Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 36 to 42.
Amelia Earhart was born in Kansas in 1897. Thirty-one years later, she received a phone call that would change her life. She was invited to become the first woman passenger to cross the Atlantic Ocean in a plane. The flight took more than 20 hours – about three times longer than it routinely takes today to cross the Atlantic by plane. Earhart was twelve years old before she ever saw an airplane, and she didn’t take her first flight until 1920. But she was so thrilled by her first experience in a plane that she quickly began to take flying lessons. She wrote, “As soon as I left the ground, I knew I myself had to fly.”
After that flight, Earhart became a media sensation. She was given a ticker tape parade down Broadway in New York and even President Coolidge called to congratulate her. Because her record, breaking career and physical appearance, were similar to pioneering pilot and American hero Charles Lindbergh, she earned the nickname “Lady Lindy.” She wrote a book about her flight across the Atlantic, called 20 Hrs, 40 Min.
Earhart continued to break records, and also polished her skills as a speaker and writer, always advocating women’s achievements, especially in aviation. Her next goal was to achieve a transatlantic crossing alone. In 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first person to make a solo nonstop flight across the Atlantic. Five years later, Earhart became the first woman to repeat that feat. Her popularity grew even more, and she was the undisputed queen of the air. She then wanted to fly around the world, and in June 1973 she left Miami with Fred Noonan as her navigator. No one knows why she left behind important communication and navigation instruments. Perhaps it was to make room for additional fuel for the long flight. The pair made it to New Guinea in 21 days and then left for Howland Island, a tiny island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The last communication from Earhart and Noonan was on July 2, 1937 with a nearby Coast Guard ship. The United States Navy conducted a massive search for more than two weeks but no trace of the plane or its passengers was ever found. Many people believe they got lost simply ran out of fuel and died.
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