The fact that neolocal families are common in many industrialized societies is related
to:
a. The high rate of divorce in such societies.
b. The high levels of mobility common in such societies.
c. The government assistance to both the poor and the housing industry common in
such societies.
d. The declining role of religion in such societies.
e. The marginalization of women in such societies.
Balanced reciprocity is most typical of what kinds of trading relationships?
a. Industrialized peoples with market economies.
b. Non-industrialized peoples without market economies.
c. Non-industrialized peoples with market economies.
d. Foraging societies with no formal economies.
e. Exchange between household economies and firms.
Transculturation is:
a. The movement of people from one culture to another.
b. The result of the conquest of one culture by another.
c. A political program aimed at creating a single world culture.
d. The notion that cultural traits are transformed as they are adopted and new cultural
forms result.
e. The idea that people should be raised simultaneously in at least two cultures.
Traits such as skin color, hair color and texture, and nose shape are often chosen to
determine race because:
a. They are easily visible.
b. They are the most important to human cultures.
c. They determine physical attractiveness and hence mating behavior.
d. They have greater biological importance than other traits (regardless of their other
cultural importance).
e. They occur in more consistent, predictable ways than other traits.
The critical thing that created the demand for African slaves in the Americas was:
a. Mining.
b. Growing sugar.
c. Construction of roads.
d. Missionary work.
e. Fishing and whaling.
One aspect of language that appears to contradict the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is that
human languages are similar in that:
a. They are all created by humans.
b. There are only so many ways that humans can interpret the world around them.
c. Anything that can be said in one language can be translated into every other human
language.
d. They are only so many words that can be invented in a language.
e. Every language uses the same set of sounds.
Lewis Henry Morgan and Edward Tylor classified small-scale societies as:
a. Savage.
b. Barbarian.
c. Primitive.
d. Childlike.
e. Civilized.
The ties on which kinship systems are based:
a. Are scientifically accurate reflections of biological ties.
b. Are culturally specified ties that rest on biological and conjugal relationships.
c. Are defined culturally and have no relationship at all to biological ties.
d. Are remembered only in societies that have developed writing.
e. Are understood only by members of a society.
In gender studies, the idea of the public/private dichotomy refers to the notion that:
a. Behavior of both men and women is different in the public sphere than in the private
sphere.
b. Men act differently toward women in public than they do in private.
c. Women are able to maintain more power over men if their actions are public than if
they are private.
d. Private relationships between men and women are threatened by public disclosure.
e. Societies are divided into a private world dominated by women and a public world
dominated by men.
A widely accepted function of the incest taboo is that it:
a. Helps families form wider alliances.
b. Prevents recessive genes from appearing in human populations.
c. Demonstrates our connections with other primate families.
d. Raises the intelligence level of the human species.
e. Is key to maintaining the species differences between humans and other primates.
In all religions, most fundamentalist belief calls for society to return to an earlier time
that believers understand as more holy than the current era.
Delmos Jones’ study of voluntary organizations among an African-American
community in the United States showed him that:
a. No one worked consistently for the organizations unless they were paid for their
work.
b. Voluntary organizations are highly successful when founded by minority leaders.
c. His work as a native anthropologist was at the center of the success the
African-American community experienced in cultural identity.
d. There was considerable dissent between leadership of the organizations and the
members.
e. Native anthropology has little or no value in the discipline.
A critical way in which industrial production differs from other productive systems is:
a. Increased dependence on male labor.
b. Substantially reduced working hours and greater free time.
c. The focus of production moves from food to other goods.
d. Increased dependence on female labor.
e. Increasing economic equality among members of society.
A critical problem for indigenous people has been that as world population increases:
a. The percentage of the world composed of indigenous people decreases.
b. Indigenous people are less able to make their voices heard in local and regional
governments.
c. There is increased pressure on them to increase their family size and this often
destabilizes their production system.
d. Land shortages have resulted in changes to traditional practices or, sometimes, the
virtual disappearance of traditional livelihoods.
e. The problems of indigenous people matter less and less to others.
Today’s market exchange system can be characterized by the phrase, “caveat emptor,”
which means:
a. “Let the buyer beware.”
b. “All trade is equal.”
c. “You break it, you buy it.”
d. “Fair trade is empty trade.”
e. “Heed all warnings.”
Kinship is important to the study of anthropology because:
a. It explains political rights and obligations for all industrialized societies.
b. It determines the economic system of all societies.
c. It plays the key role in determining rights and obligations in nonindustrial societies.
d. It determines the foundation of all market economies in industrialized societies.
e. It is the only social institution present in foraging and tribal societies.
A key difference between a colonial government and an independent government is:
a. Colonies need to be made productive for their owners. Independent nations need to
be prosperous in their own right.
b. Colonial governments are much more likely to regulate freedom of speech than are
independent governments.
c. Colonial governments generally attempt to control as much of the economy of the
colonized nation as possible. Independent governments generally exercise less control
over the economy.
d. Colonial governments never return any value to their subjects; even oppressive
independent governments return some work of value to their citizens.
e. Independent governments in the third world invariably had higher levels of
corruption than their colonial predecessors.
Among the Maasai, pasture land is:
a. Owned by individual families.
b. Passed from mother’s brother to sister’s son.
c. Rented from the neighboring Nuer.
d. Owned collectively rather than individually.
e. Far less important than garden land and, therefore, ecologically degraded.
In a well known book, Thomas Friedman argued that the world is flat. By this he meant
that:
a. Absolute wealth is currently spread approximately equally around the world.
b. Columbus got it wrong.
c. Even though racism and ethnocentrism continue to exist, we should behave as if they
do not.
d. Economic and social opportunities are increasingly available to all people no matter
where they live.
e. The collective talents of any one group of people is approximately the same as the
collective talents of any other group of people.
Judith Brown found that initiation rites for girls are more likely to occur in:
a. Societies in which women hold roles of political importance.
b. Societies in which religion involves female priests.
c. Societies in which women are deeply oppressed by men.
d. Societies in which women continue to live in their mothers’ houses after marriage.
e. Societies in which the avunculate is practiced.
All of the following are characteristics that are emphasized in Inuit enculturation
except:
a. Violence.
b. Cooperation.
c. Emotional restraint.
d. Physical acuity.
e. Independence.
Where resources are scarce and large areas are needed to support the population,
territorial boundaries are:
a. Strictly defended and the cause of high amounts of conflict.
b. Loosely marked, but strictly defended by military coalitions.
c. Usually not defended.
d. Strictly marked, but loosely defended during certain seasons.
e. Marked and privately owned by influential members of the community.
Which of the following statements is correct?
a. Immigration in the United States today has very strict quotas by which it allows
people entrance.
b. Assimilation is a positive experience, when it is carried out correctly, for both
immigrants and the United States.
c. Assimilation is also a process of loss, as immigrants leave behind their language and
cultures.
d. Although the melting pot analogy was useful in the early part of U.S. history, it is no
longer used in describing immigration.
e. Assimilation is also a form of cultural divergence and diffusion.
Which of the following best explains the lack of resistance of Native Americans to
European diseases?
a. Most Native Americans had never done hard labor before Europeans arrived and
were not used to the stress.
b. Most Native Americans were unaware of the relationship between disease and
sanitation.
c. Most Native Americans did not understand the germ theory of disease and so could
not take preventive measures.
d. Native America lacked the agriculture and industrialization that fosters disease
formation.
e. Native America lacked the domestic animals that were the original sources of many
diseases.
According to the text, how many Americans were living in poverty (defined as an
annual income of $22,314 or less per family of four) in 2010?
a. 6.4 million.
b. 13.7 million.
c. 37.6 million.
d. 46.2 million.
e. 79.8 million.
What does a Manam (a group in New Guinea) girl display at the time of her initiation?
a. Jewelry that she has made.
b. Food that she has prepared.
c. Wealth her parents and clan have contributed for the event.
d. Pigs that she and her sisters have raised.
e. New dances that she has developed to display her personality.
Anthropologists study symbols because:
a. They can represent an entire constellation of ideas and emotions.
b. They only hold meaning when in tactile form, such as a flag.
c. They have single, unique meanings that are easily learned.
d. They reflect the concerns of particular individuals in culture.
e. They are highly complex and members of a culture are unable to understand them
without help from anthropologists
The dominance of a political elite based on a close identification between their own
goals and those of the larger society is called:
a. Authority.
b. Power.
c. Legitimacy.
d. Juxtaposition.
e. Hegemony.
Your textbook argues that jobs for anthropologists are:
a. Far more plentiful than jobs for sociologists or English majors.
b. Easily available for those with a BA in the field.
c. About the same as those available to students in other Liberal Arts disciplines.
d. Expected to greatly increase in number in the next five to ten years.
e. Rare and generally only available to those with Masters degrees and PhDs.
The fieldwork technique that involves gathering cultural data by observing people’s
behavior and participating in their lives is called:
a. Cross-cultural survey.
b. Participant observation.
c. Laboratory experimentation.
d. Structured interview.
e. Stratified random sampling.
What is a primary innovation?
a. A modification made to an older object.
b. An object or idea that is genuinely new and different.
c. An innovation recently drawn from another culture.
d. An object which has yet to be discovered.
e. An object that has been rediscovered.
Social birth refers to:
a. The biological act of giving birth through social ritual.
b. The ceremonial transition from childhood to adolescence.
c. The spiritual awakening of an individual through the completion of his or her
designated rite of passage.
d. The point where a person is considered a human being and a member of human
society.
e. The event where women collectively give birth in a social setting.
The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests that:
a. The best way to study language is with subjects in a laboratory.
b. The vocabulary and structure of a language influence how its speakers perceive
reality.
c. The ability to use language determines an individual’s intelligence.
d. Formal education increases vocabulary.
e. There is no connection between language and other aspects of culture.
What is participant observation?
A group of kin who trace descent from a known common ancestor is called a
__________.
Describe the Maasai practice of “drought reserve.”
The number of individuals supported per square mile of earth is called __________.
Under what conditions do we expect to find foragers defending their territory?
A good example of an achieved status in the United States is marriage.
Define transculturation and give an example of it.
Name the three main dimensions of stratification.
The RACE project is an effort by the American Anthropological Association to
challenge commonly held ideas about race.
What is neocolonialism?
The competitive feast of the Kwakiutl at which chiefs distribute and destroy goods to
validate their claims to prestige is called a(n) __________.
What types of conflict resolution are used in band societies?
Is it better for us to eat local foods? Why?
Name two reasons that New World populations lacked immunity to diseases.
How do linguists define a “word”?
The historic Maasai subsistence strategy takes account of the fact that in some years
there will be drought.
Define religion.
Because they maintain great coercive and hegemonic power, states are generally
peaceful and stable.
European nations were often reluctant to create colonies because colonization was
expensive.