the roller coaster was born more than 125 years ago

Editing
Riders of the Switchback Railway
(left) at New York's Coney
Island in the late 1800s were
perfectly thrilled by the coaster.
What would they have thought
about the X2 at California's Six
Flags Magic Mountain (below)?
THE ROLLER COASTER WAS BORN MORE THAN 125 YEARS AGO
DIRECTIONS: Read the following article, which
contains many dreadful mistakes. Then foUow the
prompts in the hox on page 17.
O
On a scorching June day in 1884 a crowd gathered at
New York City's Coney Island amusement park. They
were there to see a brand-new invention the roller coaster.
The Switchback Railway, as it was called began atop a
50-foot-high, platform. Riders sat facing sideways in
benchlike cars that rolled down a hilly 600-foot, track and
then up the other side, at a speed of 6 miles per hour.
It cost a nickel to ride the Switchback—a steap
price at the time. Still, people could hardely wait
to tcike a spin on the contraption. One onlooker recalled
O
16
SCHOLASnC SCOPE • JANUARY 10, 2011
feeling "nauseous but exited" while watching the test run.
The Switchback's creator, LeMarcus Thompson, is
a successful businessperson v^ith a background in
carpentry and a passion for invention. While working on
the Svi^tchback, he researches the 80-foot-tall ice-covered
slides Russians are enjoying in the 1600s. He also used
the Mauch Chunk Switchback Railway in Pennsylvania
as a model. This 9-mile railway, originally used for
transporting coal, will reopen as a passenger-carrying
tourist attraction in 1873.
It took a 7,000-person crew four years to build it,
at a cost of $ 1,600. It was made back within the first
three weeks of its operation. He became known as the
O
WE LOVE THIS STORY. TOO BAD WE COULDN'T BE
BOTHERED TO EDIT IT! WILL YOU FIX IT FOR US?
Father of Gravity. Over the next four years, he built about
50 more roller coasters around the country.
Thompson's innovation set off a roller coaster
construction boom. Competitors fought to erect
coasters that were increasingly faster and more daring.
By the 1920s, there were more than 2,000 worldwide. The
oldest amusement park in the United States is Lake
(lompounce, in Bristol, Connecticut.
Today, roller coasters are as popular as ever—and
likely beyond the wildest dreams of early coaster
tans. The X2 at Six Flags Magic Mountain in Valencia,
California, has seats that rotate 360 degrees as it whips
through tunnelsfilledwith sound, fog, and flashing
FIND IT/FIX IT
lights. The
movie National
Lampoon's
Vacation was
filmed at Magic
Mountain. The Kingda
Ka at Six Flags in Jackson, New Jersey, rockets 456 feet
into the air. And the new Formula Rossa, at Ferrari World
in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, hits top speeds of
149 mph—so fast that riders must wear goggles.
Compared to modern coasters, the Switchback Railway
may seem terribly tame. But for visitors to Coney Island
in the summer of 1884, it was the ride of a lifetime! •
DIRECTIONS: Can you find and fix the following errors in the
article? Write your answers on your own paper.
PARAGRAPH 1 has some punctuation problems. There are two missing commas, two extra commas,
and one missing colon.
PARAGRAPH 2 has three spelling mistakes.
PARAGRAPH 3 is suffering from some verb-tense errors. Can you find four mistakes? Hint: Every
sentence in this paragraph should be written in the same tense as the rest ofthe article.
PARAGRAPH 4 is confusing, thanks to some ambiguous pronouns. It's hard to know what or whom
they refer to. Can you straighten things out?
Hint: Ask yourself what took four years to build,
what was made back within three weeks of
CONTEST
what's operation, and who became known as
A Scope Challenge!
the Father of Gravity.
Show us your edited version of the
article. Send it to COASTER CONTEST
by February 15, 2011. Five winners
(with correct answers) will get a Scope
notebook. See page 2 for details.
PARAGRAPHS 5 AND 6 each contain one
sentence that does not relate to the main idea.
Draw lines through those
two sneaky sentences.
GET THIS
ACTIVITY
TAKE THIS ACTIVITY FURTHER! GO TO SCOPE ONLINE.
ONLINE
SCH0LASTIC.COM/SC0PE • JANUARY 10, 2011
1 7
Copyright of Scholastic Scope is the property of Scholastic Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to
multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users
may print, download, or email articles for individual use.