Exercise 1: Skimming for the main idea

Read the text quickly to get the main idea.

Look at the photos. Which two photos are related to the text?

Exercise 2: Reading for detail

Read the text carefully and decide if the sentences are True or False.

Laika was a Soviet Union space dog. She had been a stray dog living in the streets of Moscow, but she was chosen to be one of the first animals in space. Laika was the first animal to orbit the Earth. The Soviet Union sent her to space to get information about life in a space environment. They launched Laika in the satellite Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957.

In the 1950s, scientists didn’t know very much about how spaceflight would affect living animals.  There was also no way to bring Laika’s satellite back to Earth. The scientists knew that Laika would not survive her trip. Before her trip in Sputnik, one of the scientists took Laika home to play with his children. Dr. Vladimir Yazdovsky said, “I wanted to do something nice for her. She didn’t have much time to live.”

Although Laika died in space, information from her flight led to the discovery of solar and cosmic radiation. However, the scientists later said they were sorry that a dog had died for such a small scientific discovery. On April 11, 2008, Russian officials opened a monument to Laika in Moscow. It is of a dog standing on top of a rocket.