Q 01/05

The word 'prairie' comes from which language's word for meadow?

A) French

B) Spanish

C) Dutch

D) German

Answer · why

A) French

French explorers called the treeless plains prairie, their word for meadow, and English speakers, who had no name of their own for such grasslands, bo...

Q 02/05

To which biome do ecologists assign prairies?

A) Temperate grasslands and shrublands

B) Tropical grasslands and shrublands

C) Flooded grasslands and savannas

D) Montane grasslands and shrublands

Answer · why

A) Temperate grasslands and shrublands

Temperate grasslands and shrublands is the biome the prairie shares with the steppe of Ukraine and Kazakhstan: lands that get enough rain to feed gras...

Q 03/05

Which South American grassland belongs to the same biome as the prairie?

A) The Cerrado

B) The Pampas

C) The Pantanal

D) The Llanos

Answer · why

B) The Pampas

The Pampas of Argentina and Uruguay are South America's prairie and the home of its cowboy, the gaucho, whose roaming life ended once ranchers fenced ...

Q 04/05

From west to east, in what order do the prairie's three grass types appear?

A) Mixed to shortgrass to tallgrass

B) Shortgrass to mixed to tallgrass

C) Shortgrass to tallgrass to mixed

D) Tallgrass to mixed to shortgrass

Answer · why

B) Shortgrass to mixed to tallgrass

Shortgrass to mixed to tallgrass is the sequence: the dry western plains give way eastward to richer, wetter soils that can support grasses taller tha...

Q 05/05

Short of timber, prairie settlers built their first houses from stacked bricks of what?

A) Adobe

B) Peat

C) Sod

D) Clay

Answer · why

C) Sod

Sod: prairie grass grows so thickly matted that settlers could slice the turf into bricks and stack them into a 'soddy', quick and cheap to build but ...