Paragraph # 1

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Paragraph # 1

Wood has long been a popular building material in North America because it has generally been plentiful and cheap. Swedish settlers in Delawere built log cabins as early as the 1630s. In New England, British colonists built wooden "saltbox houses." Most of the wooden homes of Colonial times could be built with simple tools and minimal skills. In the early nineteenth century, the standard wooden house was built with beams set into heavy posts and held together with wooden pegs. This method of construction was time consuming and required highly skilled workers with special tools. The balloon-fame house, invented in 1833 in Chicago by a carpenter from Hartford, Connecticut, used a framework of lightweight lumber, mostly 2x4 and 2x6 inches. This type of house could be assembled by any careful worker who could saw in a straight line and drive a nail. This revolution in building was made possible by improved sawmills that could quickly cut boards to standard sizes and the lower cost of lumber that resulted. There were also new machines that could produce huge quantities of inexpensive nails. Skeptics predicted that a strong wind would send such houses flying through the air like balloons and at first " balloon frame" was a term of derision. But the light frames proved practical, and wooden houses have been basically built this way ever since.

1. What is the main purpose of this passage?:

A) to trace the influence of Swedish and British settlers on American styles of building
B) To stress the importance of wood as a building material
C) to compare methods of constructing wooden houses in various parts of the country
D) To describe a revolutionary technique for constructing wooden houses

2. According to the passage, where did the inventor of the balloon frame house originally come from:

A) Connecticut
B) Chicago
C) Sweden
D) Delaware

3. Which of the following questions about the balloon frame house is NOT answered in the passage?

A) Where was it invented?
B) What was its inventor's name
C) what size was most of the lumber used in its frameworks?
D) in what year was it invented?

4. The author implies that which of the following types of houses required the most skill to produce?

A) the log cabins built by Swedish settlers
B) saltbox houses
C) Standard wooden houses of the early nineteenth century
D) Balloon Frame houses

5. All of the following are factors in the development of the balloon frame house EXCEPT.

A) the invention of sophisticated tools
B) the production of cheap nails
C) improvements in sawmills
D) the falling price of lumber

6. According to the passage, why was the term balloon frame applied to certain houses.

A) they could be moved from place to place
B) they could be easily expanded.
C) They had rounded frames that slightly resembled balloons.
D) they were made of light weight materials.

7. The word derision in the passage is closest in meaning to:

A) affection
B) Ignorance
C) ridicule
D) Regret