SAT OwlQuestion bank / Central Ideas and Details
When Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi designed the SESC Pompeia cultural center in Sao Paulo in the late 1970s, she chose not to demolish the old brick factory on the site. Instead, she kept its long sheds and turned them into spaces for reading, games, and exhibitions, adding new concrete towers beside them. Bo Bardi believed that the factory's history belonged to the neighborhood and that a building for the community should preserve traces of the community's past.
According to the text, why did Bo Bardi keep the old factory?
She lacked the money needed to demolish the factory.
She believed the factory's history was part of the neighborhood's heritage and worth preserving.
She thought brick was a better building material than concrete.
The city government required her to keep the factory standing.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B
The last sentence gives Bo Bardi's reason directly: she believed the factory's history "belonged to the neighborhood" and that a community building should preserve the community's past. That is choice B.
Choice C is tempting because the text mentions both brick and concrete, but Bo Bardi added concrete towers herself, and the text gives no preference for brick.
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