Why Do Slash-And-Burn Cultivators Stop Using a Plot of Land

question 1

Multiple Choice

Why do slash-and-burn cultivators stop using a plot of land every two to three years?

• A) They burn so much wood that the air becomes too polluted to support a healthful existence.
• B) Slash-and-burn cultivation is unique to segmentary-lineage organized societies, and crop rotation follows the cycle of interlineage exchange.
• C) Slash-and-burn cultivation is associated with big-game hunting, which requires regular movement so as not to deplete the animal population.
• D) Slash-and-burn cultivators use relatively primitive irrigation systems, which have to be repaired every three to four years.
• E) They do not use fertilizer; thus, their crops exhaust the soil quickly.

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Definitions:

Serial-position Effect

A psychological phenomenon where people tend to remember the first and last items in a series better than those in the middle.

Ebbinghaus

Refers to Hermann Ebbinghaus, a German psychologist known for his research on memory and the forgetting curve.

Forgetting Patterns

The ways in which the ability to recall or recognize previously learned information decreases over time.

Source Monitoring

The process by which individuals determine the origins of memories, knowledge, or beliefs.