Name
Date
LESSON
Time
The Great Pyramid and the Gateway Arch
38
Great Pyramid of Giza
Gateway Arch
The Great Pyramid of Giza is perhaps the greatest structure ever built by humans. It stands
in the desert near Cairo, Egypt. Completed about 2580 B.C., it was the tomb of Pharaoh
(king) Khufu. It is estimated that 100,000 workers labored more than 20 years to build the
Great Pyramid. It contains more than 2 million stone blocks with an average weight of about
1
2_2 tons each.
Originally the Great Pyramid was about 147 meters tall. Over the years, stones were
removed from its surface, reducing its height by about 9 meters. The Great Pyramid was the
tallest structure in the world for 44 centuries, until the Eiffel Tower was built in Paris in 1889.
Today the tallest monument in the United States is the Gateway Arch, also known as the
Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, in St. Louis, Missouri. The Gateway Arch was
completed in 1965 and is about 192 meters tall.
1.
How much taller is the Gateway Arch than the Great Pyramid?
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About
meters
2.
Underline the information in the essay that you used to solve Problem 1.
3.
Use data from the essay above to write your own problem. Ask a partner
to solve it.
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