Direction:- Each passage below is accompanied by a number of questions. For some questions, you will consider how the passage might be revised to improve the expression of ideas. For other questions, you will consider how the passage might be edited to correct errors in sentence structure, usage, or punctuation. A passage or a question may be accompanied by one or more graphics (such as a table or graph) that you will consider as you make revising and editing decisions.
Some questions will direct you to an underlined portion of a passage. Other questions will direct you to a location in a passage or ask you to think about the passage as a whole.
After reading each passage, choose the answer to each question that most effectively improves the quality of writing in the passage or that makes the passage conform to the conventions of standard written English. Many questions include a “NO CHANGE” option. Choose that option if you think the best choice is to leave the relevant portion of the passage as it is.
A Little to the Left, but Not Too Much!
Italy’s Tower of Pisa has been leaning southward since the initial Q1 stages of it’s construction over 800 years ago. Q2 Indeed, if the tower’s construction had not taken two centuries and involved significant breaks due to war and civil unrest, which allowed the ground beneath the tower to settle, the tower would likely have collapsed before it was completed.
Luckily, the tower survived, and its tilt has made it an Italian Q3 icon, it attracts visitors from all over who flock to Pisa to see one of the greatest architectural Q4 weirdnesses in the world. Q5 By the late twentieth century, the angle of the tower’s tilt had reached an astonishing 5.5 degrees; in Q6 1990, Italy’s government closed the tower to visitors and appointed a committee to find a way to save it.
The committee was charged with saving the tower without ruining its aesthetic, Q7 which no one had yet managed to achieve. The committee’s first attempt to reduce the angle of the tower’s tilt—placing 600 tons of iron ingots (molded pieces of metal) on the tower’s north side to create a counterweight—was derided because the bulky weights ruined the tower’s appearance. The attempt at a less visible solution—sinking anchors into the ground below the tower—almost caused the tower to fall.
[1] Enter committee member John Burland, Q8 he is a geotechnical engineer from England who saved London’s clock tower Big Ben from collapse. [2] Burland began a years-long process of drilling out small amounts of soil from under the tower Q9 that took several years to complete and then monitoring the tower’s resulting movement. [3] Twice daily, Burland evaluated these movements and made recommendations as to how much soil should be removed in the next drilling. [4] By 2001, almost 77 tons of soil had been removed, and the tower’s tilt had decreased by over 1.5 degrees; the ugly iron weights were removed, and the tower was reopened to visitors. [5] Burland Q10 advocated using soil extraction: removing small amounts of soil from under the tower’s north side, opposite its tilt, to enable gravity to straighten the tower. Q11
The tower’s tilt has not increased since, and the committee is confident that the tower will be safe for another 200 years. Burland is now working on a more permanent solution for keeping the tower upright, but he is adamant that the tower never be completely straightened. In an interview with PBS’s Nova, Burland explained that it is very important “that we don’t really change the character of the monument. That would be quite wrong and quite inappropriate.”