Almost all of Africa south of the equator is inhabited today by peoples speaking some variant of more than400 Bantu languages, no more distinct from each other than are the Germanic languages of northern Europe.Early Bantu history is shrouded in mystery. At present.scholars using oral traditions and linguistic evidence can trace the narrative of these peoples no further back than C.E. 1000. The first Bantu speakers apparently lived in the southeastern part of modern Nigeria, where they began to shift from a hunting, gathering, and fishing economy to practicing settled agriculture. The areas into which they began to spread about 4,000 or 5,000 years ago demanded an immense amount of work. To ready a new acre of land in the tropical rain forest for cultivation required the removal of some 600 tons of most vegetation, and the early migrant groups brought to this task only simple tools (mainly machetes and billhooks).In fact, their most effective technique for the initial clearing was controlled bush burning, but it left a great deal of burned vegetation to be removed. Moreover, the African equatorial forests, the primary zones of Bantu habitation, were almost totally devoid of indigenous food plants, Yams were native to Africa, but new varieties were later introduced from Southeast Asia, as were bananas; maize, manioc, and sweet potatoes originated in the Americas and were brought to Africa by Europeans. As a consequence, these peoples had to make do with woodland plants such as yams and mushrooms, as well as palm oils and kernels
1.According to paragraph 1, which of the following was a problem the Bantu encountered when they spread into new areas?
A.They had to clear a huge amount of plant matter in order to farm the land.
B.They tried to grow non-native varieties of yam.which did not flourish.
C.Their tools were often not strong enough to cut down the moist vegetation.
D.They were sometimes unable to control bush fires used to clear land.
2.What is the author’s purpose in paragraph 1 ?
A.To explain why the Bantu shifted to an agricultural economy
B.To present the relatively spare information available about early Bantu settlements
C.To describe the history of the African equatorial forest
D.To contrast the oral development of the Bantu with the oral tradition of modern Nigeria
Bantu migrants traveled out of West Africa along riverbeds and elephant trails in two great population waves. ▉One group moved eastward across the Congo forest region to East Africa, aided early in their migration by their knowledge of iron smelting, which enabled them to use iron tools in their agricultural activities. Because the habitats into which they moved permitted them to maintain a mixed economy of animal husbandry and sedentary agriculture, they became relatively prosperous. ▉The second branch moved southward through the rain forests in present-day Congo,eventually reaching the Kalahari Desert, but they were not so fortunate.▉Their tsetse fly-infested environment caused disease and did not permit them to rear livestock, and thus they were limited to subsistence farming. ▉They learned to use iron later than those who had moved to the east.
3.According to paragraph 2, which of the following statements was true of the Bantus who settled in the Kalahari Desert?
A.They traded extensively with the Bantus of East Africa.
B.They brought iron-working skills with them to the desert.
C.They had to rely on means other than raising animals in order to live.
D.They quickly developed immunity to the diseases carried by desert flies.
4.According to paragraph 2, the areas in East Africa that Bantus migrated to
A.were rich in a wide variety of metals
B.later became central to the African iron-smelting industry
C.were suitable for both growing food plants and keeping animals
D.had developed agricultural economies before the Bantus’ arrival
Precisely when these Bantu migrations began cannot yet be known with certainty, but once under way, the travelers moved with extraordinary rapidity. Genetic and other evidence demonstrate that they swept all else before them, absorbing most of the hunting-and-gathering populations who had originally inhabited these areas. A few remnants of the earlier residents do survive, however, most notably the pygmy hunters and cultivators in the lturi Forest of central Africa and the Khoisan hunters of he Kalahari Desert in southern Africa.
5.According to paragraph 3, which of the following resulted from contact between Bantus and other populations?
A.The Bantus remained in many places they had migrated to but left areas where pygmies and Khoisan hunters lived
B.The Bantus learned new hunting methods from pygmies and other groups.
C.Most native hunter-gatherer populations living in areas that the Bantu migrated to were incorporated into Bantu society.
D.Many non-Bantu populations were forced to leave central and southern Africa.
What enabled the Bantus to prevail and then to prosper was their skill as settled agriculturalists. They knew how to cultivate the soil, and they were able to adapt their farming to widely different environments. They thrived equally well in the tropical rain forests of the Congo River basin, the high grasslands around Lake Nyanza.and the highlands of Kenya, even though they had to grow different crops in each of these locations.
For the Bantu of the equatorial rain forests of central Africa, known as the Western Bantu, the introduction of the banana plant was decisive. Linguistic evidence suggests that it first arrived in the Upper Nile region,and from there it was carried into the rest of Africa by small groups migrating from one favorable location to another; the earliest proof of its presence is a record from the East African coast dated to c.E. 525. Eventually it spread into the equatorial rain forests, where its adaptability to local conditions was unmatched. Not only did it provide more nutrients than the yam crop, which it ultimately replaced, but it better withstood heavy rainfalls. In addition, banana plantings required farmers to clear fewer trees from the land than did yam cultivation and created an environment that was free of the anopheles mosquito, the carrier of malaria. Taking full advantage of the benefits of banana cultivation, the Western Bantu filled up the equatorial rain forest areas of central Africa-perhaps as early as C.E.500.
6.In describing the introduction of the banana plant as “decisive ” the author means that the introduction of the banana plant
A.was fortunate
B.strongly affected the direction of the future
C.was gradual
D.was encouraging
7.According to paragraph 5, all of the following were true of banana plants in Africa EXCEPT:
A.They were more likely to survive intense rains than yams were.
B.They could be planted in areas that had not been completely cleared of trees.
C.They appeared in the Upper Nile area before appearing in other parts of Africa.
D.They were less likely to be damaged by insects than other food crops were.
8.It can be inferred from paragraph 5 that banana farming had which of the following effects on Bantu life?
A.It encouraged the Bantu to experiment with growing non-native plants other than bananas.
B.It eventually led to a more varied Bantu diet.
C.It made it possible for the Western Bantu to spread beyond the rain forest.
D.It limited the occurrence of an insect-borne disease.
9.Look at the four squares [▊] that indicate where the following sentence could be added to the passage.Where would the sentence best fit?
Their initial efforts to grow crops were made more difficult by their lack of important technological knowledge.
10.Directions: An introductory sentence for a brief summary of the passage is provided below. Complete the summary by selecting the THREE answer choices that express the most important ideas in the passage. Some sentences do not belong in the summary because they express ideas that are not presented in the passage or are minor ideas in the passage. This question is worth 2 points.
The presence of Bantu languages in a large area of Africa shows the great extent of Bantu migrations.
A.The first Bantu speakers migrated to areas that were attractive to colonize because of their rich supply of food plants and animals.
B.The Bantus’ ability to make iron tools aided their migration by enabling them to create trails along which they could travel.
C.There were two main directions of migration: one to the east where migrants encountered habitats well suited to their needs, and one to the south where conditions were not as good.
D.Thanks to their ability to grow non-native food crops, Bantus were able to settle in previously uninhabited environments such as the Kenyan highlands and the equatorial rain forests.
E.The Bantus’ success in migrating and ability to incorporate other groups were due largely to their great skill as farmers.including their skill in growing crops in a wide variety of climates
F.Banana farming in the equatorial rain forests of central Africa provided the Western Bantu with a high-quality food and kept the area free of dangerous mosquitoes.
