Sample CST Question 9

The Leaning Tower

        (1) Those who built the Tower of Pisa never meant for it to lean, though this is what
has made it famous. (2) Other towers, such as the Eiffel Tower and the Tower of London,
are known for their own unique qualities. (3) In recent years, workers have had to make
the Tower of Pisa lean less to make it safe for visitors to enter. (4) How did the tower
come to lean, and how did workers make the Leaning Tower stand straighter?

        (5) The tower was constructed about eight hundred years ago in the town of Pisa,
near the Coast in Northwestern Italy. (6) The tilting came about because of the land on
which the tower was built. (7) This land being an old riverbed. (8) It wasn’t good. (9) This
caused the tower to lean to one side more and more over the centuries. (10) By 1990, it
was leaning so much that it had to be closed to visitors.

        (11) Then workers began to try to straighten out the tower enough to make it safe.
(12) A lot of soil was taken out from under one side. (13) When the land was settled, the
tower was leaning seventeen inches less than before. (14) Though this dosn’t sound like
very much, the tower is considered safe again—for now.

CSL1P021-W

Which of the following revisions would make
sentence 12 more informative?

A   There was very much soil taken out from
      beneath one side of the tower.

B   From under one side of the tower the workers
      took out an enormous quantity of soil.

C   The workers performed much labor to remove
      soil from its place under the tower.

D   About eight tons of soil were removed from
      the non-leaning side of the tower.