(The passage you'd have to read to be able to answer these questions) Commander Suni Williams

by Margo Carlin

1 As 5-year-old Sunita “Suni” Williams watched Neil Armstrong’s
fascinating moon walk on television, she thought, “That’s what I
would like to do.” While she never thought of moon walking as a
realistic career goal, Williams’ story proves that we can’t always
know where our path is going to lead us. If we believe in ourselves,
though, we’ll end up in the right place.
2 Williams’ career path was far from predictable. She says she
was just an “okay” high school student. Because her brother had
gone to the U. S. Naval Academy, she was drawn there, too.
3 Williams graduated from the Naval Academy and trained to
become a Navy helicopter test pilot. Listening to a former
astronaut talk about flying a helicopter as preparation for flying a
moon lander, a light bulb went on in Williams’s head. It dawned
on her that her helicopter training could be her ticket to space.
She realized: “The only one who’s telling me I’m not going to be
an astronaut is me.”
4 Williams eventually trained to become a member of the
International Space Station crew, where she served as flight
engineer and set a new record for women in space. Another first:
She “ran” the Boston Marathon—on a space station treadmill.
5 Williams believes there is a message for young people in
learning about the twists and turns that led to her space station
adventure. “Maybe you want something, but you get something
else. But if you make the best of it, things sorta work out.”

(Questions)
1 Which sentence best captures a central idea of the biography?
A Career paths are not always easy to identify and follow.
B Suni Williams did not face any difficult challenges in her career.
C The career path chosen by Suni Williams was very predictable.
D People should never change their career path.

2 Which sentence from the biography best captures a second central
idea of the text?
A “She says she was just an “okay” high school student.”
B “It dawned on her that her helicopter training could be her ticket
to space.”
C ““The only one who’s telling me I’m not going to be an astronaut
is me.””
D “Williams eventually trained to become a member of the
International Space Station crew, where she served as flight
engineer and set a new record for women in space.”

3 Describe one central idea about Suni Williams’ life. List at least three
details from the text that support this idea.