The Cultural Landscape, 11e (Rubenstein)
Chapter 4 Folk and Popular Culture
1) The frequent repetition of an act, to the extent that it becomes characteristic of a group of
people, is a
A) custom.
B) popular culture.
C) habit.
D) taboo.
E) character trait.
2) A repetitive act performed by an individual is a
A) custom.
B) popular culture.
C) habit.
D) taboo.
E) character trait.
3) Jeans provide a good example of material culture that is adopted by a number of different
societies. They are also an example of
A) punk culture.
B) popular culture.
C) folk culture.
D) white-collar culture.
4) In contrast to folk culture, popular culture is more likely to vary
A) from place to place at a given time.
B) from time to time at a given place.
C) both from place to place and from time to time, in equal measure.
D) neither from place to place nor from time to time.
E) only in more developed countries.
5) In contrast to folk culture, popular culture is typical of large and
A) homogeneous groups.
B) heterogeneous groups.
C) groups living in isolated rural areas.
D) groups that have little interaction with other groups.
E) groups of specialists.
6) Judging from the discussions of other clothing in this chapter, we could say that hoodies are
an example of ________ adopted by a number of different groups segmented by age, class,
ethnicity, and other factors. Hoodies are a versatile element of popular culture.
A) punk culture
B) material culture
C) folk culture
D) immaterial culture
E) youth culture
7) By analyzing the distribution of folk culture in our surroundings, we can surmise that
A) folk culture would not exist without small scale and local migration.
B) folk culture does not diffuse through relocation diffusion.
C) several elements of folk culture may have multiple, unknown origins.
D) folk culture can only be transmitted orally across time and location.
E) several elements of folk culture tend to replace elements of popular culture.
8) Typically, popular culture
A) originates in a number of locations at the same time.
B) reflects the characteristics of a distinctive physical environment.
C) experiences frequent changes through time and space.
D) is practiced by small homogeneous groups.
E) is practiced by small heterogeneous groups that become large homogeneous groups.
9) Folk cultures are spread primarily by
A) contagious diffusion.
B) hierarchical diffusion.
C) relocation diffusion.
D) stimulus diffusion.
E) epidemic diffusion.
10) Before reaching other parts of ________ and, eventually, marginalized urban areas
throughout the country, Hip hop music originated in the late 1970s in the South Bronx.
A) Chicago
B) Boston
C) Baltimore
D) New York City
E) Philadelphia
11) In recent decades, popular customs have most frequently originated in
A) more developed countries.
B) less developed countries.
C) formerly communist countries.
D) countries with large rural populations.
E) Latin America and Africa.
12) One significant impact of popular culture is to
A) create a more varied and less uniform landscape.
B) promote the diffusion of folk culture.
C) modify the physical environment.
D) spread through relocation diffusion.
E) diffuse at the expense of globalization.
13) Based on what you have read about globalization, you could surmise that the main effect of
modern communications on social customs has been to
A) preserve folk cultures, by increasing awareness of their uniqueness.
B) stimulate the diffusion of folk cultures around the world.
C) increase the similarity of social customs in different locations.
D) have little effect on the diffusion of social customs.
E) slow the rate of change.
14) As components of group identity and cultural learning, folk customs usually originate from
A) the “discovery” of leisure time.
B) the application of industrial technology.
C) familiar events in daily life.
D) a traumatic event unique to the history of a particular social group.
E) global communications, such as television and the Internet.
15) When we analyze the patterns of popular culture in our surroundings, we can surmise that
A) all culture is transmitted from one location to another through small scale and local migration.
B) popular culture diffuses through relocation diffusion.
C) nodes of innovation are central to the process of hierarchical diffusion.
D) unlike folk culture, popular culture is usually transmitted orally across time and location.
E) it is impossible for us to make scientific observations about the diffusion of popular culture.
16) We can deduce from the examples of popular music, fashionable clothing, and electronic
applications around us that the rapid diffusion of popular culture
A) discourages people in different places to adopt different customs.
B) depends on modern communication systems.
C) is an example of relocation diffusion.
D) conserves natural resources.
E) always occurs at the expense of folk culture.
17) The distribution of the subjects of art in the Himalayas shows how folk cultures
A) always include paintings of religious subjects.
B) are influenced by distinctive vegetation, climate, and religion.
C) avoid painting animate objects.
D) typically paint scenes of nature but not people.
E) abandon customary forms as they engage in migration.
18) Which concept is the contemporary geographer likely to reject?
A) Local resources make some cultural choices more likely than others.
B) People in similar environments adopt different social customs.
C) People are influenced by their physical environment.
D) People in different environments adopt similar social customs.
E) The physical environment causes people to adopt social customs.
19) The global diffusion of popular culture may threaten folk culture by
A) being less responsive to the diversity of local environments.
B) threatening local environments through the diffusion of information by technology.
C) serving as a catalyst for the advancement of folk culture.
D) being more responsive to the diversity of local environments.
20) Folk songs are more likely than popular songs to
A) tell a story about life-cycle events, work, or natural disasters.
B) be considered examples of culture.
C) feature instruments and styles of performance associated with dance clubs.
D) be transmitted in written form.
E) be written by specialists for commercial distribution.
21) An example of a folk custom used to diffuse information about agriculture is
A) Armed Forces Radio.
B) Association Football.
C) Himalayan hip hop.
D) Vietnamese songs.
E) a cartoon about talking animals in Madagascar.
22) Hip hop music demonstrates an interplay between globalization and local diversity because
A) it is a form of folk culture responsible for the globalization of modern music.
B) it is a part of popular culture which threatens to overwhelm local folk cultures.
C) artists may be widely popular yet still make local references in their song lyrics.
D) some lyrics can’t be transmitted over the radio and television.
E) hip hop music is played in many Islamic countries.
23) Like hip hop music, music from the border region between the southwestern United States
and northern Mexico might be expected to
A) reflect almost exclusively on themes of drug culture and violence.
B) be an aspect of popular culture which threatens to overwhelm local folk cultures.
C) incorporate local, national, and global themes as it demonstrates an interplay between
globalization and localism.
D) feature potentially offensive lyrics in order to guarantee its widespread transmission via radio
and television.
E) have diffused originally from one district of a large city.
24) The spatial distribution of soccer during the twentieth century is an example of
A) folk culture.
B) habit.
C) popular culture.
D) taboo.
E) relocation diffusion.
25) We can surmise from the discussion of other sports in this chapter that the current
distribution of bowling is another example of
A) a folk custom becoming part of a popular culture.
B) nearly all sports being examples of folk culture resisting the globalizing influences of popular
culture.
C) television infusing all sports into popular culture.
D) a folk culture arising out of a folk custom.
E) sport being more important in less developed countries.
26) Cultural diversity is promoted by
A) the relative isolation of a group from others.
B) globalization.
C) the rapid movement of goods and services across borders.
D) expansion diffusion.
E) the connections between homogeneous groups.
27) The diffusion of jeans is a good example primarily of the
A) diffusion of popular culture.
B) adoption of unique folk culture.
C) impact of high income on clothing habits.
D) opposition to globalization.
E) increasing incidence of synthetic textiles replacing natural fibers.
28) A particular preference for a new clothing style is more likely than a folk custom to
A) evolve rapidly owing to the isolation of different groups.
B) rapidly diffuse through modern communication and transportation.
C) reflect the unique characteristics of the physical landscape.
D) have an unknown source of origin.
E) resist the influences of multinational corporations.
29) The choice of clothing in Western countries is strongly influenced by
A) occupation but not level of income.
B) level of income but not occupation.
C) knowledge of fashion elsewhere, as well as the level of folk culture.
D) occupation, income, and knowledge of fashion elsewhere.
E) fashion only.
30) Terroir refers to
A) a group’s sense of place.
B) a group’s food taboos.
C) the relationship between the physical environment and culture.
D) an act of violence that may have been, in part, a reaction against globalization.
E) the sum of the effects of the local environment on a food item.
31) A restriction on behavior imposed by social custom is a
A) folk culture.
B) habit.
C) popular culture.
D) taboo.
E) tariff.
32) A taboo against pork is a characteristic of
A) Judaism and Islam.
B) Judaism and Buddhism.
C) Christianity and Buddhism.
D) Christianity and Hinduism.
E) Islam and Hinduism.
33) Which aspect of the local environment is the least important for wine production?
A) climate
B) soil types
C) topography
D) proximity to lakes or a river
E) proximity to cities
34) Little wine is produced in Asia primarily because
A) grapes do not grow in these regions.
B) wines can be imported more cheaply.
C) religious taboos discourage consumption.
D) the people do not have a tradition of wine making.
E) soil contaminants produce bad grapes.
35) The geographer Vidal de la Blache regarded food supply as
A) the weakest available example of a folk custom.
B) the folk custom least closely tied to a particular climate.
C) more subject to modification than weapons.
D) less subject to modification than clothing and weapons.
E) a limited resource that would not keep up with population growth.
36) China produces a relatively large amount of pork compared to the countries of Southwestern
Asia primarily because
A) Muslims have a taboo against pork consumption.
B) China’s physical environment is less suitable to raising pigs.
C) China has more people than the countries of Southwest Asia.
D) rice is the main cereal grain grown in China.
E) southwestern Asia does not have enough water for pig farming.
37) Americans’ preferences for beverages and snacks
A) vary according to what is produced locally.
B) do not vary from one region of the country to another.
C) do not vary according to religious differences.
D) are primarily dependent on income differences.
E) All of these answers are correct.
38) In which state would alcohol consumption be relatively low?
A) Kentucky
B) Nevada
C) New York
D) Utah
E) California
39) The distribution of alcohol consumption in the United States displays which characteristic of
popular culture?
A) rapid diffusion
B) the lack of a correlation to level of income
C) barriers owing to the physical environment
D) local tastes in beer vary too much for national brands to compete effectively
E) uniform distribution across the landscape
40) The ________ is an important source area for U.S. folk house types.
A) Lower Chesapeake
B) Southern Atlantic
C) Northeast
D) Upper New York highland
E) Southwest
41) The most important house style in the United States since the 1960s is known as
A) neo-traditional.
B) contemporary.
C) split-level.
D) neo-eclectic.
E) sandbox.
42) Examining elements of folk and popular culture like house styles is particularly well suited
to the geographic method of
A) GIS.
B) census.
C) field work.
D) statistics.
E) cartography.
43) Pioneer farmers settling the grasslands of the American West often built houses of sod, while
early settlers of the eastern forest built wooden structures like log cabins. This suggests that
building materials
A) are strongly influenced by local resources.
B) are commonly imported over long distances because of local folk culture.
C) are chosen because of the diffusion of popular culture.
D) are a uniform feature of folk culture.
E) are elements of popular culture.
44) Today, house types in the United States are distinguished by all but which of the following?
A) They can still be divided into three distinct regions.
B) They display few regional distinctions.
C) They are usually mass-produced.
D) Alternative styles have diffused throughout the country.
E) They demonstrate how popular customs vary more in time than in place.
45) Diffusion of Internet service is following the earlier pattern of television, except that
A) the United States’ share of world use is expanding.
B) diffusion is much faster.
C) diffusion is much slower.
D) the expansion of service is faster in Africa than Asia.
E) the initial use was in less developed countries.
46) The trend of globalization has threatened
A) popular culture and folk culture relatively equally.
B) the folk customs of only a few isolated communities.
C) the spread of the international banking system.
D) folk culture more than popular culture.
E) folk culture, but only in the largest cities on each continent.
47) Given recent trends in communications, in the next five years the number of television
programs viewed over the Internet might be expected to
A) remain about the same.
B) decrease slowly as the number of broadcast television stations increases.
C) decrease slowly as cable and satellite television services offer more channels.
D) decrease dramatically.
E) increase dramatically.
48) The use of a horse and buggy by the Amish in the United States is an example of one
element of
A) folk culture.
B) habit.
C) popular culture.
D) taboo.
E) technological innovation.
49) Some features of U.S. material culture such as gas stations, supermarkets, and motels
A) promote a uniform landscape.
B) reflect the preservation of folk culture.
C) provide diversity on the U.S. landscape.
D) promote diffusion of folk culture.
E) show high regional variation.
50) Marriage dowries in India reflect
A) that some families value male children more.
B) a traditional folk custom.
C) a popular fad.
D) the value of women as mothers and wives.
E) that most families value female children more.
51) Many less developed countries fear the loss of folk culture because
A) they do not want to preserve traditional values.
B) Western perspectives may become more dominant.
C) popular culture devalues women.
D) they want to avoid political disputes.
E) Western clothing styles are less comfortable.