16Hit1600
Information and IdeasVery hardInference about a fortress's builders

Information and Ideas practice question

The fortress's outer wall is built of local sandstone, roughly cut, but its gatehouse is of fine limestone from a quarry three hundred miles away, dressed with a precision found nowhere else in the region. Archaeologists infer that the gatehouse ____

Which choice most logically completes the text?

  1. A. was built by outside craftsmen brought in specially, at greater cost than the rest of the fortress.Correct
  2. B. was built before the outer wall.
  3. C. was made of sandstone painted to look like limestone.
  4. D. was never finished.

Answer: A. was built by outside craftsmen brought in specially, at greater cost than the rest of the fortress.

Distant stone, unmatched skill.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. was built before the outer wall.
Order of building is not indicated.
C. was made of sandstone painted to look like limestone.
The limestone is real and quarried far away.
D. was never finished.
Precision suggests completion.

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