What does the lecturer say about the cowboys on the drives?
Basic Understanding of Spoken English · TELPAS Grades 10–12 listening. The correct answer, and the reasoning behind it.
Reporting category 2: understand the main points and important details of spoken stories and informational passages, about everyday life and school subjects.
Listen to part of a lecture in a history class. Then answer the questions.
A Lecture on Cattle Drives
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Dr. Whitfield: Today we are looking at the great cattle drives that began in Texas right after the Civil War.
Dr. Whitfield: When the war ended in eighteen sixty-five, Texas had millions of longhorn cattle and very few buyers. Here, a steer was worth only a few dollars. But in the growing cities of the North, people wanted beef, and the same steer could sell for many times that price. The problem was getting the cattle there.
Dr. Whitfield: The answer was the railroad. Rail lines had reached Kansas, but not Texas. So ranchers hired cowboys to walk huge herds north on trails like the Chisholm Trail, to railroad towns such as Abilene, Kansas. From there, the cattle went east by train.
Dr. Whitfield: Many of those cowboys were Black or Mexican American, and much of cowboy life, from roping to the saddle itself, came from Mexican vaqueros.
Dr. Whitfield: Within about twenty years, the long drives were over. Railroads were built into Texas, so ranchers could ship cattle from close to home, and barbed wire fences closed off the open land the herds had crossed. So remember: the drives existed because of one gap, the distance between the cattle and the railroad. When that gap closed, so did the drives.
The question
Choose the best answer.
What does the lecturer say about the cowboys on the drives?
- Many were Black or Mexican American, and much of their work came from vaqueros.Correct answer
- Most of them were ranch owners who drove their own herds north to sell.
- They invented roping and a new kind of saddle while they were on the trail.
- Most of them came from the northern cities where people were eager to buy Texas beef.
Why “Many were Black or Mexican American, and much of their work came from vaqueros.” is correct
This is a detail question. The lecturer says many cowboys were Black or Mexican American and that much of cowboy life, from roping to the saddle, came from Mexican vaqueros. The correct answer restates that in different words. "Vaquero" is the Spanish word for a cowboy.
Why the other answers are wrong
- Most of them were ranch owners who drove their own herds north to sell. — The lecturer says ranchers hired cowboys to move the herds.
- They invented roping and a new kind of saddle while they were on the trail. — The lecturer says roping and the saddle came from Mexican vaqueros, not that cowboys invented them.
- Most of them came from the northern cities where people were eager to buy Texas beef. — The northern cities are where the beef was sold; nothing says the cowboys came from there.
Practice more of this
More listening practice for Grades 10–12, or see the TELPAS practice test for 10th–12th grade.
This is an independent study resource. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the Texas Education Agency or the official TELPAS program. All questions here are original practice material written to match the published test design.