Question 28·Easy·Central Ideas and Details
In 2023, engineers working to restore an eighteenth-century clock tower learned that most of the original blueprints had been lost in a mid-twentieth-century fire. The few surviving sketches were folded so tightly and had become so brittle that unfolding them risked turning them to dust. To study the design without damaging the documents, the engineers employed X-ray microtomography, which produces detailed digital images of an object’s interior and exterior layers.
According to the text, what obstacle did the engineers need X-ray microtomography to overcome?
For "According to the text" detail questions, always go back to the exact sentence or two that the question points to—often the clause right before or after the term mentioned in the question. Underline the key phrase that states the problem or fact, restate it in your own simple words, and then choose the option that best matches that idea without adding or changing details. Quickly eliminate any choices that introduce new information not found in the passage or that contradict what the passage clearly says.
Hints
Find where X-ray microtomography is mentioned
Reread the sentence that introduces X-ray microtomography and especially the sentence just before it. Those lines explain why the engineers needed that tool.
Focus on the condition of the sketches
Pay attention to how the passage describes the surviving sketches physically—how they are folded and what has happened to the paper over time.
Connect the problem to the purpose of the tool
The passage says the engineers wanted to "study the design without damaging the documents." What, specifically, about the sketches made them hard to study safely?
Eliminate answers that add new information
Remove any options that talk about problems the passage never mentions, such as issues with location, language, or a lack of tools.
Step-by-step Explanation
Locate the part of the passage connected to the question
The question asks what obstacle the engineers needed X-ray microtomography to overcome. Look for the sentence where X-ray microtomography is mentioned and read the sentence right before it, because that usually explains why a special tool is needed.
Identify the specific problem described
Right before the tool is introduced, the passage says the surviving sketches "were folded so tightly and had become so brittle that unfolding them risked turning them to dust." Then it says, "To study the design without damaging the documents, the engineers employed X-ray microtomography." This tells you the main problem: they could not safely unfold the sketches without damaging or destroying them.
Paraphrase the obstacle in your own words
Put that key sentence into simpler language: the sketches were so fragile that if the engineers tried to open them normally, they would likely fall apart or disintegrate. The engineers needed a way to see what was on the sketches without opening them and causing that damage.
Match the paraphrased obstacle to the answer choices
Now compare this idea to the options:
- Not being able to enter a location is about access, which is not mentioned.
- An obsolete shorthand is about language, which is not mentioned.
- Lacking modern tools is the opposite of what happens; they use a modern tool.
- Only the choice saying "Unfolding the sketches would likely cause them to disintegrate" matches the described problem that unfolding the brittle sketches risked turning them to dust. So the correct answer is "Unfolding the sketches would likely cause them to disintegrate."