Masonry Construction Questions and Answers

Answer: C

The figure shows a Gothic arch, a pointed arch whose two curves meet at an apex. The dashed lines show the two centres at the springing level and the curves drawn from them, which give the pointed shape. A flat arch has a horizontal soffit, a relieving arch is built over a lintel to relieve it of the load above, and a corbel arch is formed by projecting courses of masonry stepped inward, so none of these has the pointed curved form shown here.

Answer: C

The incorrect statement is the one about the soffit. The soffit of an arch is the inner (under) surface of the arch, the curved surface seen from below, and it is not the lower half of the arch between the crown and skewback. The other statements are right: voussoirs are the wedge-shaped units that make up the courses of an arch, an arcade is a row of arches on piers carrying a wall, and the spandril is the roughly triangular space between the extrados and the horizontal line drawn through the crown.