Answer the multiple-choice question about main idea based on the content of the paragraph below.

Question

Roman taste for grand architecture found expression in the bath. Initially mixed bathing was permitted, but later the sexes were segregated, with women and men bathing at different times. The baths of the Caracalla complex covered fifty acres, and approximately sixteen hundred people could be accommodated. The plan was organized along a central axis—the warm-water pool, the hot-water pool (usually circular in shape), and the cold-water pool were all located on the axis. Gymnasia flanked the pools, and gardens, barber and hairdresser shops, libraries, and meeting rooms completed the complex. Water, transported by aqueducts from outside the city and heated by fires in basements, was passed to the pools in clay or lead pipes.
Lavish marble, stucco, and painted decoration embellished the interior surfaces. By the first century A.D., the Roman statesman, Seneca, complained that new bath structures were too ornate: “We think ourselves poor if our walls are not resplendent with large and costly mirrors; if our marbles from Alexandria are not set off by mosaics, if our vaulted ceilings are not buried in glass, if our swimming pools are not lined with Thasian marble. What a vast number of statues, of columns that support nothing, but are built for decoration, merely in order to spend money!” Most Romans would not have agreed with Seneca, for they viewed the ritual of bathing and socializing within an opulent architectural environment as one of the joys of civilized life.

1. The controlling idea in paragraph one above is that

a. the three pools of the Roman bath were organized along a central axis.
b. Roman taste for grand architecture found expression in the Roman bath.
c. Romans were the first to utilize aqueducts to bring water into the city.

2. The gist of the second paragraph is that

a. though some viewed the Roman bath as too decorative and costly, the majority of Romans was appreciative of the lavish environment.
b. proprietors of Roman baths encouraged mixed bathing.
c. the baths of Caracalla included several types of Thasian marble pools.

Answer 1

1. b.
2. a.