Contemporary Social Issues
Test Preparation
Course Introduction
Contemporary Social Issues explores the major challenges and debates facing societies today, such as inequality, discrimination, globalization, environmental sustainability, and technological change. Students will analyze the root causes and impacts of these issues through multiple perspectives, including sociological, political, economic, and cultural frameworks. The course encourages critical thinking and discussion about policy responses and potential solutions at local, national, and global levels, preparing students to engage thoughtfully and effectively as informed citizens.
Recommended Textbook
Sociology 13th Edition by John
J. Macionis
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24 Chapters
2953 Verified Questions
2953 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: The Sociological Perspective
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Sample Questions
Q1) As a discipline, sociology first took root in France, Germany, and England.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) A sociological analysis of childbearing around the world suggests that the number of children born to a woman reflects:
A) her preference for family size.
B) how many children she can afford.
C) whether she herself was born into a poor or rich society.
D) the desires of her husband.
Answer: C
Q3) Almost all of Latin America and Asia falls within which of the following categories?
A) low-income nations
B) middle-income nations
C) high-income nations
D) very rich nations
Answer: B
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Chapter 2: Sociological Investigation
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128 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) You are doing research and you never stop to think about the possible importance of gender at all. Your work could be criticized for the problem called:
A) androcentricity.
B) overgeneralization.
C) gender blindness.
D) employing double standards.
Answer: C
Q2) Max Weber urged sociologists to strive toward the goal of being value-free.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Validity is the quality of measurement gained by actually measuring what you want to measure.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) Look at the "Seeing Sociology in the News" box on Answer: As an AI, I don't have the ability to physically look at a book or a box. Please provide more information or context.
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Chapter 3: Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) The distinction between high culture and popular culture is based mostly on:
A) how advanced the cultural pattern is.
B) how long the cultural pattern has existed.
C) the social standing of the people who display the cultural pattern.
D) All of the above are correct.
Answer: C
Q2) What are five of the key values in U.S. culture? What do they have in common?
Answer: Five key values in U.S. culture are freedom, equality, individualism, diversity, and innovation. What they have in common is that they are all deeply ingrained in the American identity and have played a significant role in shaping the country's history and society. These values are often celebrated and promoted in various aspects of American life, including politics, education, and the media. They also reflect the principles outlined in the U.S. Constitution and have influenced the country's policies and laws. Additionally, these values are often cited as reasons for the success and resilience of the United States as a nation. Overall, they represent the core beliefs and aspirations of the American people and continue to be central to the country's cultural identity.
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Page 5
Chapter 4: Society
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139 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Comparing and contrasting the ideas of Karl Marx and Max Weber, which of the following statements is True?
A) Marx thought modern society was alienating Weber did not.
B) Weber thought modern society was alienating Marx did not.
C) Both Marx and Weber thought modern society was alienating, although for different reasons.
D) Neither Marx nor Weber thought modern society was alienating.
Q2) Industrial technology has raised living standards in a number of societies.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Marx thought capitalism would bring class conflict more out in the open.
A)True
B)False
Q4) A postindustrial society uses computers and other information technology to operate much of the economy.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What does Gerhard Lenski mean by "sociocultural evolution"? Why does he argue that technology shapes all of society?
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Chapter 5: Socialization
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Sample Questions
Q1) In Mead's model, which sequence correctly orders stages of the developing self?
A) imitation, play, game, generalized other
B) imitation, generalized other, play, game
C) imitation, game, play, generalized other
D) imitation, generalized other, game, play
Q2) In the United States, many young girls feel they are expected to excel at school, to be feminine, attractive, and to "be themselves" as well-which is often difficult.
A)True
B)False
Q3) An inmate who loses the capacity for independent living is described as:
A) unsocialized.
B) integrated.
C) institutionalized.
D) dissociated.
Q4) The social sciences, including sociology, make the claim that:
A) humans have instincts that guide our lives.
B) biological forces underlie human culture.
C) as humans, to nurture is our nature.
D) Darwin's model of biological evolution explains patterns of human culture.
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Chapter 6: Social Interaction in Everyday Life
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Sample Questions
Q1) Ethnomethodology is the study of how people present themselves to others.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following is an important element of non-verbal communication?
A) hand gestures
B) eye contact
C) body language
D) All of the above are correct.
Q3) Explain Erving Goffman's ideas on the presentation of self. What are the elements of "presentations?" How, for example, does a college professor engage in a scripted presentation of self to a class? What about a professor's office: What features of the office are used to convey information to an observer?
Q4) The reality people build in their interaction depends only on the actors themselves, not on the larger culture they live in.
A)True
B)False
Q5) People generate reality in their social interaction.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 7: Groups and Organizations
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Sample Questions
Q1) What are the important differences between primary and secondary groups?
Q2) One person's in-group may well be another person's out-group.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Irving Janis demonstrated how discussion always improves decision making in a social group.
A)True
B)False
Q4) A temporary, loosely formed collection of people who may or may not interact is a: A) crowd.
B) group.
C) category.
D) population.
Q5) The sociologist who explored the primary group was Charles Horton Cooley.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Reference groups can be primary groups but never secondary groups. A)True
B)False
Page 9
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Chapter 8: Sexuality and Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) The sexual counterrevolution did little to change the fact that most sexually-active people in the United States had a high number of sexual partners.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The weight of evidence indicates that sexual orientation is rooted in:
A) human biology, although social experience plays some role.
B) how societies construct sexuality.
C) individual choice.
D) the way young children are raised.
Q3) During the twentieth century, U.S. society experienced profound changes in sexual attitudes and practices.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Historically, public attitudes towards sexuality in the United States have been inconsistent, mixing cultural repression with individual choice.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What are the traits of the campus culture of "hooking up"?
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Chapter 9: Deviance
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Sample Questions
Q1) A hate crime is defined as:
A) any crime against a person who is a minority.
B) any crime involving anger or other powerful emotion.
C) a criminal act motivated by race or other bias.
D) any violation of antidiscrimination laws.
Q2) According to Elliot Currie, factors that explain the high crime rate in the United States by world standards include:
A) our cultural homogeneity.
B) a lack of interest in punishing offenders.
C) the high level of immigration.
D) our emphasis on individual economic success, which weakens the social fabric.
Q3) Biological factors, including genetics, explain most criminal behavior.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The value of psychological theories of deviance is limited because:
A) very few people experience an "unsuccessful socialization."
B) there has been very little research of this kind.
C) there is no way to distinguish "normal" from "abnormal" people.
D) most people who commit crimes have normal personalities.
Q5) Identify four justifications for punishment.
Page 11
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Chapter 10: Social Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) Max Weber claimed that agrarian societies give special importance to which dimension of social inequality?
A) economic class
B) social prestige or honor
C) power
D) control of information
Q2) The common ideology of a class system states that success and wealth typically result from:
A) sheer luck.
B) family background.
C) flaws in society.
D) personal talent and effort.
Q3) State several ways in which caste and class systems differ.
Q4) Looking around the world today, income inequality is greatest in which of the following regions?
A) North America
B) Latin America
C) Europe
D) China
Q5) What is status consistency? Give an example.
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Social Class in the United States
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118 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the United States, single women who are heads of households represent 48 percent of all poor households.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following factors affect social position in the United States?
A) the family we a person is born into
B) a person's race
C) a person's gender
D) All of the above are correct.
Q3) Hispanic families, on average, lag behind non-Hispanic white families in both income and wealth.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the United States, which age category has the highest poverty rate?
A) children
B) people in their twenties
C) middle-aged persons about forty years of age
D) seniors over age sixty-five
Q5) What were some of the consequences of the 1996 welfare reform in the United States?
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Chapter 12: Global Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) The world region with the greatest number of poor "street children" is Latin America.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which world region contains the largest percentage of the world's street children?
A) Asia
B) Latin America
C) Africa
D) Europe
Q3) How does neocolonialism differ from colonialism?
Q4) The poorest 20 percent of the world's people live on just 2 percent of the world's income.
A)True
B)False
Q5) If you wanted to visit the world's low-income nations, where would you travel?
A) Africa and Asia
B) Latin America
C) Eastern Europe
D) North America
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Chapter 13: Gender Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) George Murdock found that, in the case of most tasks, what one society considers "masculine" another may consider "feminine."
A)True
B)False
Q2) Like race or social class, gender is a major dimension of social stratification.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The "beauty myth" refers to the idea that:
A) women learn to measure their personal importance in terms of physical appearance.
B) beautiful women can dominate men.
C) women prefer men who are physically attractive.
D) women today are as physically attractive as today's men are.
Q4) The beauty myth is the idea that beauty helps women to be successful.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Briefly describe the extent of male-female differences in mental and physical abilities.
Q6) What percentage of the members of Congress are women?
Q7) What is the importance of the term "glass ceiling"?
Page 15
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Chapter 14: Race and Ethnicity
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which category of Asian Americans has average income above the national average?
A) Filipino Americans
B) Chinese Americans
C) Japanese Americans
D) All of the above are correct.
Q2) Sociologically speaking, a minority is any category that is numerically less than half of a society's population.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The chapter-opening story about the class at New York's Bronx Community College explains that:
A) race is a simple matter of color.
B) many people have mixed racial and ethnic ancestry.
C) race is not important to most people in the United States.
D) All of the above are correct.
Q4) Define race and ethnicity. How do they differ?
Q5) What is the scapegoat theory of prejudice? What is the conflict theory of prejudice?
Q6) When did slavery begin in the United States? When was it outlawed?
Q7) What is racism? Provide examples of racism in history.
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Chapter 15: Aging and the Elderly
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which concept refers to assisting in the death of a person suffering from an incurable disease?
A) Hippocratic assistance
B) euthanasia
C) gerontocracy
D) bereavement
Q2) How does industrialization change patterns of working for income for people over the age of sixty-five?
A) People continue working for as long as they can.
B) People begin to retire from paid work, often by about age sixty-five.
C) People come to see retirement from paid work as a sign of weakness.
D) The peak earning years shift later into the sixties and seventies.
Q3) What does industrialization do for life expectancy? What does it do to the relative social standing of the oldest people in a society?
Q4) In general, seniors with higher incomes:
A) have more health problems than people with lower incomes.
B) assess their health in better terms than people with lower incomes.
C) have the same level of health as people with lower incomes.
D) die earlier due to high consumption of rich foods.
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Chapter 16: The Economy and Work
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Sample Questions
Q1) As societies industrialize, a smaller share of the population works in which of the following locations?
A) farms
B) factories
C) assembly lines
D) All of the above are correct.
Q2) State the defining characteristics of two economic models: capitalism and socialism. How do these models compare in terms of (a) overall productivity, (b) level of economic inequality, and (c) extent of political freedom? How is welfare capitalism an effort to combine the benefits of both systems?
Q3) Prostitution and sale of illegal drugs are typically part of the underground economy.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the United States, union membership is higher today than ever before.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What is a social institution? What is the economy?
Q6) What is the underground economy?
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Chapter 17: Politics and Government
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Sample Questions
Q1) In a totalitarian political system, one political organization claims total control of society.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In general, high-income people tend to be _____ on social issues and _____ on economic issues.
A) conservative conservative
B) liberal liberal
C) liberal conservative
D) conservative liberal
Q3) In terms of cost per person, the U.S. government is about the same size today as it was when this nation was founded more than two centuries ago.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which nations in the world today claim to be democratic?
A) all low-income nations
B) no nations
C) most high-income nations
D) all nations
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Chapter 18: Families
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Sample Questions
Q1) Among American Indians who migrate from reservations to cities, a common pattern is:
A) strong extended kinship.
B) a fluid, or changing, household.
C) starting to use kin terms for unrelated people who live together.
D) All of the above are correct.
Q2) The family is a social institution that is found in:
A) most, but not all, societies.
B) about half of human societies in the world today.
C) only high-income nations.
D) every society.
Q3) Four out of five people in the United States who divorce remarry at some point.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the United States, two-thirds of the children of working mothers receive care at a day-care facility.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What does social-exchange analysis have to say about the process of courtship?
Page 20
Q6) In what specific ways does social class affect families and family life?
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Chapter 19: Religion
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Sample Questions
Q1) The concept of sacred refers to what is:
A) common to everyday life.
B) found in every culture.
C) seen as set apart from everyday life and extraordinary.
D) no longer found in today's world.
Q2) Guided by the symbolic-interaction approach, sociologists examine:
A) how daily rituals sharpen the boundary between the sacred and profane.
B) how religion gives our existence a measure of security and meaning.
C) the use of ritual and religious meaning to strengthen social ties such as marriage.
D) All of the above are correct.
Q3) Confucianism is closely linked to the traditional culture of:
A) India.
B) China.
C) Japan.
D) Iran.
Q4) In one sentence, what was Karl Marx's concern about the effects of religion on society?
Q5) Why do researchers have difficulty measuring religiosity?
Q6) What is Max Weber's thesis regarding Protestantism and capitalism?
Page 21
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Chapter 20: Education
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Sample Questions
Q1) From a social-conflict perspective, schooling in the United States transforms social privilege into personal merit.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What are several reasons that community colleges are important to higher education in the United States?
Q3) African Americans have a lower rate of competing high school than Hispanic Americans.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Public schools have been losing teachers in recent years because of:
A) job-related frustration.
B) low pay.
C) the retirement of many older teachers.
D) All of the above are correct.
Q5) Most people who do not complete their schooling have parents who also did not receive much schooling.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 21: Health and Medicine
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Sample Questions
Q1) Upon infection, people with HIV:
A) display obvious symptoms.
B) get very sick right away.
C) display no symptoms at all.
D) get mildly sick from time to time.
Q2) As a result of cigarette smoking, some 440,000 people in the United States die prematurely every year.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In Western Europe and North America, scientists began to understand the causes of infectious diseases at about what point in history?
A) 1700
B) 1775
C) 1850
D) 1950
Q4) Scientific medicine typically develops in:
A) pastoral societies.
B) agrarian societies.
C) industrial societies.
D) postindustrial societies.
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Chapter 22: Population, Urbanization, and Environment
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Sample Questions
Q1) In global perspective, the crude birth rate of high income nations such as the United States is:
A) much higher than average.
B) slightly higher than average.
C) about equal to the average.
D) below average.
Q2) Assume a country has a population of 400 million people and in a given year has 4 million births. What is this country's current crude birth rate?
A) .1
B) 1
C) 10
D) 4 million
Q3) In poor nations of the world today, what is the average number of children born to a woman?
A) ten
B) eight
C) six
D) three
Q4) What is a net-migration rate? How is it calculated?
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Chapter 23: Collective Behavior and Social Movements
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Sample Questions
Q1) What does an "acting crowd" become when it turns violent?
Q2) To a passing observer, all types of collective behavior appear very much the same.
A)True
B)False
Q3) People in crowds who act emotionally are not necessarily acting irrationally-there may be a good reason for the string emotion.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Mass behavior is defined as collective behavior:
A) in the form of a riot or a mob.
B) involving people in a crowd.
C) among people spread over a wide geographic area.
D) involving powerful emotions.
Q5) Fads are sometimes called "crazes."
A)True
B)False
Q6) Name and define four types of social movements.
Q7) What is the difference between "rumor" and "gossip"?
Q8) How do "new social movements" differ from older social movements?
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Chapter 24: Social Change: Traditional, Modern, and
Postmodern Societies
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Sample Questions
Q1) Modernization typically reduces the range of personal choice about how to live.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Emile Durkheim's concept of mechanical solidarity parallels Tönnies's concept of gesellschaft.
A)True
B)False
Q3) According to Emile Durkheim, modern societies are held together by difference, a process he called "organic solidarity."
A)True
B)False
Q4) The problem mass-society theory sees with the expansion of bureaucracy and the state is that:
A) as bureaucracy and the state grow, people in local communities have little control over their lives.
B) government is not very efficient.
C) there is an increase in social inequality.
D) people feel the need for more personal freedom.
Q5) What are demographic (population) trends are reshaping the United States?
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