Sadlier-Oxford VOCABULARY WORKSHOP SAT Practice Worksheet
PASSAGE-BASED READING
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Level B Unit 2
Name
Date
Questions 1-4 are based on the following
passage.
the case of his own tower, history seems to have
proved Monsieur Eiffel correct.
Read the passage and the questions below.
Then choose the letter of the best answer for
each question.
1. According to the writer, when was the Eiffel
Tower completed?
The Eiffel Tower in Paris is many things: a
wonder of structural engineering, an icon of
France’s capital city, and one of the world’s most
popular tourist destinations. The tower was
constructed for the International Exposition of
1889, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of the
French Revolution. The competition for a suitable
monument attracted more than 100 entries. The
jury unanimously awarded the commission to
Gustave Eiffel, who had distinguished himself as
an engineer of bridges.
Nothing like Eiffel’s design had ever been built
before. His plan called for a 984-foot tower
constructed almost entirely of open-lattice
wrought iron. It took 300 steel workers two years
to build the tower, which contained 15,000 pieces
of iron, not counting rivets. When completed, it
was twice as high as the dome of St. Peter’s
Basilica in Rome or of the Great Pyramid of Giza
in Egypt. In fact, the tower remained the tallest
man-made structure in the world for over forty
years, until the completion of New York City’s
Chrysler Building in 1930. Opened on schedule in
1889, the Eiffel Tower served as the entrance
gateway to the exposition. One of its most exotic
features was the glass-cage elevators that ascended
the four great piers on a curved path. From the
very beginning, tourists loved it.
Curiously, however, during the construction
process the tower was a lightning rod for harsh
protests. Criticism amounting almost to abuse
poured in from the world of literature and the arts.
Figures such as the opera composer Charles
Gounod, the writers Guy de Maupassant and
Émile Zola, and the architect Charles Garnier
denounced the tower as an eyesore that would
plague the capital for years to come if it were built.
One critic likened the tower to an “iron
gymnasium apparatus, incomplete, confused, and
deformed”; another scorned its shape as that of a
factory chimney.
For his part, Gustave Eiffel mildly replied that
he believed the tower “would possess its own
beauty.” In an interview with a Paris newspaper in
1887, he declared, “There is an attraction in the
colossal, and a singular delight in which ordinary
theories of art are scarcely applicable.” At least in
(A) 1776
(B) 1789
(C) 1887
(D) 1889
(E) 1914
2. As an engineer, Gustave Eiffel had established
his reputation as a builder of
(A) country houses
(B) war monuments
(C) libraries
(D) bridges
(E) railway stations
3. The writer probably includes the comparisons
of the Eiffel Tower with St. Peter’s in Rome and
the Great Pyramid in Egypt in order to
(A) suggest that the Eiffel Tower has
international appeal
(B) hint that the Eiffel Tower can rank
with two leading tourist destinations
(C) emphasize the unparalleled height of
the Eiffel Tower for its day
(D) draw attention to the pioneering use
of wrought iron in the Eiffel Tower
(E) refute the arguments of those who
claimed that building the Eiffel Tower
would be a mistake
4. In paragraph 3, the word plague means
(A) epidemic
(B) pestilence
(C) debase
(D) vex
(E) boon
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