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This quiz consists of 5 multiple choice and 5 short answer questions through Los Angeles Against the Mountains.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. In a conversation between General Sands and Oliver Houck on a floating conference boat, what does the General remind Houck regarding the vital role of the U.S. Army Corps?
(a) The Corps keeps the region safe against criminals.
(b) This is the only organization that has ever succeeded in maintaining order in New Orleans.
(c) No other organization has authority to control Louisiana's rivers.
(d) The Corps is keeping his neighborhood safe from nine feet of water.

2. What is chaparral?
(a) A style of home built on steep mountains.
(b) A type of storm common to Southern California.
(c) A variety of pine tree common in Los Angeles County.
(d) Dense shrubs that grow on mountainsides.

3. The author asserts that due to floods in the region, Louisiana loses how much land each year?
(a) Three acres.
(b) A thousand square miles.
(c) Seven hundred acres.
(d) Fifty square miles.

4. During Thorbjorn Sigurgeirsson's test run to cool lava by the coastline, what happens?
(a) Lava cools slightly, but it doesn't solidify.
(b) Water solidifies lava, but it doesn't cool completely.
(c) Lava cools completely and stops flowing.
(d) Water evaporates before it can solidify lava.

5. During the fifty years between New Orleans' floods of 1735 and 1785, what does the author say brings a false sense of security against flooding?
(a) Drought conditions.
(b) Concrete seawalls.
(c) Prosperous economic boom.
(d) Extended, raised levees.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is a weir?

2. What problems are encountered with Southern California's early debris basins?

3. As the Genofile family watches the lightning storm from windows at the back of their home, what do they see?

4. How big are some of the bowl-shaped excavations that catch debris from the San Gabriel Mountains?

5. In the 1800s, swamps in Louisiana are drained and used as what?

(see the answer key)

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