Variant – 1 Choose the best answer

Read & choose the correct answer (29-32).

One of the largest and most difficult engineering projects

ever undertaken, the Panama Canal shortcut greatly reduced

the time for ships to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific

Oceans, enabling them to avoid the lengthy, hazardous

Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South

America via the Drake Passage or Strait of Magellan.

In 1920, after some thirty-nine years of problems with

disease, high costs and politics, the Panama Canal was

officially opened. This linked the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans

by allowing ships to pass through the fifty-mile Canal Zone

instead of travelling some seven thousand miles around Cape

Horn. It takes a ship approximately eight hours to complete

the trip through the canal, and costs a tenth of what it

would cost the average ship to round the Horn. More than

fifteen thousand ships use the canal annually.