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This test consists of 5 multiple choice questions, 5 short answer questions, and 10 short essay questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What mountain range described in the Introduction stretches approximately 160 miles from the Utah-Idaho border, south through central Utah in the western United States?
(a) The Wasatch Range.
(b) The Brooks Range.
(c) The Cascade Range.
(d) The Sierra Nevada.

2. Who does the author refer to as “an egomaniacal small-time construction tycoon” in Chapter Four?
(a) James Marshall.
(b) Henry J. Kaiser.
(c) Wayne Wyatt.
(d) W. A. Bechtel.

3. The Grand Coulee is an ancient riverbed in what U.S. state?
(a) Arizona.
(b) Colorado.
(c) Washington.
(d) Montana.

4. When was Franklin D. Roosevelt born?
(a) 1907.
(b) 1882.
(c) 1921.
(d) 1856.

5. The narrator states in Chapter Four that “If the Colorado River suddenly stopped flowing, you would have” how many “years of carryover capacity in the reservoirs before you had to evacuate most of southern California and Arizona and a good portion of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming”?
(a) 11.
(b) 4.
(c) 22.
(d) 15.

Short Answer Questions

1. For what organization was Marc Reisner a staff writer from 1972 to 1979?

2. In what year was the Hoover Dam dedicated?

3. What is the title of Chapter Three?

4. Harry Morrison and Morris Knudsen, two engineers formerly with the Bureau of Reclamation, went into business together where, according to the author in Chapter Four?

5. The Sierra Nevada foothills are how many miles across the Central Valley from San Francisco?

Short Essay Questions

1. What initially led to the struggles over the Colorado River?

2. What does the author write of the impressions from the Lewis and Clark expedition in the West in Chapter Two?

3. How did William Mulholland’s character and career develop in his later years?

4. What happened to the populations of Nebraska and Kansas in 1890?

5. Who won in the struggles over the Colorado River, according to the author in Chapter Four?

6. What actions did Franklin D. Roosevelt take following the Dust Bowl in regard to water projects?

7. What reaction did the public and lawmakers have to the advice of John Wesley Powell regarding settlement in the West? What was the result?

8. How does the author describe Los Angeles’s power in its struggle for the Colorado River in Chapter Four?

9. What did Arizona do in response to California’s challenge for the Colorado River?

10. What genre is Cadillac Desert? What does Marc Reisner reveal through his approach in the book?

(see the answer keys)

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