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

Short Answer Questions

1. How did Reed react to Clyman's message?

2. What was the Hastings Cutoff trail like?

3. What happened to 13-year-old Edward Breen?

4. Why did they decide to take the cutoff?

5. How far into the established route did Hastings Cutoff appear?

Short Essay Questions

1. Why did Virginia's father choose to take his family to California?

2. What was crossing the desert like?

3. How did Charles Stanton helped the traveling party?

4. What did Clyman talk to Reed about?

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

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

7. What was the Forty Mile Desert like?

8. What happened to James Reed after he killed Snyder?

9. Why did each family have three wagons?

10. How were tasks divvied up on the wagon train?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

How did the descendants of the Donner Party feel about their relatives? What reputations did they have to live down?

Essay Topic 2

What disrupted James Reed's attempt to put together rescue teams? How did he manage to eventually get help?

Essay Topic 3

Explain the political situation in the United States when the Reeds decided to go to California. Where did the United States officially end and who had control of California?

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This section contains 588 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample