Social Problems Exam Preparation Guide
Course Introduction
This course explores contemporary social problems affecting individuals and communities at local, national, and global levels. Students will examine the causes, consequences, and possible solutions to a range of issues such as poverty, inequality, crime, discrimination, environmental degradation, healthcare disparities, and family challenges. The course emphasizes sociological theories and research methods to analyze how these problems are constructed, perpetuated, and addressed within society, fostering critical thinking and informed citizenship.
Recommended Textbook
Society The Basics 12th Edition by John
J. Macionis
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16 Chapters
2023 Verified Questions
2023 Flashcards
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2
Chapter 1: Sociology: Perspective, theory, and Method
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201 Verified Questions
201 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/36369
Sample Questions
Q1) Herbert Spencer described human society as a complex system having much in common with
A)animal societies.
B)planets and stars.
C)the human brain.
D)the human body.
Answer: D
Q2) The term "sociology" was coined in 1838 by
A)Karl Marx.
B)Herbert Spencer.
C)Adam Smith.
D)Auguste Comte.
Answer: D
Q3) Auguste Comte was a positivist who believed that there were laws of society in the same way that there are laws of physics that describe the operation of the natural world.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 2: Culture
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144 Verified Questions
144 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The emergence of computer-based instant messaging shows how new symbols are being created all the time.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Harley Davidson motorcycle riders,computer programmers,and jazz musicians all display _____ patterns.
A)high cultural
B)popular cultural
C)virtual cultural
D)subcultural
Answer: D
Q3) The intangible world of ideas created by members of a society is referred to as A)high culture.
B)material culture.
C)norms.
D)nonmaterial culture.
Answer: D
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Socialization: From Infancy to Old Age
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114 Verified Questions
114 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Harlow experiments to discover the effects of social isolation on rhesus monkeys showed that
A)monkeys isolated for six months were highly fearful when they were returned to their group.
B)isolated monkeys able to cling to terry cloth,artificial mothers developed normally.
C)even several days of social isolation permanently damaged infant monkeys.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Answer: A
Q2) Lawrence Kohlberg claims that individuals develop the capacity for moral reasoning in stages as they grow older.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) The "ego" in Freud's model of personality is the same as "conscience."
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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5
Chapter 4: Social Interaction in Everyday Life
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125 Verified Questions
125 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) A person's racial or ethnic identity is an ascribed status.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The English language often treats whatever has greater value,force,or significance as
A)gender-free.
B)feminine.
C)masculine.
D)humorous.
Q3) The idea that reality is socially constructed means that,to most people,nothing seems real at all.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which item in the following list might serve as a master status?
A)occupation
B)physical or mental disability
C)gender
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q5) Explain the concepts of status set and role set.Provide examples of each concept.
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Chapter 5: Groups and Organizations
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125 Verified Questions
125 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In general,people in secondary groups are more likely than people in primary groups to "keep score" in terms of who owes what to whom.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following situations illustrates the operation of "groupthink"?
A)A group shares information widely and makes an effective policy decision.
B)A group leader makes a decision without consulting anyone and the decision turns out to be a bad one.
C)Group members seek agreement that closes off other points of view.
D)A group gets different ideas from everyone and is unable to come up with any decision at all.
Q3) What are the important differences between primary and secondary groups?
Q4) What is the term for group leadership that emphasizes the completion of tasks?
A)democratic leadership
B)authoritarian leadership
C)expressive leadership
D)instrumental leadership
Q5) List the traits that Max Weber used to describe bureaucratic social organizations.How do these traits promote organizational efficiency?
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Chapter 6: Sexuality and Society
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113 Verified Questions
113 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The importance of Alfred Kinsey's research on sexuality in the United States was
A)making sexuality a focus of scientific study.
B)showing that people were less conventional than most of society thought.
C)encouraging a greater openness toward sexuality.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q2) Why would societies seek to control human sexuality? Why would some societies be more permissive than others?
Q3) Which of the following concepts refers to stigmatizing anyone who is not heterosexual as "queer"?
A)homophobia
B)heterosexism
C)heterophilia
D)homophilia
Q4) In 2010,about what percentage of U.S.adults claimed homosexuality is "always wrong" or "almost always wrong"?
A)almost 100 percent
B)about 47 percent
C)about 30 percent
D)only 5 percent
Q5) State two common myths about rape.Explain why these beliefs are wrong.
Page 8
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Chapter 7: Deviance
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119 Verified Questions
119 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is criminal recidivism? Why do you think our society has such a high rate of recidivism?
Q2) Read the four statements below.Which comes closest to the correct view of the role of biology in causing people to commit crimes?
A)Males with certain body structure commit the most serious crimes.
B)Lombroso proved a century ago that biological factors are the major cause of crime.
C)Biological factors may affect behavior,but research puts greater emphasis on social influences.
D)Genetics research has succeeded in explaining most criminality.
Q3) "Crimes against the person" includes all of the following EXCEPT A)murder.
B)aggravated assault.
C)burglary.
D)forcible rape.
Q4) Explain how age,gender,and social class are correlated with official arrest data.
Q5) Define each of the following: white-collar crime,corporate crime,organized crime,and hate crime.
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Page 9
Chapter 8: Social Stratification
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120 Verified Questions
120 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Critics of the 1996 welfare reforms claim the new system
A)has done little to reduce poverty in the United States.
B)has strengthened families in the United States.
C)encourages welfare dependency.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q2) The working class is sometimes called the "lower-middle class."
A)True
B)False
Q3) The family of actor Will Smith and actress Jada Pinkett Smith would be BEST described as
A)working class.
B)middle class.
C)"old money."
D)lower-upper class.
Q4) What were some of the consequences of the 1996 welfare reform in the United States? To what extent would you say that this reform was or was not successful?
Q5) What is status consistency? Provide a description of a person with high status consistency and an example of someone with low status consistency.
Q6) What is meritocracy? What part does it play in class systems?
Page 10
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Chapter 9: Global Stratification
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114 Verified Questions
114 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) "Las Colonias" refers to settlements
A)that are often called "America's Third World."
B)in Texas near the Mexican border where it is very poor.
C)containing Hispanic Americans,almost all of whom are legal U.S.residents.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q2) What do you find to be the strengths of modernization theory? What about dependency theory? Also point to what are,in your opinion,the two biggest weaknesses of each theory.
Q3) Over the course of the last century,the extent of global economic inequality has
A)decreased sharply.
B)stayed about the same.
C)increased.
D)become smaller,but not by much.
Q4) According to dependency theory,poor countries have become dependent on rich nations because
A)they sell raw materials to rich nations.
B)rich countries bring tourism dollars.
C)rich nations buy their manufactured goods.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q5) Describe the distribution of income for the world as a whole.
Page 11
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Chapter 10: Gender Stratification
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119 Verified Questions
119 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Looking back over U.S.history,we see a general trend by which women
A)have gained opportunities and power.
B)have made little movement toward equality with men.
C)are steadily losing ground and becoming less equal to men.
D)have retained their position of dominance over men.
Q2) What does Naomi Wolf mean by the term "beauty myth"?
Q3) What is at the heart of the controversy over women's participation in the military?
A)Women score lower than men on military intelligence (IQ)tests.
B)Women cannot operate high-tech equipment as well as men.
C)Women have only recently joined the U.S.armed forces.
D)Women are seen as nurturers rather than people who kill.
Q4) Which of the following factors has helped increase the share of women in the paid labor force over the course of the last century?
A)the increase in the number of people working on farms
B)a high divorce rate
C)the increasing size of U.S.families
D)the fact that working women earn more than working men
Q5) What three factors account for MOST of the income disparity between women and men?
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Chapter 11: Race and Ethnicity
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130 Verified Questions
130 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The U.S.Supreme Court outlawed slavery in the Dred Scott case of 1857.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Do you think that U.S.society is pluralistic? Provide specific data in support of your assessment.
Q3) Arab Americans come from more than twenty different nations in Northern Africa and the Middle East.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Can you imagine a future in the United States where members of our society would be truly color blind? Explain how this may become possible.Alternatively,explain why you think this may be impossible.
Q5) Thomas Sowell studied the intelligence test scores of various categories of people and concluded that
A)people's culture explains the variation in intelligence test scores.
B)all individuals have the same intelligence.
C)all categories of people have the same average test performance.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q6) Describe the social standing of several major categories of Hispanic Americans.
Page 13
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Chapter 12: Economics and Politics
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131 Verified Questions
131 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The social thinker whose ideas supported the operation of a free-market economy most was
A)Thorstein Veblen.
B)Adam Smith.
C)Karl Marx.
D)Max Weber.
Q2) An example of a European country with a mostly private economy and extensive social welfare programs is
A)Germany.
B)Sweden.
C)Spain.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q3) Which of the following new sources of energy launched the Industrial Revolution?
A)the gasoline engine
B)the steam engine
C)wind power
D)electricity
Q4) How do capitalism and socialism differ in overall productivity? What about economic inequality?
Q5) Identify three factors that encourage political revolution.
Page 14
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Chapter 13: Family and Religion
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115 Verified Questions
115 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Three out of four people in the United States who divorce remarry at some point.
A)True
B)False
Q2) 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 care giving (especially of the elderly).
Q3) In the United States,two-thirds of the children under the age of five of working mothers receive care at a day-care facility.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the United States,a recent trend involving parenting is that
A)women are having more children.
B)women are marrying earlier in life.
C)more adults are delaying having children or choosing to remain childless.
D)most men are now marrying before age twenty.
Q5) What are exogamy and endogamy? Give an example of each.Why do societies have laws about marriage?
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Chapter 14: Education, health and Medicine
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117 Verified Questions
117 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Write an essay in which you demonstrate that schooling (or lack of it)around the world is linked to (a)level of economic development and (b)national cultural patterns.Include the United States in your comparative analysis.
Q2) In poor nations around the world,about what percentage of children die before they reach their first birthday?
A)3 percent
B)10 percent
C)50 percent
D)90 percent
Q3) What are four societal functions of schooling?
Q4) What is the MOST common method of HIV transmission in the United States? In the world as a whole?
Q5) Getting into college in Japan,compared to the United States,is more a matter of A)athletic ability.
B)performance on achievement tests.
C)family ties.
D)being rich.
Q6) Define "education" and "schooling."
Q7) Describe the reasons for the shortage of nurses in the United States.
Page 16
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Chapter 15: Population, urbanization, and Environment
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126 Verified Questions
126 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In 2011,eighty nations had a birth rate below the zero population growth point.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Malthus argued that
A)population would increase in geometric progression.
B)food and other resources would increase in arithmetic progression.
C)people would reproduce to a point beyond what the planet could support.
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q3) In the United States,the birth rate is currently
A)at about the replacement level.
B)below the replacement level.
C)slightly above the replacement level.
D)well above the replacement level.
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
Q5) What is "environmental racism"?
Page 17
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Chapter 16: Social Change: Modern and Postmodern
Societies
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110 Verified Questions
110 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is a common cause of social change?
A)discovery of existing things
B)diffusion from one cultural system to another
C)invention of new ideas and things
D)All of these responses are correct.
Q2) The class-society theory of modernity is based on the ideas of which of the following sociologists?
A)Emile Durkheim
B)Karl Marx
C)Max Weber
D)Ferdinand Tönnies
Q3) Modernization typically reduces the range of personal choice about how to live.
A)True
B)False
Q4) A criticism of mass-society theory is that it pays too much attention to social inequality.
A)True
B)False
Page 18
Q5) What are the three important causes of cultural change?
Q6) What are four key characteristics of the process of social change?
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Page 19