Learn about space scientist Carl Sagan through this reading comprehension worksheet designed to improve literacy skills.
Carl Sagan — Reading Comprehension Practice
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Read the passage, then try the questions. Every answer is somewhere in the text above them — if you are not sure, go back and look rather than guessing.
The passage
Carl Sagan was an astronomer, author, and science communicator who inspired millions of people to look up at the night sky with wonder. Born in Brooklyn, New York on November 9, 1934, he fell in love with the stars as a young child after his parents took him to the 1939 World's Fair, where he saw exhibits about the wonders of science.
Sagan earned his doctorate in astronomy from the University of Chicago and spent most of his career at Cornell University. He contributed to many NASA space missions, including the Voyager, Viking, and Mariner missions. He helped design the messages placed on the Voyager spacecraft — messages meant to communicate with any extraterrestrial intelligence that might find them.
Sagan was passionate about the search for extraterrestrial life. He co-founded the SETI Institute (Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) and wrote scientific papers arguing that life might exist elsewhere in the universe. He believed the cosmos was full of possibility.
He is perhaps best known for his television series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, broadcast in 1980. Watched by over 500 million people in 60 countries, it remains one of the most-watched documentary series in history. His phrase ‘We are made of star stuff’ — meaning the atoms in our bodies were forged in stars — captured the poetry of science.
Sagan was also a gifted writer. His novel Contact was made into a film, and his non-fiction book Pale Blue Dot reflected on a famous photograph of Earth taken by Voyager 1 from 6 billion kilometres away. Carl Sagan showed the world that science and wonder go hand in hand.
Question 1
Where was Carl Sagan born?
Brooklyn, New York. Chicago and Cornell both appear in the passage, but as the places he studied and worked — not where he was born. Distractors are often words that really are in the text.
Question 2
How many people watched Cosmos?
Over 500 million, in 60 countries. The passage also mentions 6 billion kilometres and the year 1980 — when a question asks for a number, check which number it wants.
Question 3 — select all that apply
Select every NASA mission the passage says Sagan contributed to, then press Check.
Voyager, Viking and Mariner. Apollo, Hubble and Galileo are real NASA projects, but the passage does not mention them — and in a comprehension question, what matters is what the text says, not what you happen to know.
Question 4
What did Sagan mean by ‘We are made of star stuff’?
The passage explains it directly: the atoms in our bodies were forged in stars. The other options sound poetic, which is exactly why reading the explanation beside the phrase matters.
Question 5
What does SETI stand for?
The passage gives it in brackets the first time it uses the name. Writers usually do that — when you meet an acronym, look just after it.
Question 6 — put them in order
Click these in order, from earliest to latest.
1934 → 1939 → 1980. All three years are stated in the passage. He was five when the World's Fair sparked his interest, and Cosmos came more than forty years later.
Question 7
Which of Sagan's books reflected on a photograph of Earth taken from 6 billion kilometres away?
Pale Blue Dot — the non-fiction one. Contact was his novel and was made into a film, and Cosmos was the television series. The passage names all three, so the question is really asking you to keep them apart.
Think about it — from the worksheet
What was the Cosmos television series, and why was it so significant?
What message did Sagan help place on the Voyager spacecraft, and why?
What did Sagan mean when he said ‘We are made of star stuff’?
The passage says Sagan was a scientist, an author and a communicator. Why might the third of those have mattered as much as the first two?