View a FREE sample

This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What reputation did the 40 mile desert have?
(a) It was a graveyard for abandoned wagons.
(b) It was a death trap.
(c) It was forgiving for a desert.
(d) It was more beautiful than other deserts.

2. What did the surface of the desert consist of?
(a) Nipping mites
(b) Dust
(c) Copper-colored powdery sand
(d) Salt and alkali

3. When did the group reach the Humboldt Sink?
(a) In the middle of October
(b) In the middle of November
(c) In the middle of September
(d) In the middle of July

4. What book did Reed and Donner use for guidance?
(a) The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California
(b) The Oregon Trail
(c) Go West, Young Man - Memoirs of Daniel Boone
(d) California or Bust

5. What did the book they follow mostly consist of?
(a) Propaganda
(b) Packing lists
(c) Weather reports
(d) Advice for travel

6. How did the Native Americans describe the Sierra Nevada?
(a) Beauty and tragedy
(b) Rock upon rock
(c) Entry to a new world
(d) The protective wall

7. What happened to the letters that Bryant sent Reed?
(a) Reed tore them up without reading them.
(b) Reed laughed when he read them.
(c) Reed never received them.
(d) They were given to Donner instead.

8. What was Reed going on to do?
(a) Get food for the travelers
(b) Find Hastings
(c) Negotiate with the Indians
(d) He was racing ahead to bring back help.

9. How many miles would the cutoff save them?
(a) 400
(b) 30
(c) 750
(d) 100

10. How deep was the snow by the time they reached Truckee Lake?
(a) It was up to their thighs.
(b) There wasn't any snow.
(c) 1 foot deep
(d) 5 feet

11. How many times did the company end up fording the Truckee River?
(a) At least 30 times
(b) At least 22 times
(c) Twice
(d) 5 times

12. Where did the children sleep?
(a) In a second story loft
(b) Around the campfire
(c) Under the wagon
(d) On Grandma's bed

13. What sight did Reed see as he rode ahead?
(a) He found abandoned wagons.
(b) He found water shortly ahead.
(c) People were unyoking their oken and driving them ahead to find water.
(d) There were corpses on the ground.

14. What is caching, according to the emigrants?
(a) Removing furniture and burying it to prevent theft
(b) Storing food they found on the trail
(c) Putting food aside in rations
(d) Dumping items out of the wagon

15. What did Sutter do?
(a) He was a hunter.
(b) He established a fort and trading post.
(c) He rescued people who were injured on the trail.
(d) He was a pioneer.

Short Answer Questions

1. What did Hastings promise the Donner Party in his letter?

2. What happened when Hardcoop could no longer walk?

3. How close were the travelers to the summit when they decided to rest and got snowed in?

4. Independence, Missouri known for all of these except what?

5. How did they get the wagons down the canyons?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 565 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample