7th Grade Texas History Practice Test

The key idea here is identifying which resources powered Texas’s economy when it first became a state. In the early years after statehood, Texas relied mainly on cattle ranching, cotton farming, and timber. Cattle gave rise to long-distance drives and beef that could be sold across the country. Cotton was a major cash crop in Texas’s fertile plains, supporting many farms and communities. Timber supported building needs and rail expansion, especially in East Texas. Oil didn’t become a major economic driver until after the turn of the century, so including it as part of the early statehood economy captures the timeline accurately: later oil, not yet in the early period, transformed Texas later on. The other options don’t fit because they describe resources either not associated with Texas’s early economy (silk, spices, tea) or much more modern or regionally limited (coal, gas, uranium, lithium). Hog production and tobacco/iron aren’t the defining early-state industries of Texas.