Passage: Moving through Mountains
Moving through Mountains
An age-old proverb says that necessity is the mother of invention. (2) Centuries of human ingenuity in the face of obstacles prove this to be true. (3) For many years the Swiss Alps, a mountain range spanning southern Switzerland and northern Italy, were such an obstacle. (4) Roads and railways had to navigate around the mountains or through winding tunnels inside the mountains, making the transportation of people and goods difficult and time consuming. (5) In 2016 these burdens were eased with the completion of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. Construction of the high-speed railway tunnel began in 1996.
(7) The tunnel was created through the use of tunnel-boring machines, which are giant drills with a flat rotating head called a cutter head. (8) Each of the tunnel-boring machines used during the construction of the tunnel was about the length of four football fields arranged end-to-end. (9) During the seventeen-year construction period, 28 million tons of rock were removed, enough to rebuild the Great Pyramid of Giza five times. (10) This massive construction project is reported to have cost $12 billion. (11) After that, 4 million cubic meters of concrete, or enough concrete to build eighty-four Empire State Buildings, were used to construct and support the tunnel.
By 2020 the high-speed railway will carry more than 250 freight trains and 55 passenger trains a day, with most traveling at speeds of around 100 to 125 miles per hour. (13) It will be faster for people to travel between northern and southern Europe. (14) The travel time between the European cities of Zurich, Switzerland, and Milan, Italy, will be reduced by an hour. (15) Many European leaders compare the Gotthard Base Tunnel to the Channel Tunnel, a 33-mile underwater tunnel that connects the United Kingdom and France. (16) While there is no roadway in the Channel Tunnel, people can drive their cars onto special trains that will carry vehicles through to the other side.
Just as traffic congestion in major cities led to the construction of underground local transportation, natural formations, such as mountain ranges, have also sent people underground for faster, easier, and cheaper methods of transportation across larger areas. (18) There is renewed interest in constructing innovative methods of transportation that will help eliminate problems associated with traveling to and from certain areas.
Which concluding sentence should be added after sentence 18 to support the topic presented in the passage?
- AThere is proof that underground tunnels such as the Gotthard Base Tunnel are beneficial to the economy of the surrounding area.
- BThe Gotthard Base Tunnel is an extraordinary example of how human ingenuity and persistence can overcome great obstacles.
- CThe completion of the Gotthard Base Tunnel shows that people can work together to achieve important goals.
- DThe Swiss government is confident that the economic impact of the Gotthard Base Tunnel will be worth its construction cost.
Show the answer
Correct answer: B
The answer is (B)
The question asks for a concluding sentence that supports key ideas about the topic developed earlier in the passage.
Option B is correct because it supports the points made in the introductory paragraph by affirming the idea that the Gotthard Base Tunnel is an example of a way people have improved life by overcoming obstacles.
Option A is incorrect because the economies of surrounding areas were never mentioned in the passage.
Option C is incorrect because, although the construction of the Gotthard Base Tunnel appears to have required many people to work together, the passage does not explicitly mention people or groups working together.
Option D is incorrect because it focuses on the cost of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which is referred to only in sentence 10 of the passage.