Pulling Strings to Build Pyramids Reading Answers

Feb 24, 2023

Pulling Strings to Build Pyramids Reading Answers is an academic reading topic discussing in detail about the study of ancient Egyptian Pyramid. The given IELTS has been taken from the book named “Cambridge IELTS 10 Student's Book with Answers”. The topic named Pulling Strings to Build Pyramids Reading Answers has a total 13 wide range of questions. The topic consists of two sorts of questions, which are, True/False/Not Given, and no more than two words. The candidates should thoroughly read the IELTS reading passage in order to recognize the synonyms, identify the keywords, and answer the questions provided. IELTS reading practice papers can be taken into consideration by the candidates in order to gain a good band score in the reading section, in which, the similar topics like Pulling Strings to Build Pyramids Reading Answers have been included.

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Section 1

Read the Passage to Answer the Following Questions

Pulling Strings to Build Pyramids Reading Answers

No one knows exactly how the pyramids were built. Marcus Chown reckons the answer could be 'hanging in the air'.

The pyramids of Egypt were built more than three thousand years ago, and no one knows how. The conventional picture is that tens of thousands of slaves dragged stones on sledges. But there is no evidence to back this up. Now a Californian software consultant called Maureen Clemmons has suggested that kites might have been involved. While perusing a book on the monuments of Egypt, she noticed a hieroglyph that showed a row of men standing in odd postures. They were holding what looked like ropes that led, via some kind of mechanical system, to a giant bird in the sky. She wondered if perhaps the bird was actually a giant kite, and the men were using it to lift a heavy object.

Intrigued, Clemmons contacted Morteza Gharib, aeronautics professor at the California Institute of Technology. He was fascinated by the idea. 'Coming from Iran, I have a keen interest in Middle Eastern science/ he says. He too was puzzled by the picture that had sparked Clemmons's interest. The object in the sky apparently had wings far too short and wide for a bird. The possibility certainly existed that it was a kite/ he says. And since he needed a summer project for his student Emilio Graff, investigating the possibility of using kites as heavy lifters seemed like a good idea.

Gharib and Graff set themselves the task of raising a 4.5-metre stone column from horizontal to vertical, using no source of energy except the wind. Their initial calculations and scale-model wind-tunnel experiments convinced them they wouldn't need a strong wind to lift the 33.5-tonne column. Even a modest force, if sustained over a long time, would do. The key was to use a pulley system that would magnify the applied force. So they rigged up a tent-shaped scaffold directly above the tip of the horizontal column, with pulleys suspended from the scaffold's apex. The idea was that as one end of the column rose, the base would roll across the ground on a trolley.

Earlier this year, the team put Clemmons's unlikely theory to the test, using a 40-square-meter rectangular nylon sail. The kite lifted the column clean off the ground. 'We were absolutely stunned,' Gharib says. The instant the sail opened into the wind, a huge force was generated and the column was raised to the vertical in a mere 40 seconds.'

The wind was blowing at a gentle 16 to 20 kilometers an hour, little more than half what they thought would be needed. What they had failed to reckon with was what happened when the kite was opened. There was a huge initial force - five times larger than the steady state force,' Gharib says. This jerk meant that kites could lift huge weights, Gharib realized. Even a 300-ton column could have been lifted to the vertical with 40 or so men and four or five sails. So Clemmons was right: the pyramid builders could have used kites to lift massive stones into place. 'Whether they actually did is another matter,' Gharib says. There are no pictures showing the construction of the pyramids, so there is no way to tell what really happened. The evidence for using kites to move large stones is no better or worse than the evidence for the brute force method,' Gharib says.

Indeed, the experiments have left many specialists unconvinced. The evidence for kite lifting is non-existent,' says Willeke Wendrich, an associate professor of Egyptology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Others feel there is more of a case for the theory. Harnessing the wind would not have been a problem for accomplished sailors like the Egyptians. And they are known to have used wooden pulleys, which could have been made strong enough to bear the weight of massive blocks of stone. In addition, there is some physical evidence that the ancient Egyptians were interested in flight. A wooden artifact found on the step pyramid at Saqqara looks uncannily like a modern glider. Although it dates from several hundred years after the building of the pyramids, its sophistication suggests that the Egyptians might have been developing ideas of flight for a long time. And other ancient civilisations certainly knew about kites; as early as 1250 BC, the Chinese were using them to deliver messages and dump flaming debris on their foes.

The experiments might even have practical uses nowadays. There are plenty of places around the globe where people have no access to heavy machinery, but do know how to deal with wind, sailing and basic mechanical principles. Gharib has already been contacted by a civil engineer in Nicaragua, who wants to put up buildings with adobe roofs supported by concrete arches on a site that heavy equipment can't reach. His idea is to build the arches horizontally, then lift them into place using kites. 'We've given him some design hints,' says Gharib. We're just waiting for him to report back.' So whether they were actually used to build the pyramids or not, it seems that kites may make sensible construction tools in the 21 st century AD.

Section 2

Solution and Explanation

Questions 1-7
Do the following statements agree with the information given in the Reading Passage?
In boxes 1-7 in your answer sheet, write

TRUE, if the statement agrees with information provided
FALSE, if the information provided is contradictory to the statement.
NOT GIVEN, if there is no information to corroborate with the statement

It is generally believed that large number of people were needed to build Pyramids

Answer: TRUE
Supporting Sentence: the conventional picture is that tens of thousands of slaves dragged stones on sledges.
Keyword: tens of thousands of Slaves
Keyword Location: 1st Paragraph, 3rd Line
Explanation: The fact that tens of thousands of slaves were involved in the arduous task of hauling and stacking massive stones to construct the pyramids is evidence of the significant number of individuals who participated in their construction. So, the above statement can be taken as a TRUE one.

Clemmons found a strange Hieroglyph on the wall of an Egyptian Monument.

Answer: FALSE
Supporting Sentence: while perusing a book on monuments of Egypt, she noticed a Hieroglyph.
Keyword: hieroglyph, a book, monuments
Keyword Location: 1st Paragraph, 5th and 6th Line.
Explanation: According to the passage, Maurice Clemmons, a software consultant from California, was reading a book on Egyptian monuments when she noticed the hieroglyphs. There is no indication that she was in close proximity to an actual Egyptian monument. Hence the provided statement is a FALSE one

Gharib had previously done experiments on Bird Flight.

Answer: NOT GIVEN
Explanation: No relevant information was found in the passage in order to support the above statement. Hence, we can easily conclude this statement to be an invalid one.

Gharib and Graff tested their theory before applying it.

Answer: TRUE
Supporting Sentence: Gharib and Graff set themselves the task of raising a 4.5 meter stone column from horizontal to vertical, using no source of energy except the wind.
Keyword: Gharib and Graff
Keyword Location: 2nd Paragraph, 1st Line
Explanation: According to the passage, Gharib and Graff conducted tests on a 4.5 meter stone column, which were used as a small-scale model to calculate how heavier stones could have been lifted using wind. This data helped them to derive conclusions about how stones were transported to the top of the Pyramid. Therefore, it can be inferred that before drawing any conclusions, Gharib and Graff attempted to replicate the lifting process on a smaller scale, possibly as a means of testing their theory. Therefore, the above statement can be regarded as a TRUE one.

The success of the actual experiment was due to the high speed of wind.

Answer: FALSE
Supporting Sentence: What they had failed to reckon with was what happened when the kite was opened. There was a huge initial force - five times larger than the steady state force
Keyword: failed, force
Keyword Location: 5th Paragraph, 2nd and 4th Line
Explanation: Their experiment failed because the wind speed was too strong. Upon opening the kite, a massive initial force caused the kite to ascend rapidly, and the wind that was present during the experiment was relatively mild, with speeds ranging from 16 to 20 kilometers per hour. So, the above statement can be regarded as a FALSE one.

They found that, as the kite flew higher, the wind force got stronger.

Answer: NOT GIVEN
Explanation: No fruitful information has been provided in the passage in order to support the above statement. Thus, the above-mentioned statement can be taken as an invalid one.

The team decided that it was possible to use kites to raise very heavy stones.

Answer: TRUE
Supporting Sentence: This jerk meant that kites could lift huge weights, Gharib realized. Even a 300-ton column could have been lifted to the vertical with 40 or so men and four or five sails
Keyword: (huge) weights, kites
Keyword Location: 5th Paragraph, 5th Line
Explanation: After conducting the experiment, Gharib discovered that a weight as large as 300 tons could have been lifted vertically with the assistance of only 40 men. This suggests that the team concluded that kites could be utilized to lift heavy stones based on the experiment's results. Hence, we can consider this statement to be TRUE.

Questions 8-13

Complete the summary below
Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from Passage for each answer
Write your answers in boxes 8-13 on your answer sheet

Egyptians had 8______ which could lift large pieces of 9_______ and they knew how to use the energy of the wind from their skill as 10______

The discovery on one Pyramid of one object which resembled a 11______ suggests they may have experimented with 12______

In addition, over two thousand years ago, kites were used in China as weapons, as well as for sending 13______

Question 8:

Answer: (wooden) pulleys
Supporting Sentence: and they are known to have used wooden pulleys, which could have been made strong enough to bear the weight of massive blocks of stone.
Keyword: wooden, Pulleys, used
Keyword Location: 7th Paragraph, 3rd Line
Explanation: Line 3 of paragraph 7 states that the term "they" refers to the Egyptians, who utilized wooden pulleys to lift stones. This indicates that the Egyptians possessed wooden pulleys and had the ability to use them.

Question 9:

Answer: stone
Supporting Sentence: and they are known to have used wooden pulleys, which could have been made strong enough to bear the weight of massive blocks of stone.
Keyword: massive, stones
Keyword Location: 7th Paragraph, 4th and 5th Line
Explanation: Lines 4-5 of paragraph 7 implies that according to the passage, the Egyptians employed wooden pulleys to raise large stone components, which were essential to the Pyramid's construction and necessitated lifting to the top.

Question 10:

Answer: (accomplished) sailors
Supporting Sentence: Harnessing the wind would not have been a problem for accomplished sailors like the Egyptians
Keyword: wind
Keyword Location: 7th Paragraph, 2nd Line
Explanation: Line 2 of paragraph 7 suggests that the Egyptians possessed knowledge of how to harness wind energy due to their proficiency in sailing. Their expertise in sailing enabled them to manipulate the sails of a ship to control the wind for their advantage, which is a skill that necessitates the ability to maneuver a vessel according to the wind's direction.

Question 11:

Answer: (modern) glider
Supporting Sentence: A wooden artifact found on the step pyramid at Saqqara looks uncannily like a modern glider.
Keyword: modern, glider, Pyramid
Keyword Location: 7th Paragraph, 7th Line
Explanation: Line 7 of paragraph 7 depicts that a wooden object similar to a contemporary glider was constructed on the summit of a pyramid at Saqqara.

Question 12:

Answer: flight
Supporting Sentence: Although it dates from several hundred years after the building of the pyramids, its sophistication suggests that the Egyptians might have been developing ideas of flight for a long time
Keyword: flight, suggests
Keyword Location: 7th Paragraph, 9th and 10th Line
Explanation: Lines 9-10 of paragraph 7 suggests that the discovery of an object resembling a glider suggests that the Egyptians were attempting to employ air to lift objects or individuals into the air, which is the primary purpose of a glider. The object was intricate enough to be identified as a contemporary glider, which has been refined for aerial travel, further supporting the notion that the Egyptians were experimenting with flight.

Question 13:

Answer: messages
Supporting Sentence: And other ancient civilisations certainly knew about kites; as early as 1250 BC, the Chinese were using them to deliver messages and dump flaming debris on their foes.
Keyword: messages, China
Keyword Location: 7th Paragraph, 11th and 12th Line
Explanation: The 11th and 12th lines of paragraph 7 explains that kites were utilized in China as early as 1250 BC, a period of approximately two thousand years. Furthermore, the Chinese employed these kites, or structures similar to kites, to send messages and drop flying debris on enemies, effectively using them as weapons.

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