Word: instrument
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...schools began systematic testing of students and concluded that the curriculum was too hard. "They made the curriculum easier," says Chall, "and they made it easier, and they made it easier." The principal target was the textbook, which provides from 75% to 90% of the curriculum content. A key instrument was a set of readability formulas designed to measure the difficulty of a text. Most of the formulas are based on three factors: word length, sentence length and the number of uncommon words. For example, a 15-word sentence or a three-syllable word may be rated too tough...
...work weeks-figuring, designing, double-checking and, as it turned out, sometimes starting over. At the same time, NASA was preparing for another rescue, the repair in space of the Solar Maximum Mission scientific satellite damaged in 1980. The space agency set out to fix the sophisticated $75 million instrument on the eleventh shuttle flight last April. But Astronaut George Nelson was unable to grasp the Solar Max with a device mounted on the arms of his backpack. An alternate technique worked, but the failed grappler plan had to be abandoned. In June, Astronaut Dale Gardner, who would be part...
Benet says that contact with fellow harpists through competitions and lessons is essential to improving her skill. "It's such an unusual instrument that you need to know people who play to help you with your problems...
...small number of committed harpists to play with and learn from is only one of the difficulties involved with taking up the complex instrument. The harp, with its 46 strings and seven foot pedals, has only existed in its modern form since the late nineteenth century, so only a limited supply of old music is available. Some masters, like Handel and Mozart, have composed music for a more primitive version of the harp, but Benet explains that repertoire can be a problem because "a lot of composers write their token harp concerto and that...
...size and cost of the instrument are also formidable obstacles. Benet has three harps: she keeps her $17,000 model with its gold-plated column at home in San Francisco; the second, worth $13,000, she brings to school; and the third, a much, much smaller replica, dangles from a gold chain around her neck...