Read this excerpt from "The Transcontinental Railroad" and
select the two sentences that best support the following
central idea: The building of the Transcontinental Railroad
forever changed the land and peoples of the United States.
The completion of the Transcontinental Railroad marked the
end of the American frontier: Everything was accessible and
no distance was too far to travel. Manifest Destiny, the belief
that the United States was fated to spread across the entire
North American continent, had been realized. The project was
not without its costs, however: The country suffered the
destruction of the buffalo and the Native American way of life,
the exploitation of immigrant laborers-particularly the
Chinese-by the railroad companies, and graft and corruption
on a continental scale. But the success of the endeavor was
fuel for the American attitude that anything can be
7:21 P