READING

Directions: In this section of the test, you will read FOUR different passages, each followed by 10 questions about it. For questions 1-40, you are to choose the best answer A, B, C, or D to each question. Then, on your answer sheet, find the number of each question and fill in the space that corresponds to the letter of the answer you have chosen. Answer all questions following a passage on the basis of what is stated or implied in that passage.
Time allowance: You have 60 minutes to answer all the questions, including the time to transfer your answers to the answer sheet.

PASSAGE 1 QUESTIONS 1 - 10

Mount Rushmore is a well-known monument in the Black Hills of South Dakota that features the countenances of four United States presidents: Washington, Jefferson, Roosevelt, and Lincoln. What is not so well known is that the process of creating this national treasure was not exactly an uneventful one.

Mount Rushmore was the project of the visionary sculptor John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum, who was born in Idaho but studied sculpture in Paris in his youth and befriended the famous French sculptor Auguste Rodin. In 1927, Borglum was granted a commission by the federal government to create the sculpture on Mount Rushmore. Although he was nearly sixty years old when he started, he was undaunted by the enormity of the project and the obstacles that it engendered. He optimistically asserted that the project would be completed within five years, not caring to recognize the potential problems that such a massive project would involve, the problems of dealing with financing with government bureaucracy, and with Mother Nature herself. An example of what Mother Nature had to throw at the project was the fissure, or large crack, that developed in the granite where Jefferson was being carved. Jefferson had to be moved to the other side of Washington, next to Roosevelt because of the break in the stone. The work that had been started on the first Jefferson had to be dynamited away.

Mount Rushmore was not completed within the five years predicted by Borglum and was in fact not actually completed within Borglum's lifetime, although it was almost finished. Borglum died on March 6, 1941, at the age of seventy-four, after fourteen years of work on the project. His son, Lincoln Borglum, who had worked with his father throughout the project, completed the monument within eight months of his father's death.

Which of the following best expresses the main idea of the passage?