Đọc đoạn văn sau và trả lời các câu hỏi: In the early 1800s, to reach the jump-off point for the West, a family
from the East of the United States could either buy steamboat passage
to Missouri for themselves, their wagons, and their livestock or-as
happened more often-simply pile everything into a wagon, hitch up
5 a team, and begin their overland trek right in their front yard.
Along the macadamized roads and turnpikes east of the Missouri River,
travel was comparatively fast, camping easy, and supplies plentiful.
Then, in one river town or another, the neophyte emigrants would
10 pause to lay in provisions. For outfitting purposes, the town of
Independence had been preeminent ever since 1827, but the rising
momentum of pioneer emigration had produced some rival jump-off points.
Westport and Fort Leavenworth flourished a few miles upriver. St.
Joseph had sprung up 55 miles to the northwest; in fact, emigrants
15 who went to Missouri by riverboat could save four days on the trail
by staying on the paddle-wheelers to St. Joe before striking overland.
At whatever jump-off point they chose, the emigrants studied guidebooks
and directions, asked questions of others as green as themselves,
20 and made their final decisions about outfitting. They had various,
sometimes conflicting, options. For example, either pack animals
or two-wheel carts or wagons could be used for the overland crossing.
A family man usually chose the wagon. It was the costliest and slowest
of the three, but it provided space and shelter for children and
25 for a wife who likely as not was pregnant. Everybody knew that a
top-heavy covered wagon might blow over in a prairie wind or be overturned
by mountain rocks, that it might mire in river mud or sink to its
hubs in desert sand-but maybe if those things happened on this trip,
they would happen to someone else. Anyway, most pioneers, with their
30 farm background, were used to wagons.1. What is the topic of this passage?
2. All of the following can be inferred from the passage about travel east of the Missouri EXCEPT that it
3. The phrase "jump-off point" in lines 1, 13 and 18 is closest in meaning to
4. Which of the cities that served as a jump-off point can be inferred from the passage to be farthest west?
5. The word "preeminent" in line 11 is closest in meaning to
6. The author implies in the passage that the early emigrants
7. The word "neophyte" in line 9 is closest in meaning to
8. All of the following were mentioned in the passage as options for modes of transportation from the Missouri River to the West EXCEPT
9. In line 16, the word "striking" is closest in meaning to
10. The expression "green" in line 19 is closest in meaning to
11. All of the following features of the covered wagon made it unattractive to the emigrants EXCEPT
12. In line 28, the phrase "those things" refers to
Back Test with: Reading-Comprehension-Lesson 150 and Reading-Comprehension-Lesson 149
