Jon,
Thanks for checking out the lesson. Sure, you could use this tab to practice playing more “linear.”
All you’d need to do is look at the tab and grab multiple notes on same string rather than going “across” the strings. You’ll have to pick notes from multiple measures of the tab but it should be fairly easy to do.
Per your other question, that’s certainly a good spot to start but like all rules they’re made to be broken. If you always had to land on the root note at the end of every phrase, it would get a little monotonous.
But that’s definitely a good practice tool you could use to improve your ear training and make sure you really know all the root notes for each chord.
But once you get that down, it would also be good practice to expand out beyond that and give yourself the freedom to land on any note you’d like.
If you have any other questions let me know.
– Mike