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Construction Surveying - Earthwork


Quiz Questions

1. In road, railroad, and airfield construction, the movement of large volumes of earth (earthwork) is one of the most important construction operations. It requires a great amount of engineering effort.
True
False
2. The planning, scheduling, and supervising of earthwork operations are of minor importance in obtaining an efficiently operated construction project.

True
False
3. Earthwork computations do not involve the calculation of volumes or quantities, the determination of final grades, the balancing of cuts and fills, and the planning of the most economical haul of material.
True
False
4. __________________________are illustrated in figure 4-1.
Typical cross sections for a railway track
Typical cross sections for a roadbed
5. If the vertical cut or fill is small in comparison with the width, the surveyor may not use an exaggerated vertical scale to gain additional precision in plotting such sections.
True
False
6. The side slopes of a cross section are expressed by a ratio of horizontal distance to vertical distance.
True
False
7. The surveyor usually determines the slope by the design specifications based on the stability of the soil in cut or fill.
True
False
8. The stripper and the ___________________ methods are simple and give approximate results, while the other methods give results as accurate as the cross-section field data will permit.
Geometric
Counting squares
Double-meridian-distance
9. To make a hasty approximation of a cross-section area plotted on cross-section paper, count the number of squares enclosed by the boundary lines of the section. Then divide the total number of counted squares by the number of square feet represented by a single square.
True
False
10. The _______________________ is also called a trapezoidal method.
Double-meridian-distance method
Counting squares method
Geometric method
Stripper method
11. Figure 4-4 illustrates ____________________.
Cross section area by geometric method
Cross section area by stripper method
12. To determine the area of a plotted cross section by strip measurements, subdivide the area into strips by vertical lines spaced at regular intervals. Measure the total length of these lines by cumulatively marking the length of each line along the edge of a stripper made of paper or plastic. Then, multiply the cumulative total of the average base lengths by the width of the strip.
True
False
13. DMD is an acronym for _______________.
Double Meridian distance
Double Meridian displacement
14. The stripper method gives a more precise value for a cross- section area than the double-meridian-distance (DMD) method.
True
False
15. The _________________ is based on the theory that the area of a right triangle equals one half of the product of the two sides.
Geometric method
Counting squares method
Double-meridian-distance method
Stripper method
16. What is the first step in the procedure to work out a DMD area?
Select the far left station (D) as the first point
Compute all the latitudes and departures.
17. The DMD of the last course is numerically equal to its departure but with the opposite sign (+14.0).

True
False
18. Figure 4-5 illustrates ____________________.
Cross section area by geometric method
Cross section area by DMD method
19. The surveyor does not use a polar planimeter to measure the area of a plotted figure.
True
False
20. The planimeters are of _________________ types.
Two
Three
Four
21. The surveyor uses both types of the planimeters in the same way, with the exception that the fixed scale cannot be adjusted to yield a 1:1 ratio when tracing areas.
True
False
22. The planimeter (figure 4-6) touches the paper at how many points?
Two
Three
Four
23. __________________ is usually classified as common excavation, loose rock, and solid rock.
Excavated material
Concrete
24. To measure plotted areas larger than the capacity of the planimeter, _____________the areas into sections and measure each separately.
Multiply
Divide
25. When there is an imbalance in the volume of cuts and fills in construction projects, it is often necessary to borrow the required fill dirt from borrow pits outside the construction limits but near the fill site.
True
False