Foundations of Social Science Pre-Test Questions
Course Introduction
Foundations of Social Science introduces students to the core concepts, theories, and methodologies that underpin the social sciences, including sociology, psychology, economics, political science, and anthropology. The course explores how these disciplines investigate human behavior, social structures, cultural norms, institutions, and historical change. Through the examination of key thinkers, important debates, and current social issues, students develop critical thinking and analytical skills to better understand both individual experiences and collective phenomena in society. The course also emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches and the ethical considerations involved in social science research.
Recommended Textbook
Sociology 14th Edition by John J. Macionis
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3010 Verified Questions
3010 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: The Sociological Perspective
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Sample Questions
Q1) The basic idea of the symbolic-interaction approach is that society is
A)an arena of conflict between categories of people.
B)the product of people interacting in countless everyday situations.
C)a system that operates to benefit people.
D)a system that generates social inequality.
Answer: B
Q2) In the United States, men have a higher suicide rate than women.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Looking at the operation of U.S.schools, the social-conflict approach might lead a sociologist to conclude that
A)the function of schools is to teach needed skills.
B)the meaning of schooling varies from child to child.
C)schools have been a major path to social advancement.
D)tracking provides some students with far better schooling than others.
Answer: D
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Chapter 2: Sociological Investigation
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Sample Questions
Q1) Read the following four statements describing the link between sociology's methodological approaches and its theoretical approaches.Which of the statements is correct?
A)Scientific methodology is most closely linked to structural-functional theory.
B)Interpretive methodology is linked to social-conflict theory.
C)Critical methodology corresponds to the symbolic-interaction theory.
D)There is no link between any of the theoretical and methodological approaches.
Answer: A
Q2) With regard to the process of measurement, which of the following statements is true?
A)For measurement to be reliable, it must be valid.
B)For measurement to be valid, it must be reliable.
C)All measurement is both reliable and valid.
D)Measurement cannot be both reliable and valid.
Answer: B
Q3) A variable that is changed by another variable is called the "independent variable."
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 3: Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) Key values of U.S.culture
A)always fit together easily.
B)change quickly, even from year to year.
C)are shared by absolutely everyone in a society.
D)are sometimes in conflict with one another.
Answer: D
Q2) The term "cultural lag" refers to the fact that
A)the rate of cultural change has been slowing.
B)some societies advance faster than others do.
C)some people are more cultured than others.
D)some cultural elements change more quickly than others.
Answer: D
Q3) If you were to attend a New York Ballet performance, you would be experiencing A)high culture.
B)popular culture.
C)cultural transmission.
D)virtual culture.
Answer: A
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Chapter 4: Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) Max Weber described the features of rational social organization pointing to all but one of the following.Which one is NOT part of his analysis?
A)Organizations become large-scale.
B)Self-discipline is important.
C)People in the workplace share highly personal relationships.
D)Technical competence is the key to getting jobs.
Q2) Durkheim explained that organic solidarity is based on
A)specialization and interdependence.
B)collective conscience.
C)shared moral values.
D)common cultural heritage.
Q3) In hopes of winning salvation, Calvinists were quick to share their wealth with the poor.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Karl Marx believed that the industrial-capitalist system was
A)very productive.
B)concentrating wealth in the hands of a few.
C)giving rise to the concepts of capitalists and proletarians.
D)All of these are correct.
6
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Chapter 5: Socialization
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Sample Questions
Q1) By "taking the role of the other," Mead had in mind
A)imagining a situation in terms of past experience.
B)recognizing that people have different views of most situations.
C)imagining a situation from another person's point of view.
D)trading self-centeredness for a focus on helping other people.
Q2) According to Mead, children learn to take the role of the other as they model themselves on important people in their lives, such as parents.Mead referred to these people as
A)role models.
B)looking-glass models.
C)significant others.
D)the generalized other.
Q3) Industrialization brings with it a rise in the social standing of older people.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Note one criticism often made of Erik Erikson's "Stages of Development" theory.
Q5) Cite several ways in which the family is central to the process of socialization.
Q6) Explain Erik Erikson's theory of socialization as a lifelong process.
Q7) According to Erving Goffman, what key traits define a total institution?
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Social Interaction in Everyday Life
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Sample Questions
Q1) Read through the box titled "Managing Feelings: Women's Abortion Experiences" on
Q2) Typically, each status is linked to several roles.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A "role set" refers to all the roles a person has over the course of a lifetime.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which concept refers to a social position that is assumed voluntarily and that reflects a significant measure of personal ability and effort?
A)active role
B)master status
C)ascribed status
D)achieved status
Q5) Shawna is an excellent artist, but as a mother, she feels that she cannot work and devote enough time to her family.She is experiencing
A)role conflict.
B)role strain.
C)role ambiguity.
D)role exit.
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Chapter 7: Groups and Organizations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which concept refers to a social group with only two members?
A)a primary group
B)a dyad
C)a triad
D)a bond
Q2) You are part of a task force with a group leader who has a distant relationship with the group members and who is concerned with getting the job done.Which type of leader does your task force have?
A)a laissez-fair group leader
B)a democratic leader
C)an expressive leader
D)an instrumental leader
Q3) In this essay, list the key characteristics of bureaucracy.What was it about bureaucracy that Max Weber saw as being positive? What did he see as being negative? To what extent to you agree with Weber's assessment?
Q4) In the process of anticipatory socialization, people use social groups they wish to join as reference groups.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: Sexuality and Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) Although there is a human "sex drive," our biology does not dictate any specific ways of being sexual.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A majority of adults in the United States report at least some homosexual experience.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The text suggests that the most widely contested issue involving sexuality in the United States in recent years has been
A)homosexuality and gay rights.
B)abortion.
C)prostitution.
D)teen pregnancy.
Q4) Most married adults in the United States are sexually unfaithful to their spouses at some point in their marriages.
A)True
B)False
Q5) State two common myths about rape.Explain why these beliefs are wrong.
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Chapter 9: Deviance
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Sample Questions
Q1) 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.
Q2) Robert Merton claimed that the "strains of masculinity" are an important cause of crime.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Cloward and Ohlin extended Merton's theory of deviance, stating that crime
A)reflects both limited legitimate opportunity as well as accessible illegitimate opportunity.
B)is more common among the rich who have more opportunity.
C)is defined in such a way as to overly criminalize the poor.
D)is typically a result of drug dependence or other substance addiction.
Q4) Explain how age, gender, and social class are correlated with official arrest data.
Q5) What is criminal recidivism? Why do you think our society has such a high rate of recidivism?
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Chapter 10: Social Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) The concept of social mobility refers to changes in people's positions in the social hierarchy.
A)True
B)False
Q2) What is status consistency? Give an example.
Q3) Define structural social mobility.How does it differ from individual social mobility?
Q4) According to Karl Marx, what are the two major classes in industrial-capitalist societies? How did Marx describe the relationship between the two classes?
Q5) The ending of apartheid in South Africa has led to A)that society becoming a meritocracy.
B)little improvement for millions of poor, black people.
C)complete social mixing by people of all races.
D)the election of the first white president.
Q6) The socialist revolution Karl Marx predicted took place in most industrial-capitalist societies about a century ago.
A)True
B)False
Q7) State several ways in which caste and class systems differ.
Page 12
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Chapter 11: Social Class in the United States
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the United States, people of _____ are most likely to vote.
A)low social position
B)high social position
C)average social position
D)Social position has nothing to do with how likely people are to vote.
Q2) The wealthiest 1 percent of U.S.families
A)25 percent
B)35 percent
C)65 percent
D)85 percent
Q3) In the United States, there are more people in the upper class than in the lower class.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Point to evidence that helps you assess the extent to which the responsibility for poverty lies with the poor or with society as a whole.
Q5) What traits define the "working class" in the United States?
Q6) Look at the "Seeing Sociology in Everyday Life" photo essay on
Q7) What is the difference between income and wealth?
Q8) How does the upper-upper class differ from the lower-upper class?
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Chapter 12: Global Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) A social theorist who contributed to the development of dependency theory by tracing the growth of the capitalist world economy is
A)Max Weber.
B)Emile Durkheim.
C)Walt Rostow.
D)Immanuel Wallerstein.
Q2) Dependency theory states that high-income nations have narrow, export-oriented economies.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Which world region contains the largest share of the world's street children?
A)Asia
B)Latin America
C)Africa
D)Europe
Q4) Modernization theory claims that what we need to explain in human history is not poverty but affluence.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 13: Gender Stratification
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Sample Questions
Q1) Like race or social class, gender is a major dimension of social stratification.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The beauty myth is the idea that beauty is the key to success in a career.
A)True
B)False
Q3) On average, do women or men live longer?
A)On average, men outlive women by about one year.
B)On average, women outlive men by about one year.
C)On average, men outlive women by about five years.
D)On average, women outlive men by about five years.
Q4) What three factors account for most of the income disparity between women and men?
Q5) Like race or social class, gender is a major dimension of social stratification. A)True B)False
Q6) In athletics, the performance gap between male and female athletes is increasing. A)True
B)False
15
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Chapter 14: Race and Ethnicity
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Sample Questions
Q1) The claim that defining members of some minority as inferior will make them inferior is one application of
A)social distance research.
B)the iron law of oligarchy.
C)the Thomas theorem.
D)authoritarian personality theory.
Q2) Which of the following is the largest minority category within the U.S.population?
A)people of Asian descent
B)people of African descent
C)people of Hispanic descent
D)people of Native American descent
Q3) The Hispanic population of the United States is
A)spread evenly across the country.
B)concentrated in the West, Southwest and southern Florida.
C)concentrated in industrial cities of the Northeast.
D)concentrated in the Deep South.
Q4) Being Greek, Italian, or Vietnamese involves a distinct ethnicity.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 15: Aging and the Elderly
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Sample Questions
Q1) How do modern societies separate death from life?
Q2) Which of the following illustrates the concept of "staged retirement"?
A)Alicia carefully plans for retirement beginning when she is in her twenties.
B)Marco's company requires him to retire at age sixty-five.
C)Latoya continues working in her old age, but at a reduced level.
D)Sam finds other activities to fill the time once spent working.
Q3) In general, industrialization has what effect on the social standing of the elderly in relation to younger people?
A)It reduces the social standing of seniors.
B)There is little or no effect.
C)It raises the social standing of seniors.
D)It raises the social standing of older men but reduces it for women.
Q4) The economic downturn that began in 2007 has forced many older workers to postpone retirement and to continue working.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Societies throughout the world often define their oldest members in negative terms.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 16: The Economy and Work
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the United States, about what percentage of the labor force performs tertiary sector work?
A)15 percent
B)35 percent
C)55 percent
D)85 percent
Q2) Contrasted to socialist economic systems, capitalist economic systems typically
A)generate more economic inequality.
B)generate less economic inequality.
C)generate about the same level of inequality.
D)do not generate any social equality.
Q3) The economy first became a distinct social institution during which historical stage of technological development?
A)hunting and gathering societies
B)agrarian societies
C)industrial societies
D)postindustrial societies
Q4) Agricultural production is part of the primary sector of the economy.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 17: Politics and Government
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Sample Questions
Q1) People with lower social standing in the United States tend to be _____ on social issues and _____ on economic issues.
A)conservative; conservative
B)liberal; liberal
C)liberal; conservative
D)conservative; liberal
Q2) More than 90 percent of the world's people live in nations that are considered to be politically free.
A)True
B)False
Q3) As Max Weber saw it, the essential difference between power and authority is A)authority is more rational.
B)people perceive authority as legitimate, rather than coercive.
C)raw power is always the foundation of justice.
D)power is more efficient in getting the job done.
Q4) An examination of socialist and capitalist systems suggests that political liberty and economic equality almost always go together.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 18: Families
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Q1) Why do some analysts (especially those guided by the structural-functional approach) describe the family as the backbone of society ? That is, what important things do families do for society? To what degree could other social institutions (including government) perform these tasks in place of the family?
Q2) The chapter-opening story of Rosa Yniguez, who came from Mexico to live and raise her three children in California, makes the point that
A)family patterns often change among immigrants to this country.
B)Hispanic women avoid forming families.
C)today's Latinas are having more and more children.
D)All of the responses are correct.
Q3) Looking ahead fifty years, predict the state of the U.S.family.As you see it, how will families differ from how they are today? In what ways will they be the same? Consider factors such as the popularity of marriage, the likelihood of divorce, the number of children people will have, gender differences in marriage, and the need for caregiving
Q4) Social class affects what women expect in a husband.
A)True
B)False
Q5) How does the nuclear family differ from the extended family?
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Chapter 19: Religion
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Sample Questions
Q1) Churches place greater importance on the personal experience of conversion than sects do.
A)True
B)False
Q2) One of the functions of religion for society is to operate as a system of social control.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Sociological analysis of religion is concerned with
A)understanding patterns of religious activity and their effect on society.
B)which religions are true and which are false.
C)the purpose of life.
D)discerning the will of God.
Q4) Members of a sect accept the surrounding society as good.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Animism refers to the belief that God is an active force in the world.
A)True
B)False
Q6) How do spiritual "seekers" differ from members of established churches?
Page 21
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Chapter 20: Education
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Sample Questions
Q1) In the United States today, about what percentage of the adult population has a high school diploma?
A)47 percent
B)67 percent
C)87 percent
D)97 percent
Q2) What percentage of U.S.adults are high school graduates? College graduates? How have these percentages changed over the last century?
Q3) Research shows that, in the typical college classroom, most students are active participants who speak up.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is taught in schools around the world reflects local cultures.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Rather than creating violence, in most cases violence spills into schools from the surrounding society.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 21: Health and Medicine
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Q1) Of all high-income nations, which country relies the most on a direct-fee market system to pay for medical treatment?
A)Great Britain
B)Sweden
C)the United States
D)Japan
Q2) In which of the following nations is almost all medical care under the control of government?
A)China
B)Great Britain
C)Japan
D)the United States
Q3) In the United States, an important medical issue is
A)a surplus of nurses.
B)a shortage of nurses.
C)the fact that many hospitals are going bankrupt.
D)doctors making less and less money.
Q4) Describe several reasons for the shortage of nurses in the United States.
Q5) How does social class affect human health? Provide data in support of your answer.
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Chapter 22: Population, Urbanization, and Environment
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Q1) In medieval cities of Europe, what was found at the city's center?
A)a central business district
B)the ghetto
C)government buildings
D)the cathedral
Q2) If you were to examine an age-sex pyramid for a low-income nation, you would expect to see which of the following patterns?
A)a wide base, indicating a high birth rate
B)a square shape, indicating a low birth rate
C)a bulge in the middle, indicating a "baby boom"
D)None of these is correct.
Q3) State the basic idea of the "limits to growth" thesis.Provide a critical assessment of this thesis.
Q4) If you were studying countries with very low infant mortality, in which of the following global regions would you be most likely to look?
A)Latin America
B)Africa
C)Europe
D)Asia
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Chapter 23: Collective Behavior and Social Movements
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Q1) Mass-society theory predicts that social movements will involve people who A)are socially isolated.
B)have sufficient resources to launch and sustain them.
C)feel they lack enough income, power, or human dignity.
D)mobilize around cultural symbols.
Q2) To a passing observer, all types of collective behavior appear very much the same.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Deprivation theory states that social movements arise among people who
A)feel adrift in society.
B)have plenty of money and other resources.
C)feel they lack enough income, basic rights, or human dignity.
D)mobilize around cultural symbols.
Q4) Alcoholics Anonymous, an organization that seeks to help alcoholics achieve a sober life, is one example of which type of social movement?
A)alternative social movements
B)redemptive social movements
C)reformative social movements
D)revolutionary social movements
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Chapter 24: Social Change: Traditional
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Q1) 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.
Q2) Following mass-society theory, the key problem of living in a modern society is
A)finding any personal freedom.
B)dealing with persistent poverty.
C)gaining a sense of power.
D)building a confident personal identity in a quickly changing and morally relativistic world.
Q3) Which of the following thinkers was, on balance, most critical of modern society?
A)Max Weber
B)Emile Durkheim
C)Peter Berger
D)None of these people was critical of modern society.
Q4) Develop an essay that highlights various qualities of modern societies following
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