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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. What happened to Mr. Wolfinger?

2. What did the travelers do before they headed across the desert?

3. When did the group reach the Humboldt Sink?

4. Why did Reed kill Snyder?

5. What happened when Hardcoop could no longer walk?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What was crossing the desert like?

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

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

6. What would they have to do in order to cross a river?

7. What did the Donner party find when they emerged from the Cutoff?

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

9. Why was Independence, Missouri so famous?

10. What did the families do in the evenings?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Why was Virginia so concerned about Indians? Were her worries valid? What was the Donner Party's experience with Indians the first time they came across them?

Essay Topic 2

What did the travelers have to do to prepare for their journey, and how long did it take them?

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 619 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample