Information and IdeasMediumMain idea about a persistent error
Information and Ideas practice question
The map printed in every guidebook to the region shows a lake that does not exist. It was copied from an 1820 survey whose maker, unable to reach a marshy valley, drew a lake there as a guess; later mapmakers copied him, and their successors copied them, and the lake has now outlived two centuries of visitors who never found it.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- A. A guessed feature on an early map has been copied for two hundred years despite never existing.Correct
- B. The lake dried up in the nineteenth century.
- C. Modern guidebooks have corrected the error.
- D. The 1820 surveyor visited the valley.
Answer: A. A guessed feature on an early map has been copied for two hundred years despite never existing.
Guessed, copied, and copied again: a phantom lake.
Why the other answers are wrong
- B. The lake dried up in the nineteenth century.
- It never existed.
- C. Modern guidebooks have corrected the error.
- 'Every guidebook' still shows it.
- D. The 1820 surveyor visited the valley.
- He was 'unable to reach' it.
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