Also in 2024 Test B English, question 14; 2026 Practice Test D English, question 45.
Passage Moving through Mountains
Moving through Mountains
(1) 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.
(6) 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.
(12) 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.
(17) 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.
Question
Which transition phrase should be added to the beginning of sentence 18?
- AAlthough the Gotthard Base Tunnel is mainly for freight trains
- BWith the Gotthard Base Tunnel taking ten years to complete
- CBecause of the successful completion of the Gotthard Base Tunnel
- DAs the number of trains using the Gotthard Base Tunnel increases
Show the answer
Correct answer: C
The answer is (C)
The question asks for a transition that bridges the ideas between sentences 17 and 18 and accurately presents the relationship.
Option C is correct because it bridges the sentences by referring to the Gotthard Base Tunnel as a solution to the problems described in sentence 17 and logically introducing sentence 18.
Option A is incorrect because the use of the word “although” and the mention of freight trains suggest that sentence 18 will be about other types of vehicles that use the Gotthard Base Tunnel, and the transition phrase does not logically precede the sentence.
Option B is incorrect because the reference to the amount of time it took to build the tunnel does not help lead into the idea presented in sentence 18.
Option D is incorrect because it suggests that sentence 18 is related to the increasing number of trains using the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which is not accurate.
Question analysis
This revising question asks which introductory phrase should begin the last sentence of a passage about the Gotthard Base Tunnel, linking it to the idea before it. All four phrases are grammatical and mention the tunnel, so students must work out the logical relationship between the two sentences and check each phrase against the facts given earlier.
- NYS standards
- 7W2d transitions in informative writing
- Grade level
- Grade 7 reading and task
- Compared with grade 7
- At grade 7 Choosing a transition that shows how two ideas relate is a core grade 7 writing skill. The two sentences involved are short and the vocabulary is plain, so this is typical classroom revision work.
- Estimated difficulty
- Straightforward: two steps or one careful reading.
- Thinking it demands
- Depth of knowledge 2, skills and concepts · mainly evaluate
- What makes it hard
- How sentences fit together moderate
- Every choice must be checked minor
- Evidence
- Answered from one paragraph or stanza
- Reading level
- Passage: about grade 11, 362 words; question and choices: about grade 6, 52 words.
- Students, last 30 days
- Not enough answers yet to show (it takes 10).
Why it is hard, traps and wrong answers (shows the answer)
Why it is hard
The task is to see that renewed interest is a result, which calls for an opener that names a cause. Phrases that are merely true of the tunnel, or that tie interest to growing traffic, read smoothly and slip past students who do not test the logic. One opener also gives the construction time as ten years, which careful readers can reject against the seventeen-year period in sentence 9.
How sentences fit together moderate Working it out
Sentence 17 widens the view from this tunnel to tunnels in general, and sentence 18 reports renewed interest, so the opener has to name what caused that interest. (Halliday & Hasan, 1976)
Every choice must be checked minor Choosing the answer
All four openers are grammatical and name the Gotthard Base Tunnel, so each has to be read into sentence 18 and checked against facts given earlier in the passage. (Embretson & Wetzel, 1987)
Strategy: Read sentences 17 and 18 together and decide how they are connected: by contrast, by time, or by cause. Then choose the opening that expresses that link and fits facts already stated.
Traps
- Wrong transition: A connecting word or phrase that signals the wrong relationship, such as contrast where the idea continues.
The wrong answers, classified
A Wrong transition (Halliday & Hasan, 1976)
Likes the accurate freight detail from sentence 12, but “Although” promises a contrast, and nothing in sentence 18 runs against the tunnel being mainly for freight.
B Wrong transition (Halliday & Hasan, 1976)
Accepts a time detail that explains nothing about renewed interest and gets the time wrong, since sentence 9 gives a seventeen-year construction period.
D Wrong transition (Halliday & Hasan, 1976)
Senses that sentence 18 needs a cause but names growing train traffic, a plausible link the passage never makes, when the interest follows from the tunnel's completion.
Working it out, step by step
Figure out what the question asks
A transition is a word or phrase that links two ideas. Some show contrast, like although. Some show time, like then. Some show cause, like because. You need the opening for sentence 18 that shows how it links to sentence 17.
Read sentences 17 and 18 together
Sentence 17 says mountain ranges “have also sent people underground for faster, easier, and cheaper methods of transportation across larger areas.” Sentence 18 says: “There is renewed interest in constructing innovative methods of transportation.” Renewed interest means people care about something again. Innovative means new and creative.
Decide how the ideas connect
Why would people care about new kinds of travel again? Because the whole passage just showed a tunnel that worked. It solved the mountain problem. So sentence 18 is a result. The opening should name the cause.
Check each choice
- C, “Because of the successful completion of the Gotthard Base Tunnel,” names the cause. The tunnel’s success led to new interest.
- A starts with “Although,” which signals a contrast. Nothing in sentence 18 goes against the tunnel being for freight.
- B gives the building time, which doesn’t explain new interest. It is also wrong. Sentence 9 says the work took seventeen years, not ten.
- D names more trains as the cause. The passage never makes that link.
Watch out: D also sounds like a cause, so it is the most tempting wrong choice.
Pick the answer
The new sentence reads: Because of the successful completion of the Gotthard Base Tunnel, there is renewed interest in… So the answer is C.
Why this answer and not the closest wrong one
D is the closest wrong answer, because it also gives a cause. But the passage never says the number of trains made people interested. The tunnel’s success is what the whole passage builds up to, so C links the ideas best.
More questions like this
The original DOE question
The passage “Moving through Mountains” as printed (page 48)
