Timed Scanning/Skimming Practice 2 - 4 Questions in 5 minutes.

DIRECTIONS:
THE QUESTIONS IN THIS PRACTICE SET ARE ALL FACTUAL; THEY CAN BE ANSWERED BY MERELY SCANNING THE PASSAGE BELOW LOOKING FOR CLUE-WORDS FROM THE QUESTIONS.
IF IT IS YOUR STRATEGY TO READ THE QUESTIONS BEFORE READING THE PASSAGE YOU CAN DO THAT IN THIS ACTIVITY. JUST SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE AND CLICK START NOW.
IF IT IS YOUR STRATEGY TO READ OR PREVIEW THE PASSAGE BEFORE LOOKING AT THE QUESTIONS, YOU MAY DO SO NOW.

"Moby Dick" was published in 1851 by Richard Bentley of London. Written by Herman Melville, this novel tells the story of a perilous journey of a whaling ship. The crew and its growingly obsessed Captain Ahab embark on an epic expedition to capture Moby Dick, a large, white, sperm whale. Initially, the book received mostly negative reviews from critics, but today it is hailed as one of the finest novels in American literature. The book has become a fixed staple in many public schools across the United States. Although many Americans are familiar with the literary story of Moby Dick, it is less commonly known that Herman Melville based his story around the Essex and Mocha Dick.

The Essex, a Nantucket whaling ship, was attacked in 1820 by a sperm whale weighing 80 tons. The giant sea mammal, dubbed Mocha Dick, hit and sank the Essex 2,000 miles (2,700 km) off the western coast of South America. The event was recorded by Owen Chase, the ship’s first-mate, in the "Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex".

Mocha Dick was a large albino sperm whale that became famous for aggressively ramming into ships without warning or provocation. With its back full of protruding harpoons, souvenirs of prior battles with whaling ships, the creature finally met its demise in the 1830’s. The story of Mocha Dick's nature gained notoriety in an account given in "Knickerbocker Magazine" by Jeremiah N. Reynolds, an American newspaper editor and advocate of scientific exploration. (KRIS)