Question 1 is about the following passage.

Pencils are writing instruments made from graphite surrounded by a casing. Many students use pencils in school because the graphite can easily be erased from a sheet of paper. Pencils, however, have not always been the way they are today.

Sometime during the 1500s, a lot of graphite was discovered in England. The English found that the graphite could make gray marks and used it to mark their sheep. Soon they realized that graphite could also be used to write on paper. Since graphite is soft and easily broken, they covered it with sheepskin or wrapped it in string.

It was the Italians who thought of putting graphite inside of a wooden casing. An Italian carpenter couple, named Simonio and Lyndiana Bernacotti, originally created a wooden pencil so that they could mark wood while they were working. These pencils were flat and much different from the pencils we have today. Then, an American, named Ebenezer Wood, came up with the modern wooden casing. This casing is a hexagon or octagon. In 1858, erasers would be attached to pencils.

At first, it was believed that only solid graphite could be used for pencils, but the only solid graphite supply is in England. People eventually understood that they could use impure graphite mixed with clay. Also, the original wooden pencil casings were always made from red cedar. When the supply of red cedar started to run out, people realized they could use another kind of cedar as well.