The canal that was never finished
Deciding what a writer is doing, four times, when the content is the same throughout.
Passage
Work on the Ashwell Canal began in 1794 and stopped in 1801, eleven miles short of the river it was meant to reach. The company had raised money on the promise of carrying coal; by 1801 a turnpike road was carrying it more cheaply.
What survives is not a ruin so much as a landscape feature. The cutting still runs through three parishes, dry in summer and holding water after rain. Farmers use its banks as field boundaries, and two of the bridges built for a canal that never opened still carry lanes across it.
It is tempting to call the canal a failure, and by the measure its investors used it was one. But the question of what a thing was for is not always settled by the people who paid for it.
Answers in order, explanations withheld, and a report on where the chain broke.
- 29.1Text structure and purposeStandard
The first paragraph mainly serves to
- Aestablish why the project stopped, which the rest of the text reconsiders.
- Bargue that the investors were poorly advised.
- Cdescribe the engineering of the cutting.
- Dcompare canals with turnpike roads generally.
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establish why the project stopped, which the rest of the text reconsiders.
The paragraph gives dates, a purpose and a cause of failure — the setup the later paragraphs work against. It passes no judgement on the investors and describes no engineering.
- 29.2Words in contextChallenge
Builds on: Question 1's reading that the text is reconsidering the canal's failure — this phrase is where the reconsideration starts.
As used in the second paragraph, what does the phrase "landscape feature" most nearly mean?
- Asomething that has become part of how the land is used
- Ban attractive view worth preserving
- Ca marker showing where a boundary once ran
- Da structure protected by law
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something that has become part of how the land is used
The sentences after it give the evidence: field boundaries and lanes crossing bridges. That is use, not beauty or legal status. The phrase is set against "ruin", which is the thing it is not.
- 29.3Text structure and purposeChallenge
Builds on: The two readings assembled in questions 1 and 2 — the failure and the continued use — which this sentence holds side by side.
The final sentence mainly serves to
- Aseparate two ways of judging the canal without dismissing either.
- Bconclude that the canal was not a failure.
- Ccriticise the investors for their narrow view.
- Dintroduce evidence about the canal's later use.
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separate two ways of judging the canal without dismissing either.
The sentence grants that the canal failed by the investors' measure and then says that measure is not the only one. It neither overturns the first judgement nor blames anyone, and the evidence about later use came earlier.
- 29.4Central ideas and detailsStandard
Builds on: All three earlier readings — the failure, the continued use, and the refusal to let one measure settle the question.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
- AA project that failed on its own terms went on to matter in a way its backers never intended.
- BThe Ashwell Canal was a poorly planned investment.
- CTurnpike roads made canal building uneconomic after 1800.
- DDisused infrastructure should be preserved as landscape.
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A project that failed on its own terms went on to matter in a way its backers never intended.
This is the text's shape in one sentence: failure by the investors' measure, continued significance by another. The second and third choices take single details as the whole, and the last makes a recommendation the text never offers.