[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-486916-105":59,"doc-detail-486916-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","harry-houdini-and-halloween-486916","Harry Houdini and Halloween","","Narrative passage about Harry Houdini’s rise as the most celebrated escape artist and his shift into exposing “spirit mediums.” It describes his investigations during the post–World War I era, the cruelty of exploiting grief, and his personal longing to contact his mother. The text explains how Houdini and Bess used a secret code word, the tradition that followed his death on Halloween in 1926, and the enduring lesson: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":15,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/harry-houdini-and-halloween-486916/486916/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/harry-houdini-and-halloween-486916/486916.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"acoobca","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-12","2026-09-30",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":44},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What central idea does the passage develop across the story?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Houdini became famous as an escape artist but also left a lasting lesson about skepticism—extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What did Houdini find at every seance he investigated?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"He found wires, hidden assistants, and clever sleight of hand rather than proof of genuine communication with the dead.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Why did Houdini keep attending seances even after exposing fakes?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"He kept searching because he wanted to believe someone could reach the dead and still longed to speak with his beloved mother.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},486916,1790977393,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":14,"category_name":15,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":44,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":39,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},3985747870733,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","Here's a puzzle worthy of a magician: how does a man become more famous for the way he died than for anything he did while alive? Meet Harry Houdini, the most celebrated escape artist who ever lived, a performer who could slip out of handcuffs, straitjackets, and locked boxes as if the metal simply gave up. Picture a small, muscular man dangling upside down from a crane above a crowded street, wrapped in a straitjacket, twisting free while thousands gasped below. His real name was Erik Weisz, and he was born in Hungary in 1874 before his family moved to the United States. By the 1920s, his name was practically a synonym for the impossible.  \nThat word \"impossible\" is exactly what got Houdini into his second, lesser-known career. In the years after World War I, grieving families flocked to \"spirit mediums\" who claimed they could contact the dead fora fee. Houdini, who knew every trick in the book because he used them onstage, was furious that these performers preyed on people's sorrow. He began attending seances in disguise, then leaping up to expose how the medium made a table \"float\" or produced a ghostly voice. A magician, it turned out, was the perfect person to catch a fake magician.  \nCatching fakes was one thing, but Houdini had a personal reason to keep looking. He desperately wanted to believe someone could reach the dead, because he longed to speak with his beloved mother again. In every seance, though, he found only wires, hidden assistants, and clever sleight of hand rather than proof. So he made a plan with his wife, Bess: they agreed on a secret code word that only the two of them knew. If he could send that word back from beyond the grave, it would be evidence no trickster could fake.  \nThat code word became the heart of a strange yearly tradition after Houdini died on Halloween in 1926, from peritonitis caused by a ruptured appendix. For ten years, Bess held a seance on the anniversary of his death, waiting for the secret message to come through. It never did, and in 1936 she finally blew out the candle she had kept burning for him, saying ten years was long enough to wait. Yet fans refused to let the ritual end, and \"Official Houdini Seances\" are still held on Halloween in different cities to this day. Each year the message stays silent, which is perhaps the most fitting trick of all from a man who spent his life proving that silence means the trick simply hasn't been explained yet.  \nWhy should a magician's empty mailbox from beyond still matter to you? Because Houdini left behind something sturdier than any illusion: a way of thinking. He insisted that extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence, and that wanting something to be true is not the same as it being true. When you see a headline promising a miracle cure or a video swearing something is real, you are using Houdini's tools whether you know it or not. Not bad for a man whose greatest unsolved mystery is whether he ever escaped at all.  \nHarry Houdini and Halloween  \nName:  \n\n| Solve each problem.\u003Cbr>Use the article to answer the question.\u003Cbr>1) What is the central idea developed across this passage?\u003Cbr>A. Houdini became famous only because he happened to die on the Halloween holiday.\u003Cbr>B. Houdini used his skills as a magician to expose fakes and left behind a lesson about demanding evidence.\u003Cbr>C. Houdini invented most of the escape tricks that magicians still perform on stages today.\u003Cbr>D. Houdini spent his final years learning how real mediums truly contact the dead. |  |  |  |  | Answers\u003Cbr>1.  \u003Cbr>2.  \u003Cbr>3.  \u003Cbr>4.  \u003Cbr>5.   |  |  |  |  |  |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| 2) According to the passage, what did Houdini find at every seance he investigated?\u003Cbr>A. Cameras, notebooks, and other magicians studying the same tricks.\u003Cbr>B. Empty rooms, locked doors, and mediums who refused to perform.\u003Cbr>C. Genuine voices, floating objects, and messages from real spirits.\u003Cbr>D. Wires, hidden assistants, and ","cbCaib4hKFGFtfEl","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaib4hKFGFtfEl","pdf",119796,"English","# Solve each problem\n## Questions 1-7","[{\"question\":\"What central idea does the passage develop across the story?\",\"answer\":\"Houdini became famous as an escape artist but also left a lasting lesson about skepticism—extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.\"},{\"question\":\"What did Houdini find at every seance he investigated?\",\"answer\":\"He found wires, hidden assistants, and clever sleight of hand rather than proof of genuine communication with the dead.\"},{\"question\":\"Why did Houdini keep attending seances even after exposing fakes?\",\"answer\":\"He kept searching because he wanted to believe someone could reach the dead and still longed to speak with his beloved mother.\"}]","Harry Houdini and Halloween | PDF",1790807424,12]