Read the following paragraph from “Katherine Johnson Biography.” In 1962, as NASA prepared for the orbital mission of John Glenn, Katherine Johnson was called upon to do the work that she would become most known for. The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network, linking tracking stations around the world to IBM computers in Washington, DC, Cape Canaveral, and Bermuda. The computers had been programmed with the orbital equations that would control the trajectory of the capsule in Glenn’s Friendship 7 mission, from blast off to splashdown, but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts. As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to “get the girl”—Katherine Johnson—to run the same numbers through the same equations that had been programmed into the computer, but by hand, on her desktop mechanical calculating machine. “If she says they’re good,’” Katherine Johnson remembers the astronaut saying, “then I’m ready to go.” Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space.
Question 1

Part A

What is the author’s point in this paragraph?

The flight of the Friendship 7 mission is made possible by the construction of a worldwide communications network.
John Glenn asks questions about Katherine’s mathematical calculations.
Katherine’s contributions help make the Friendship 7 mission happen and to establish the United States as leaders in space.
Astronauts regularly depend on the calculations made by machines.

Question 2

Part B

What evidence best supports the answer to Part A?

"...but the astronauts were wary of putting their lives in the care of the electronic calculating machines, which were prone to hiccups and blackouts."
"The complexity of the orbital flight had required the construction of a worldwide communications network,..."
"As a part of the preflight checklist, Glenn asked engineers to 'get the girl'..."
"Glenn’s flight was a success, and marked a turning point in the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in space."