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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. While aboard the Mississippi on his annual trip, General Sands tries to:
(a) Fine environmentalists.
(b) Generate new contracts.
(c) Capture poachers.
(d) Settle differences.

2. 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) This is the only organization that has ever succeeded in maintaining order in New Orleans.
(b) The Corps is keeping his neighborhood safe from nine feet of water.
(c) No other organization has authority to control Louisiana's rivers.
(d) The Corps keeps the region safe against criminals.

3. In New Orleans' earliest days, French settlers begin to live there despite the fact that the area:
(a) Has practically no solid ground.
(b) Is full of poisonous snakes.
(c) Belongs to Spain.
(d) Is plagued by giant storms on a weekly basis.

4. Of the Old River Control Project, LeRoy Dugas, also known as Dugie, is what initially?
(a) Indifferent.
(b) Furious.
(c) Critical.
(d) Supportive.

5. The author tells stories of the following people in conflict with forces of nature:
(a) Engineers.
(b) All of the them.
(c) Residents.
(d) Government officials.

Short Answer Questions

1. Over a number of centuries, how does the Mississippi River form the state of Louisiana?

2. In the early 1800s, private plantation owners in Louisiana levee riverbanks to:

3. What does Major General Thomas Sands do each year on the Mississippi in late summer or early fall?

4. A snagboat is a river boat that does what?

5. What is commonly fished from the bayou regions around the Atchafalaya?

Short Essay Questions

1. Throughout the 1700s and 1800s, what did people in southern Louisiana do to protect their communities and land against floods?

2. Describe some of the challenges New Orleans faces because of its geographical location.

3. Describe what McPhee writes about Morgan City, Louisiana.

4. Congress enacts the Flood Control Act in 1928 to launch the Mississippi River and Tributaries Project. What is done through this project?

5. What are some of the predominant problems in the regions populated near the Atchafalaya and Mississippi rivers?

6. What is the goal of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with regards to the Atchafalya and Mississippi rivers?

7. Explain how the Mississippi River forms Louisiana over many centuries.

8. What are some of the main points the author tries to make through this work of historical nonfiction?

9. Explain what the author says about Old Cajun bayou life in the Atchafalaya region after the Corps took control.

10. The Old River Control project began operating in 1963. What happens ten years later?

(see the answer keys)

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