Q10

[ohthatpatrick]

"The passage states" indicates that is just a Specific Detail (retrieval) time question.

We should use the keywords in the question stem to find the answer in the passage.

Where were the "traditional" sources mentioned?

End of the 1st paragraph, lines 10-14, we learn that these sources were from European American explorers who were commissioned agents of the govt. instructed to report their findings in writing.

There's also a similar reference to these agents in line 23, which reinforces that the agents were consciously recording observations of the new landscape.

This certainly isn't much information, so we should just scan the answers for something that sounds like what we've found.

(E) is definitely accurate, and so it is the correct answer.

=== other answers ==

A) the passage doesn't give us specific times when the reports were written or when Asian settlers arrived. We just know this was 19th century and generally concurrent with each other.

B) Native Americans? Not mentioned in these details.

C) "primarily" is an extreme word (almost always wrong in RC). Can't justify this from lines 10-14 or line 23.

D) same as (C).