting and lacked speed.
D. They had valuable feathers. 

What happened to the last stuffed dodo?  

A. It was lost at sea.
B. It was stolen from the Ashmolean Museum.
C. It was thrown on a bonfire.
D. It was sold to a private collector. 

What remains of the last stuffed dodo today?  

A. Only its feathers.
B. Sections of the torso and head.
C. Its entire body.
D. Nothing at all. 

What is the main idea of the passage?  

A. The dodo was an aggressive bird.
B. Humans have caused many animal extinctions.
C. Humans cannot co-exist with animals.
D. The dodo was important to the ecosystem. 

What does the author suggest about human impact on animal extinction?  

A. Humans have always been bad for other animals.
B. Humans have little impact.
C. Modern humans accidentally cause extinction.
D. Human-caused extinctions are a recent phenomenon. 

Which large animals are mentioned as surviving today?  

A. Dinosaurs
B. Giant tortoises and monitor lizards
C. Lions, tigers, and bears
D. Elephants, rhinos, hippos, and giraffes 

What comparison is made about extinction rates?  

A. They have decreased over time.
B. They are many times higher due to humans.
C. They are the same as in the Stone Age.
D. They were higher in the past. 

What does the author mean by "we live on a much diminished planet"?  

A. The planet is less exciting than before.
B. The planet is smaller than it used to be.
C. Humans have stopped exploring the planet.
D. The Earth's landmasses have shrunk. 

Vocabulary

Aghast Harried Erratic Desirous Illustrate Extinction Diminished Indignities Palaeontologist Spectacularly

Vocabulary 

______________________ - Persistently carry out attacks on. 

______________________ - Not even or regular in pattern or movement; unpredictable. 

______________________ - Provide (a book, newspaper, etc.) with pictures. 

______________________ - Treatment that cause one to feel shame or to lose one's self-respect. 

______________________ - Filled with horror or shock. 

______________________ - The process by which the last of a species are killed off. 

______________________ - A scientist who studies fossils. 

______________________ - Made smaller or less. 

______________________ - Having or characterized by desire. 

______________________ - In an impressive, dramatic, or eye-catching way. 

Creative Writing Tasks 

• Imagine you are one of the sailors on Mauritius in the 1680s. Write a diary entry describing your encounter with a dodo and your reflections on it. 

• Create a short story set in a future where humans have to travel back in time to rescue an extinct creature. 

• Write a persuasive essay arguing whether or not humans have a responsibility to prevent the extinction of endangered species, using examples from the passage and your own research.