The Longhorn and the Cattle Drives — Reading Comprehension — Answers
Answer sheet with model answers and success criteria for the 6th Grade reading comprehension comprehension exercise.
Success TutoringWorksheetsAnswer sheet6th Grade · English · Reading ComprehensionThe Longhorn and the Cattle Drives — Reading Comprehension — Answers
Part A: Find the facts
Answer: Their tough bodies and their enormous horns.
Answer: They were cattle brought to the Americas by Spanish settlers.
- AFort Worth, Texas
- BAbilene, Kansas
- CChicago, Illinois
- DOklahoma City
Answer: Abilene, Kansas
The trail ran “to the railroad town of Abilene, Kansas.”
Answer: Any two of: flooded rivers, lightning storms, stampedes.
Answer: True
Paragraph 5 says so.
Part B: Think about it
Answer: In Texas there were so many cattle and few buyers nearby, so they were cheap. In the growing Northern and Eastern cities people wanted beef, so buyers paid much more.
Answer: In the late 1860s railroads had reached Kansas, but no railroad yet linked Texas to the markets of the North.
Answer: So the cattle could graze along the way and arrive in good condition to sell.
Answer: Railroads spread across Texas, so cattle could be shipped from closer to home instead of walking north; and barbed wire fences blocked the old trails.
Answer: Only the strongest cattle survived the heat, dry spells and predators, so over time the longhorn became hardy: it could walk long distances and live on little water and rough grass. This made it well suited to long cattle drives.
- ACowboys liked to speak Spanish.
- BCowboys came from many backgrounds, and their skills owed a lot to Mexican vaqueros.
- CMost cowboys owned their own ranches.
- DCowboys did not need special skills.
Answer: Cowboys came from many backgrounds, and their skills owed a lot to Mexican vaqueros.
The paragraph explains where cowboy skills came from and who the cowboys were.
Part C: Words in the text
- Alazy
- Bstrong and able to survive difficult conditions
- Cgentle and friendly
- Dvery large
Answer: strong and able to survive difficult conditions
The next sentence explains it could walk long distances on little water and rough grass.
- Agiving its definition right after it in the sentence
- Bshowing a picture
- Cusing a word with the opposite meaning
- Dtelling the reader to look it up
Answer: giving its definition right after it in the sentence
The definition follows straight after the comma.
Part D: Write about it
Model answer: The cattle drives began and ended because of money and transportation. After the Civil War, a steer was worth only a few dollars in Texas, but it could sell for many times more in Northern and Eastern cities, where people wanted beef. Because railroads reached Kansas but not Texas, ranchers had cowboys walk herds north on trails like the Chisholm Trail to sell them at railroad towns such as Abilene. As railroads spread across Texas in the 1870s and 1880s, ranchers could ship cattle from closer to home, so there was less reason to make the long walk. Barbed wire fences and new breeds of cattle that produced more beef also changed how ranchers made money, and the great drives came to an end.
Success criteria:
- Clear topic sentence that answers the question
- At least three accurate pieces of evidence from the text
- Explains how the evidence connects to money or trade
- Organized as one clear paragraph with linking words
Marking tips
- Give credit for correct method even when the final answer slips — the working shows where the thinking went right.
- For open-ended tasks, use the success criteria as a checklist rather than looking for one "right" answer.
- Celebrate what went well first, then pick one thing to work on next.
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