Social Problems
Test Bank
Course Introduction
This course examines contemporary social problems through a sociological lens, exploring their origins, development, and impact on individuals and society. Topics include inequality, poverty, crime, substance abuse, environmental issues, and discrimination based on race, class, gender, and sexuality. Students will analyze how these problems are addressed by governments, communities, and social institutions, considering both theoretical perspectives and real-world case studies. Emphasis is placed on the ways in which social problems are constructed, perceived, and resolved within diverse cultural and political contexts.
Recommended Textbook
Essentials of Sociology 6th Edition by Richard P. Appelbaum
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16 Chapters
1118 Verified Questions
1118 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Sociology: Theory and Method
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78 Verified Questions
78 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) A key difference between functionalism and conflict theory is:
A) functionalism was developed at a time of great social upheaval.
B) functionalism emphasizes cooperation while conflict theory stresses competition.
C) functionalism is an example of microsociology whereas conflict theory is an example of macrosociology.
D) functionalism stresses the importance of science in the study of sociology.
Answer: B
Q2) Which phrase best represents the beliefs of Herbert Spencer?
A) "equality for all"
B) "survival of the fittest"
C) "all human history is the history of class struggles"
D) "society is changing too rapidly"
Answer: B
Q3) Society, according to Karl Marx, was:
A) a fully functioning grouping of social equals.
B) primarily divided by social class.
C) at its historical apex.
D) a reflection of the mind of God.
Answer: B
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Chapter 2: Culture and Society
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70 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Lucinda hears about the common practice among Nordic parents of leaving babies in their strollers outside of restaurants and shops. Although this is an accepted practice in Nordic society, Lucinda concludes that Nordic parents are neglectful and that this behavior should lead to arrest. Lucinda is engaging in:
A) ethnocentrism.
B) multiculturalism.
C) cultural relativism.
D) assimilation.
Answer: A
Q2) Lucy wants to study American culture. Why might sociologists be critical of such a study?
A) Americans do not produce their own culture; they only copy others.
B) Culture originated with the high art associated with western Europe, not the United States.
C) There is no single American culture but rather a contested terrain of mainstream culture and hundreds, if not thousands, of subcultures.
D) Americans are notoriously uncultured people.
Answer: C
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Chapter 3: Socialization, the Life Course, and Aging
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67 Verified Questions
67 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) According to 1950s functionalist theorist Talcott Parsons, failure to find adequate roles for the elderly in U.S. society will cause them to:
A) be alienated from society.
B) organize social movements to struggle for more social programs.
C) retire to other countries.
D) move in with their adult children.
Answer: A
Q2) At nine years old, Arjun began playing organized sports, learning that teams are supposed to play by the rules of the game. According to George Herbert Mead, Arjun is developing an understanding of:
A) the "I."
B) the "me."
C) the generalized other.
D) socialization.
Answer: C
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Chapter 4: Social Interaction and Everyday Life in the Age
of the Internet
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68 Verified Questions
68 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) When Jane arrived at the party, her friend Alyssa came over immediately to say hello. According to Erving Goffman, this is an example of:
A) controlled alertness.
B) focused interaction.
C) unfocused interaction.
D) interactional vandalism.
Q2) Wearing a new dress on a first date is an example of:
A) gender nonspecific norms.
B) social position.
C) impression management.
D) social exclusion.
Q3) What is impression management? Give an example of how a college student engages in impression management when interacting with professors.
Q4) What do sociologists call the social honor or prestige that society accords to a group of people?
A) status
B) agency
C) race
D) expectation
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Chapter 5: Groups, Networks, and Organizations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Please answer the following questions in three to five sentences. According to Irving Janis, what is groupthink? Why can groupthink lead to bad decisions by otherwise smart and strong-willed individuals?
Q2) A latte from Starbucks will taste the same whether one purchases it in New York City or Albuquerque, New Mexico. Which aspect of George Ritzer's theory of McDonaldization does this demonstrate?
A) efficiency
B) calculability
C) control
D) uniformity
Q3) At Digi-Corp, each employee receives a manual outlining the rules about how employees and managers should work together and interact. These rules are referred to as the ________ between employee and manager.
A) formal relations
B) informal relations
C) primary groups
D) surveillance
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Chapter 6: Conformity, Deviance, and Crime
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Sample Questions
Q1) The term that describes a rule of conduct that specifies appropriate behavior in a given range of situations is:
A) value.
B) belief.
C) sanction.
D) norm.
Q2) Which of the following statements related to the biological view of deviance is true?
A) Some of the first attempts to explain crime emphasized biological factors.
B) Cesare Lombroso's claims have been supported by a large body of subsequent research.
C) Nearly all studies claiming a relationship between body type and delinquency have used samples that are representative of the general population.
D) A correlation between body type and delinquency shows that one's body type causes criminal behavior.
Q3) In two to three sentences, apply control theory to explain why people in their late teens are more likely to commit crime than older people.
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8
Chapter 7: Stratification, Class, and Inequality
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Sample Questions
Q1) In one to two sentences, explain how the official definition of poverty is calculated. Based on what you read in the text, how do sociologists distinguish some of the problems with this way of calculating poverty today?
Q2) Though there used to be a widespread belief that "we are all middle class," that adage has eroded. In recent years, many Americans have experienced downward mobility. What is the best explanation for this shift?
A) changing definitions of social class
B) shifts in the country's racial composition
C) a declining work ethic
D) the 2008 economic recession
Q3) Individuals living in rural communities cut off from resources and opportunities, like individuals living in inner cities with high crime rates, are likely to experience what sociologists call:
A) social exclusion.
B) social deprivation.
C) unequal education.
D) absolute poverty.
Q4) In two or three sentences, compare and contrast caste and class as systems of stratification.
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Chapter 8: Global Inequality
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Sample Questions
Q1) According to the textbook, the global standard of living has ________ over the past thirty years.
A) rapidly increased
B) slowly increased
C) rapidly decreased
D) slowly decreased
Q2) According to your textbook, most of the gains in global standard of living have been made for people in:
A) low-income countries.
B) middle-income countries.
C) low- and middle-income countries.
D) middle- and high-income countries.
Q3) More than 40 percent of all urban residents in developing countries live in:
A) occupied factories.
B) slums.
C) government housing.
D) urban farms.
Q4) In a short paragraph, compare and contrast the strengths and weaknesses of the four competing sociological theories that explain global inequality.
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Chapter 9: Gender Inequality
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is an example of quid pro quo sexual harassment?
A) sexual language, usually by managers or supervisors
B) lewd posters posted around the office
C) sexual advances that make a worker uncomfortable
D) a supervisor demanding sexual acts from a worker as a job condition
Q2) According to your textbook, between 1979 and 2014, the ratio of women's to men's earnings among full-time, year-round workers was:
A) 52 percent.
B) 62 percent.
C) 72 percent.
D) 83 percent.
Q3) Josiah is a wealthy seventeen-year-old black male. He says that he aspires to a romantic relationship in which he could share earnings and household responsibilities equally with his partner. What might sociologists say explains his point of view?
A) his race
B) his socioeconomic status
C) his gender
D) his age
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11
Chapter 10: Ethnicity and Race
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Sample Questions
Q1) Compared to earlier decades, a greater proportion of international migrants today are women. This illustrates which of the characterizing tendencies of global migration identified by Castles and Miller?
A) feminization
B) diversification
C) globalization
D) demasculinization
Q2) Assimilation is defined as:
A) the acceptance of a minority group by a majority population, as the new group takes on the values and norms of the dominant culture.
B) the idea that ethnic differences can be combined to create new patterns of behavior drawing on diverse cultural sources.
C) a model for ethnic relations in which all ethnic groups in a society retain their independent and separate identities yet share equally in the rights and powers of citizenship.
D) the viewpoint according to which ethnic groups can exist separately and share equally in economic and political life.
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Chapter 11: Families and Intimate Relationships
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66 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) A form of marriage in which each married partner is allowed only one spouse at any given time is called:
A) monogamy.
B) polygamy.
C) polygyny.
D) polyandry.
Q2) In a short paragraph, please discuss the differences in family patterns between white and black families.
Q3) Which of the following is a trend related to cohabiting?
A) Decreasing numbers of people are cohabiting.
B) Most cohabitors eventually marry.
C) Young children are more likely than ever before to live with parents who are cohabiting.
D) Cohabitation as an alternative to marriage is a trend unique to the United States.
Q4) In a short paragraph, explain the feminist critique of the "conventional" family.
Q5) Describe Talcott Parsons's view of the family in one to three sentences. What are two criticisms of his approach?
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Page 13
Chapter 12: Education and Religion
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Sample Questions
Q1) Kumar thinks that a child's background and environment influence educational attainment more than the physical resources a school has at its disposal. His view most closely resembles the conclusions of which of the following studies?
A) sociological studies of tracking and "within school effects"
B) Jonathan Kozol's Savage Inequalities
C) James Coleman's studies on "between school effects"
D) Randall Collins's studies of credentialism
Q2) Why did Émile Durkheim believe that religion was useful for human societies?
A) Durkheim felt that religions allowed our desires to be expressed in totems and repressed our baser instincts.
B) Durkheim held that religion can be an agent of social change.
C) Durkheim argued that religion has the function of cohering a society by ensuring that people meet regularly to affirm common beliefs and values.
D) Religion, according to Durkheim, allows the strong to assert ideological power over the weak, which leads to societal advancement and evolution.
Q3) What is the theory of religious economy? Please explain your answer in three to five sentences.
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Page 14
Chapter 13: Politics and Economic Life
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is one of the major outcomes of institutional directorates, or linkages among corporations created by individuals who sit on two or more corporate boards?
A) They reverse the process of increasing managerial control.
B) Instead of investing in a money market, people now directly buy business shares.
C) Americans have renewed faith in pension funds following the most recent economic crisis.
D) Blocks of shares owned by other corporations are dwarfed by manager shareholdings.
Q2) What is a welfare state? Can the United States be classified as a welfare state? Explain your answer in a short paragraph.
Q3) Laura is a researcher who studies technological and economic change. Her work shows clearly how forces of worldwide economic competition are changing the nature of the work we do. What term do sociologists use to describe the process she studies?
A) epistemology
B) communism
C) capitalism
D) globalization
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15
Chapter 14: The Sociology of the Body: Health, Illness, and Sexuality
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Sample Questions
Q1) Bernard is studying an indigenous society where large body sizes are considered a sign of good health and lean bodies are considered a sign of weakness and poor health. Bernard is focusing his research on the way members of this society define health rather than focusing on a standardized medical measurement of health. Which sociological perspective is Bernard using?
A) the functionalist perspective.
B) the conflict perspective.
C) complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
D) the symbolic interactionist perspective.
Q2) Western attitudes toward sexual behavior:
A) were molded primarily by Christianity for nearly two thousand years, and the dominant view was that all sexual behavior was suspect.
B) have rarely included the idea that sexual fulfillment can and should be sought through marriage.
C) have remained surprisingly constant throughout the past two or three centuries.
D) have reflected similar assumptions about the sexual activities of men and women.
Q3) In three to five sentences, compare complementary and alternative medicine.
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Page 16
Chapter 15: Urbanization, Population, and the Environment
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Sample Questions
Q1) Natasha's organization helps companies design projects that will generate profit but also have minimal impact on the environment. Their focus is on recycling physical resources and keeping pollution to a minimum. Her company focuses on:
A) communization.
B) sustainable development.
C) modernization.
D) postmodernization.
Q2) Rural areas in the United States have seen their populations decline because of:
A) low poverty rates.
B) growth in farming industries.
C) too many government services.
D) lack of opportunities for young people.
Q3) Population growth rates are:
A) usually negative.
B) exponential.
C) linear.
D) rational.
Q4) In a short paragraph, assess the ways in which globalization has affected the process of urbanization in societies.
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Chapter 16: Globalization in a Changing World
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which perspective in the globalization debate takes a middle position and sees many old patterns persisting while the broader global order is transforming in a dynamic process that is open to influence and change?
A) the skeptics
B) the hyperglobalizers
C) the critics
D) the transformationalists
Q2) The manufacture of material goods is no longer the basis of production in many countries today. The basis of production in many places is now largely:
A) the consumption of material goods.
B) the development and dissemination of information and knowledge.
C) agriculture to meet increased food demand.
D) warfare to sustain economies that depend on war.
Q3) According to globalization skeptics, compared with patterns of trade a century ago:
A) the world economy has not changed much.
B) the world economy is more global and less regionalized.
C) the world economy is less global and more regionalized.
D) there is less trade because there are too many types of currency.
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