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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 one of the largest and hottest deserts in North America, with an area of 311,000 square kilometers?
(a) The Sonoran Desert.
(b) The Gila Desert.
(c) The Gobi Desert.
(d) The Sahara Desert.

2. Where was Marc Reisner born?
(a) Durango, Colorado.
(b) St. Paul, Minnesota.
(c) Knoxville, Tennessee.
(d) Billings, Montana.

3. What were the two sheep-ranching Mormon brothers named who were captivated by the Boulder Canyon Project, according to the author in Chapter Four?
(a) W. H. and E. O. Wattis.
(b) M. E. and P. M. Jacobs.
(c) F. B. and J. N. Matthews.
(d) A. T. and P. C. Ebbet.

4. When was Harrison Gray Otis born?
(a) 1879.
(b) 1856.
(c) 1837.
(d) 1908.

5. According to the author in the Introduction, “On the east side of the Sierra-Cascade crest, moisture drops immediately from as much as 150 inches of precipitation on the western slope to as little as” how many inches on the eastern slope?
(a) 22.
(b) 13.
(c) 4.
(d) 38.

Short Answer Questions

1. Where was William Mulholland born?

2. In what year did Charles Rockwood see the Colorado River for the first time?

3. 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?

4. What does the author claim in the Introduction that, “because of their moisture requirements,” are our physiological counterparts in the kingdom of plants?

5. When was John Wesley Powell born?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. Who was General John Wesley Powell? How does the author describe him?

3. When was the Hoover Dam constructed? Where is it located?

4. Who was William Mulholland? Why did he come to Los Angeles?

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

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

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

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

9. What impressions did the first Europeans to discover the American West have of the environment?

10. What awards has Marc Reisner earned for his environmental and writing work?

(see the answer keys)

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