Free practice final
Intro Sociology practice final (free, with answers)
A typical intro sociology final covers the major theoretical perspectives, research methods, culture and socialization, deviance, inequality by class, race, and gender, and social institutions such as family, education, and religion. These 15 questions ask you to apply sociological concepts to everyday situations rather than recite definitions. Try each one on your own before opening the answer, and read the explanation even when you got it right.
Topics
- Theoretical Perspectives
- Research Methods
- Culture
- Socialization
- Deviance
- Stratification and Class
- Race and Ethnicity
- Gender
- Social Institutions
15 questions
Try each one before you open its answer.
1. A sociologist spends a semester in a middle school classroom recording how students and the teacher come to define who counts as a "smart kid" through everyday exchanges, such as whose answers get praised and who gets called on. Which theoretical perspective most closely guides this study?
- A Structural functionalism
- B Conflict theory
- C Rational choice theory
- D Symbolic interactionism
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Answer: D. Symbolic interactionism
Symbolic interactionism is a micro-level perspective that studies how people create and share meanings through everyday interaction, which is exactly what this study examines. Functionalism and conflict theory usually work at the macro level, asking how social structures maintain stability or how they produce and preserve inequality.
2. A stated purpose of colleges is to educate students and award degrees. Because colleges bring many young adults together, they also become a place where many people meet their future spouses, an effect no one built them to produce. What did Robert Merton call this kind of unintended and often unrecognized consequence?
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Answer: A latent function
Merton distinguished manifest functions, the intended and recognized consequences of a social pattern, from latent functions, which are unintended and often go unnoticed. Consequences that disrupt or harm a social system he called dysfunctions.
3. A study finds that towns with more churches also tend to have more bars. A sociologist points out that bigger towns have more of both, simply because they have more people. What does this suggest about the link between churches and bars?
- A It is a causal relationship in which churches lead to more bars.
- B It is a spurious relationship explained by a third variable.
- C It is a negative correlation.
- D It is a causal relationship in which bars lead to more churches.
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Answer: B. It is a spurious relationship explained by a third variable.
A spurious relationship is a correlation between two variables that appears because both are driven by a third variable, here population size. Comparing towns of similar size, or statistically controlling for population, would show whether any link remains.
4. A researcher studying social isolation decides to measure it as the number of people a respondent says they discussed important matters with in the past six months. What is this step, turning an abstract concept into something that can be measured, called?
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Answer: Operationalization (creating an operational definition)
Operationalization spells out exactly how a concept will be observed or measured. Different operational definitions of the same concept, such as counting confidants versus asking how lonely people feel, can lead to different findings, so researchers must show that their measure is valid.
5. While studying abroad, Emma is surprised that in her host country it is common for adult children, their parents, and grandparents to share one home. Rather than judging the arrangement by the standards of her own culture, she tries to understand it in terms of the host society's values, housing costs, and family traditions. Emma is practicing:
- A Cultural relativism
- B Ethnocentrism
- C Cultural diffusion
- D Cultural imperialism
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Answer: A. Cultural relativism
Cultural relativism means trying to understand a practice by the standards and circumstances of the culture it belongs to. Ethnocentrism, its opposite, means judging other cultures by the standards of one's own, and cultural diffusion is the spread of cultural traits from one group to another.
6. Twelve-year-old Maya never thought much about her math ability until this year, when she noticed her teacher seemed impatient with her and classmates snickered at her answers. Now she describes herself as "bad at math." Which concept best explains how this part of her self-image formed?
- A Anticipatory socialization
- B Resocialization
- C The looking-glass self
- D The dramaturgical approach
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Answer: C. The looking-glass self
Charles Horton Cooley's looking-glass self holds that we form our self-concept by imagining how we appear to others, imagining how they judge us, and reacting with feelings such as pride or shame. Maya reads her teacher's and classmates' reactions and builds them into her view of herself.
7. In George Herbert Mead's theory of the self, a 10-year-old playing shortstop must keep in mind what the batter, the pitcher, and every other player are likely to do, along with the rules of the game. What did Mead call the internalized sense of the expectations of the whole group, and of society at large?
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Answer: The generalized other
Mead argued that the self develops through social interaction: in the play stage children take the role of one particular person at a time, and in the game stage they learn to consider many roles at once. Internalizing the generalized other lets people judge their own behavior by the shared expectations of their community.
8. Carlos strongly wants the financial success his society celebrates, but he has little access to good jobs or education, so he starts selling stolen electronics. In Robert Merton's strain theory, Carlos's response is called:
- A Ritualism
- B Retreatism
- C Rebellion
- D Innovation
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Answer: D. Innovation
Innovation means accepting a cultural goal such as wealth while turning to unapproved means to reach it. Ritualism is the reverse, following the rules while giving up on the goal; retreatism rejects both goals and means; and rebellion rejects both and puts new goals and means in their place.
9. After being caught shoplifting once as a teenager, Devon is treated by teachers and neighbors as a "thief," comes to see himself that way, and begins stealing more often. In labeling theory, what is this later deviance, which grows out of a deviant identity, called?
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Answer: Secondary deviance
Edwin Lemert distinguished primary deviance, an initial act that does not change how a person sees themselves, from secondary deviance, which follows when others' labels lead the person to take on a deviant identity. Labeling theory stresses that how others react to a behavior shapes what happens next.
10. A small-town minister earns a modest income but is widely respected in the community, while a man who just won a huge lottery prize is wealthy but not especially respected. Which sociologist's view of stratification does this contrast best illustrate?
- A Karl Marx
- B Émile Durkheim
- C Max Weber
- D Robert Merton
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Answer: C. Max Weber
Weber argued that stratification has several related but distinct dimensions, including class (economic position), status (social honor or prestige), and party (power), so a person can rank high on one and low on another. Marx, by contrast, focused on a single division rooted in ownership of the means of production.
11. Maria's parents both worked factory jobs and neither finished high school, while Maria grew up to become a physician. Comparing her position with her parents', what type of social mobility does this illustrate?
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Answer: Upward intergenerational mobility
Intergenerational mobility compares a person's social position with that of their parents, while intragenerational mobility tracks changes within one person's own lifetime or career. Moving from a working-class background into a high-status profession is upward mobility.
12. None of a company's managers intends to discriminate, but the company fills almost all its jobs through referrals from current employees. Because its workforce is mostly white, most referred candidates are too, and qualified applicants of color are rarely hired. Sociologists would most likely describe this pattern as:
- A Prejudice
- B Institutional discrimination
- C Individual discrimination
- D Scapegoating
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Answer: B. Institutional discrimination
Institutional discrimination is unequal treatment that results from the ordinary policies and practices of an organization, even when no one intends it. Prejudice is an attitude, individual discrimination is a specific person's unfair action, and scapegoating is blaming a group for problems it did not cause.
13. Nia and her husband both work full-time, but when they get home she does most of the cooking, cleaning, and childcare. Which concept, from Arlie Hochschild's research on dual-earner couples, describes this situation?
- A The second shift
- B The glass ceiling
- C The glass escalator
- D Occupational segregation
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Answer: A. The second shift
Hochschild used "the second shift" for the housework and childcare that the employed women she studied largely carried after their paid workday. The glass ceiling is an invisible barrier to top positions, and the glass escalator describes men in female-dominated fields rising faster than their female coworkers.
14. Many jobs that once required only a high school diploma now ask for a bachelor's degree, even though the work itself has changed little. Sociologists describe this growing emphasis on formal degrees as a job requirement as:
- A Tracking
- B The hidden curriculum
- C Credentialism
- D Social promotion
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Answer: C. Credentialism
Credentialism is the growing reliance on degrees and diplomas as job requirements, sometimes beyond what the work demands, a pattern Randall Collins analyzed. Tracking sorts students into different academic paths, and the hidden curriculum is the informal lessons schools teach, such as punctuality and obedience to authority.
15. After a flood devastates their town, members of a local congregation gather for a memorial service, pray and sing together, and leave feeling closer to one another and to their community. Which idea about religion does this most directly illustrate?
- A Marx's view that religion soothes suffering in a way that discourages challenges to inequality
- B Weber's view that religious ideas helped give rise to modern capitalism
- C The secularization thesis, that religion loses influence as societies modernize
- D Durkheim's view that shared rituals strengthen social solidarity
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Answer: D. Durkheim's view that shared rituals strengthen social solidarity
Durkheim argued that religion, through shared beliefs and rituals centered on the sacred, binds people into a moral community and reinforces their solidarity. Weber's best-known argument concerned the Protestant ethic and capitalism, and Marx saw religion mainly as supporting the existing class order.