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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Chapters 2 & 3.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. John Wesley Powell figured that if you evenly distributed all of the surface water flowing between the Columbia River and the Gulf of Mexico, you would have what?
(a) Astounding yields on farms covering a quarter of the country.
(b) A desert almost indistinguishable from what is there today.
(c) Lush green pastures as far as the eye can see.
(d) The most productive agricultural system the world has ever seen.

2. The first boom of travelers to Los Angeles culminated in what year, according to the author in Chapter Two?
(a) 1889.
(b) 1920.
(c) 1905.
(d) 1933.

3. A letter is quoted in Chapter One from Francisco Vásquez de Coronado to whom?
(a) Franklin D. Roosevelt.
(b) Barry Goldwater.
(c) Lieutenant Joseph Christmas Ives.
(d) Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza.

4. The author describes flying over the state of Utah on his way back to California in what year in the Introduction?
(a) 1971.
(b) 1980.
(c) 1964.
(d) 1996.

5. The Sierra Nevada foothills are how many miles across the Central Valley from San Francisco?
(a) 80.
(b) 225.
(c) 35.
(d) 150.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the title of Chapter Three?

2. According to the author in the Introduction, “Fifty-six years after the first earth was turned beside City Creek, the Mormons had” how many “acres under full or partial irrigation in several states”?

3. What were a series of conflicts between the city of Los Angeles, farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California, and environmentalists called?

4. What western city does the author describe “with exotic palms and golf-course lawns and a five-hundred-foot fountain and an artificial surf” in the Introduction?

5. When was the Reclamation Act established?

(see the answer key)

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