Light reading. 1. Translate the following text from English into Russian

III. Writing Section

1. Translate the following text from English into Russian. Find the sentence with the passive construction.

A new form of City transport?

The Segway is the world’s first self-balancing human transporter. It is quite stable on two wheels and runs on ordinary household electricity at the speed of 12 mph having the range of 15 miles. Four major elements of the Segway include the wheel and motor assembly, the sensor system, the circuit board brain and the operator control system. Balancing is controlled by a solid-state silicon gyroscope* system, which passes all tilt information to the two electronic controller circuit boards comprising 10 onboard microprocessors, which in total are three times as powerful as a typical PC. Their function is to adjust the speed of several electric motors according to the stability information. The motors, powered by a pair of rechargeable nickel metal hydride (NIMH) batteries, can turn each of the wheels independently at variable speeds. When the vehicle leans forward or backward, the motors spin both wheels forward or backward accordingly to keep from tilting over. When the rider operates the handlebar control to turn left or right, the motors spin one wheel faster than the other, or spin the wheels in opposite directions, so that the vehicle rotates. The machine is unlikely to replace the car but it is a superior option for the city.

* A basic gyroscope is a spinning wheel inside a stable frame. A spinning object resists changes to its axis of rotation. As the point of applied force moves along with the object itself, it ends up applying force on opposite ends of the wheel – the force balances itself out and the gyroscope maintains the stable position.

Edison’s First Invention

When Edison was a boy of fifteen, he worked as a telegraph operator. He had to be on duty from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.¹ and give a signal every hour to prove that he did not sleep. The signals were made with astonishing exactness. One night an inspector arrived and saw Edison sleeping in a chair.

He was about² to shake him when he caught sight³ of a mechanism on a table near the telegraph instrument. He waited to see what would happen. When the hand of the clock pointed to the hour, the instrument got busy⁴ and one lever threw open the key while the other sent the signal over the wire.

The inspector seized the sleeping boy, roused him and “fired”⁵ him. That is why the first of Edison’s numerous inventions was never patented.

¹ p.m. – после полудня, днём, вечером; a.m. – до полудня, утром

² was about – собирался, намеревался

³ to catch sight – увидеть

⁴ to get busy – зд. заработать, начать действовать

⁵ to “fire” – зд. выгнать, уволить

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