Intro to Sociology Sample Exam Question answers

 

Multiple Choice – Identify the choice that best completes the statement or answers the question.2 points each

 

____ 2.   A social researcher looks at patterns of occupational sex segregation, examining the ways that large-scale social structures created the constraints within which individuals lived their lives. Based on this information, her work would be characterized as what kind of sociology?

a.	Microsociology
b.	transnational sociology
c.	comparative-historical sociology
d.	Macrosociology
e.	the sociology of popular culture

 

 

____    3.   What is the sociological imagination?

a.	a property of society that ensures that people remain ignorant of the connections between their lives and social change
b.	a particular way of understanding the criminal mind, such as that of a serial killer
c.	the sociological approach that assumes that large-scale social institutions structure individual interactions
d.	the ability to understand the connections between biography and history, or the interplay of the self and the world
e.	the sociological approach that assumes that individual decisions and interactions create larger social institutions

 

 

 

____    5.   What can an institutional review board (IRB) do if it has reservations about the safety or ethics of a research project?

1. it may appoint new researchers to complete the project
2. it may stop the project from going forward, at least until changes have been made
3. it can do nothing
4. it may issue recommendations for future research
5. it may provide assistance to any research subjects whose rights have been violate.

 

____    6.   What economic system emerged during the Industrial Revolution?

a.	Socialism
b.	Communism
c.	Humanitarianism
d.	Globalization
e.	Capitalism

 

 

____    7.   Emile Durkheim suggested that, in traditional societies, people were bound together through mechanical solidarity. What was the basis of these sorts of bonds?

a.	interdependence and the division of labor
b.	shared traditions and similar experiences
c.	a strong ruler who exercised absolute control over the population
d.	Superstition
e.	fear of the unknown

 

 

____    1.   Sociology is the scientific study of

1. human social life.
2. groups.
3. societies.
4. all of the above
5. none of the above

 

 

____    4.   Gender socialization begins

a.	at birth.
b.	around age two or three years.
c.	when the child starts school.
d.	at puberty.
e.	None of the above; gender is an inborn trait.

 

 

____    8.   Microsociology and macrosociology depend on each other.

1. True
2. false

 

____    9.   Durkheim theorized that the rapidly changing conditions of modern life lead to anomie. What is anomie?

a.	normlessness, or a loss of social connections
b.	anger and disillusionment with progress
c.	the transfer of destructive urges to socially useful activities
d.	a kind of social solidarity based on interdependence
e.	a failure of the oppressed to recognize the source of their oppression

 

 

____  10.   What institutions does Max Weber believe characterize modern industrialized societies?

a.	Churches
b.	central governments
c.	stock markets
d.	Bureaucracies
e.	Prisons

 

 

____  11.   What did W. E. B. Du Bois have in common with Harriet Martineau?

a.	Both made careers out of studying race and racism.
b.	Both were from the American South.
c.	Both worked within a conflict-theory paradigm.
d.	Both saw symbolic interactionism as the most promising element of social theory.
e.	Both were intrigued by America’s democratic promise, but disappointed in its hypocritical injustices.

 

 

____  12.   Classical Marxist analysis often argued that everything is ultimately determined by the economy, even though sometimes it is through many complicated steps. Can economy factors explain racism?

1. No, almost none of the factors associated with racism can be understood in economic terms.
2. The link between race and class is very strong, and almost all sociologists accept that race is primarily a way to keep the working class divided.

The link between race and class is useful and important, but it does not provide a satisfactory explanation for all forms of racism

• Yes, although the economic origins of racism may be very distant now, ultimately racism is about economic factors

1. None of the above

 

____  13.   Which of the following theories views society as a whole unit, made up of interrelated parts that work together?

a.	structural functionalism
b.	conflict theory
c.	symbolic interactionism
d.	Psychoanalysis
e.	Postmodernism

 

 

____  14.   Conflict theorists believe that arguments over values and beliefs have their roots in:

a.	division between urban and rural populations.
b.	conflict between conservatives and liberals.
c.	struggles over scarce resources and power.
d.	longstanding philosophical debates.
e.	differences in opinion that originate in religion.

 

____  15.   What is the difference between sex and gender?

a.	Sex is what couples do to conceive, whereas gender is an attribute of their baby
b.	A culture’s understanding of gender determines what types of physical intimacy constitute sex
c.	Sex refers to the physical differences in the body, whereas gender concerns the psychological, social and cultural differences between men and women
d.	There is none, in sociology as in everyday life, the terms are interchangeable.

 

____  16.   When and where did the perspective calling itself sociology emerge?

a.	500 years B.C.E., China
b.	first century, C.E., Rome
c.	early nineteenth century, Europe
d.	early twentieth century, United States
e.	mid-twentieth century, Europe

 

 

____  17.   What is the scientific method or approach?

a.	the use of statistics to analyze numerical data
b.	the study of scientific processes
c.	the standard procedure for acquiring and verifying empirical knowledge
d.	the use of technology to understand the physical world
e.	the study of nature

 

 

____  18.   Survey research tends to produce quantitative data. One key advantage of this kind of data is that:

a.	it is easy to transmit to the public.
b.	it includes observations and informal interviews.
c.	it allows the researcher to review the literature.
d.	it affords easy access to the norms, values, and meanings held by members of a group.
e.	it is the only kind of data that is useful.

 

____  19.   Which of the following is true about a sample?

a.	It is always smaller than the group that it is used to generalize about.
b.	It is always selected randomly.
c.	It must always contain a large number of people.
d.	It must be weighted to take into account the demographics of the target population.
e.	It is only used with quantitative methods.

 

 

 

____  20.   If a researcher allows his own values and opinions to affect his analysis, he is guilty of:

a.	asking leading questions.
b.	bias.
c.	sampling bias.
d.	failing to obtain informed consent.
e.	conducting research that lacks replicability.

 

 

____  21.   Originally published in 1897, Durkhiem’s study Suicide found that suicide:

1. Was highest among Catholics (compared to Protestants and Jews) because of their focus on the community and conformity
2. Is a completely individualistic occurrence based solely on psychological factors
3. Was more common among Protestants than for Jews and Catholics because of the focus on individuality
4. Jews (compared to Protestants and Catholics) had the highest rates of suicide because of the social discrimination they were subject to.
5. No differences in the rates of suicide between religious groups, instead rates of suicide were solely correlated with social class, with lower SES groups having the highest rates of suicide.

 

_______22. Research conducted by Laud Humphry’s (Tea Room Trade) is a good example of why we do NOT need to get the consent of research subjects when conducting social research.

1. True

False

 

 

 

 

 

_______23.  A recent sociological experiment sought to determine the exact role that social support plays in the health of expectant mothers. To conduct the experiment, the researchers asked midwives to flip a coin each time they received a new client, and if it came up heads to try as hard as possible to put the client in contact with others who could provide social support.  If the coin came up tails, the midwives would not discourage the woman from receiving social support, but would not facilitate it.  Who is the control group in this experiment?

1. sociologists
2. expectant mothers
3. expectant mothers whose coin comes up tails
4. expectant mothers whose coin comes up heads
5. midwives

 

_______24. Which theoretical perspective perceives consensus and homeostasis within society as imperative for social integration?

1.          Functionalism
2.          Marxism
3.          Symbolic interactionism
4.          Rational choice theory

 

_______25.  From a sociological perspective, the love you feel for a romantic partner is

1. a natural outgrowth of a sexual desire.
2. universally found in all societies where men and women live in close proximity.
3. a product of particular historical and cultural circumstances.
4. limited to persons of the opposite sex.
5. restricted to those persons of marriageable age.

 

_______26.  Our lives today are increasingly interdependent with the lives of other people, even those who are thousands of miles away. This rapid process of social change creating connections between the local and the rest of the world is known as

1. socialization.
2. creeping communism.
3. functionalism.
4. localization.
5. globalization.

 

_______27.  _____________________shows how things occur; ________ considers why things happen.

1. Theory; factual research
2. Factual research; theory
3. Sociology; psychology
4. Psychology; sociology
5. Astronomy; astrology

 

 

 

 

_______28.  Who said about American society, “the problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line”?

1. Émile Durkheim
2. George Herbert Mead
3. Harriet Martineau
4. Robert Merton
5. W. E. B. Du Bois

 

_______29.  What is the final step in a research project?

1. developing a hypothesis
2. reviewing the existing evidence
3. interpreting the results
4. developing an appropriate research design
5. reporting the findings

 

_______30.  People today live pretty much the same way they have for the last 10,000 years: in large, industrialized towns and cities.

1. true
2. false

 

________31. If someone has no way to make money but to sell their own labor, then they must be a member of what social group?

1. bureaucrats
2. traditional society

proletariats

1. the bourgeoisie
2. capitalists

 

_______32.  The words race and ethnicity can be used interchangeably, because they mean pretty much the same thing?

1. true
2. false

 

_______33.  The higher a person’s social class, the more likely it is that they will die from a heart attack?

1. true
2. false

 

_______34.  Because laws represent the interests of those in power, crimes committed by the upper classes are typically treated more leniently than crimes committed by the lower classes. This argument in consistent with:

1. Differential association theory

Conflict theory

1. Principled deviance
2. Lack of deterrence
3. Functionalist theory.

 

 

_______35.  What has modern science determined about racial categories?

1. There is greater diversity between racial populations than within them

Biologically there is no such thing as a pure race

1. Some racialized groups are genetically predisposed to certain skills than others
2. There has been almost no mixing of racialized social groups in American History.
3. None of the above