South America: Geography and History

What geographic feature stretches nearly the entire width of South America?

• Amazon Basin

• Andes Mountains

• Angel Falls

• Guiana Highlands

What best describes the climate in the highest elevation of the Andes Mountains?

• cold, with little rainfall

• cool, with some rainfall

• warm, with adequate rainfall

• hot, with extreme rainfall

Which of the following threatens rain forest lands?

• animals ecosystems

• flooding rivers

• growing populations

• insects species

What causes the Atacama Desert to be so dry?

• The Andes Mountains prevent moist winds from reaching the coast of Chile

• The Amazon Basin is too wide for wind currents to reach the desert

• the Peru Current keeps moisture away from the coast of Chile

• The Brazil Current drops almost all its moisture in the Amazon Basin

What do greenhouse gases do?

• give off dry air, causing deforestation

• improve the air quality on Earth

• trap heat energy, causing the earth to warm

• help maintain healthy ecosystems

How were the Inca able to farm on the slopes of the Andes Mountains

• connecting roads

• crop rotations

• suspension bridges

• terraced fields

Which of the following is an achievement of the Inca civilization?

• archaeological excavation

• irrigation canals

• slash-and-burn agriculture

• diamond minds

What is one reason that people have lived in South America's lowlands for thousands of years?

• extreme climate

• food supply

• group kinship

• advanced society

What did the Treaty of Tortillas do?

• gave Columbus permission to sail to South America

• Converted the native populations to new religious

• divided newly discovered lands between Spain and Portugal

• permitted the use of slaves to work on plantations

African slaves were used to harvest which two major plantation crops?

• Beans and cotton

• corn and cassava

• rice and banana

• sugar and coffee