View a FREE sample

This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What happened to the letters that Bryant sent Reed?

2. How did Tamsen Donner women feel about the trip?

3. Why didn't the Donner Party see other travelers?

4. What reputation did the 40 mile desert have?

5. Why did the travelers journey south after the desert?

Short Essay Questions

1. What was crossing the desert like?

2. What did the note that Hastings left tell the travelers? Was his statement valid?

3. Why did each family have three wagons?

4. What happened to the oxen during the six days it took to get through the desert?

5. What happened to Mr. Hardcoop?

6. What happened to the group as they reached near the summit of Sierra Nevada?

7. Why did some of the people in Springfield question James Reed's ideas?

8. Even though Hastings didn't meet them at the Fort, why did they continue to go on to take the Cutoff?

9. How many miles a day did the Donner Party plan to go, and what with their actual pace?

10. How did the Reed wagons do on the journey?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How were the members of the Donner Party betrayed by people along the way? Cite at least two examples.

Essay Topic 2

What were some of the things the members of the Donner Party resorted to as they tried to deal with their hunger?

Essay Topic 3

What did the group expect of the weather when they reached the Sierra Nevada? What decisions did they make, and what warnings did they have that they should have paid more heed to? Why didn't they heed the warnings?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 614 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample