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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 is the title of the book’s Introduction?
(a) Rivals in Crime.
(b) A Semidesert with a Desert Heart.
(c) Chinatown.
(d) First Causes.

2. The annual income of Las Vegas is what percentage of the entire gross national product of Egypt, according to the author in Chapter Four?
(a) 25%.
(b) 5%.
(c) 40%.
(d) 10%.

3. The population of San Francisco went over how many in 1853?
(a) 50,000.
(b) 150,000.
(c) 75,000.
(d) 100,000.

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

5. Who does the author refer to as “horse-drawn Fresnoscraper kind of contractor” in Chapter Four?
(a) Emil Haury.
(b) Harry Morrison.
(c) Jim Casey.
(d) W. A. Bechtel.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is the name given to the principal hydrological divide of the Americas that separates the watersheds which drain into the Pacific Ocean?

2. When was the Reclamation Act established?

3. When was John Wesley Powell born?

4. 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?

5. What were the two sheep-ranching Mormon brothers named who were captivated by the Boulder Canyon Project, according to the author in Chapter Four?

Short Essay Questions

1. What actions did William Mulholland take in order to solve the water problems in Los Angeles?

2. How have new historians of the American West spent their focus differently than the traditionalists?

3. How have historians traditionally spent their focus in regard to the American West?

4. When did the perception of the American West as a desert begin to change? Who helped initiate this change?

5. How does the author describe the American West in Chapter One?

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

7. How was Cadillac Desert received upon its first publication?

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

9. Describe the author of the book. What relevant professional experience does Reisner have to ecology?

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

(see the answer keys)

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