The Nuer are a patrilineal society in which clans and lineages function as a type of
political structure. This is called:
a. A segmentary lineage system.
b. A segmentary corporate system.
c. A unilineal political system.
d. A bilateral lineage system.
e. Political usufruct rights.
According to the World Bank, about how many people in the world in 2006 were living
on less than $1 per day?
a. 65 million
b. 187 million
c. 650 million
d. 994 million
e. 1 billion
The area of the world most associated with the two-spirit is:
a. Ireland.
b. West Africa.
c. Southern Spain.
d. Native societies of North America.
e. New Guinea.
Vincent Lyon-Callo’s work with homeless people stresses:
a. The structural causes of homelessness.
b. Incorrect beliefs about the homeless among members of the middle class.
c. The stories and life histories of homeless people.
d. The techniques the homeless use to survive in urban areas.
e. Drug and alcohol use among homeless.
An anthropological perspective that focuses on culture as the principal force in shaping
the typical personality of a society is called:
a. Sociobiology.
b. Culture and personality theory.
c. Personification theory.
d. Structuralism.
e. Symbolic anthropology.
In India, lower castes:
a. Receive more benefits than do higher castes from the caste system.
b. Have been disadvantaged by the Indian constitution.
c. Are beginning to make collective efforts to improve their position as a group.
d. Mainly change their ranking as individuals move out of the caste and into higher
caste.
e. May have lower prestige than higher castes but tend to have more wealth.
Which of the following correctly characterizes a joint stock company?
a. It is led by a monarch.
b. It is usually controlled by a single wealthy individual.
c. Its goal is to return large profits to its shareholders.
d. It has a large interest in scientific exploration.
e. It supports the formation of colonies controlled by its mother country.
In an analysis of environmental pollution in the United States, Melissa Checker found
that:
a. The most important factor was class: lower class people lived in more polluted
environments.
b. The most important factor was race: middle class Hispanics and African Americans
suffered more exposure to environmental pollution than lower class whites.
c. All Americans, regardless of class or race suffered about the same exposure to
pollution.
d. African Americans and Hispanics were more likely to live near polluted ground but
whites suffered higher levels of air pollution.
e. More federal money was spent cleaning up pollution located near African American
communities than was spent cleaning up pollution located near white or Hispanic
communities.
According to the text, which of the following statements most accurately describes
ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia?
a. It is based on deep ethnic cultural differences which go back for centuries.
b. It is based on contemporary political manipulation of relatively small cultural
differences.
c. There are no cultural differences between groups and the conflict is strictly economic.
d. The important ethnic differences have been minimized by the media.
e. The ethnic conflicts have been caused by U.S. foreign policy which favors Serbs over
Bosnians.
All of the following are expressed in the American kinship terminology except:
a. Generation.
b. Collaterality.
c. Gender.
d. Bifurcation.
e. Affinal kinship.
One thing that separates the Western expansion from empire building by previous
peoples is:
a. The use of slavery.
b. The brutal exploitation of native populations.
c. The formation of colonies controlled by distant powers.
d. The widespread use of pillage.
e. The scale of the enterprise.
During what historical period did ledger drawings flourish?
a. Early to late 1600s.
b. Mid 1700s-1804.
c. 1840s-1860s.
d. 1870s-1920s.
e. 1940s-1970s.
All of the following are characteristics of cultural symbols except:
a. They contain condensed meanings.
b. They are used to create meaning.
c. They can be both objects and ideas.
d. They are used to store information.
e. They are easily defined.
As the text defines law, it exists:
a. Only in state societies.
b. In all human societies.
c. Only in societies with a system of courts and judges.
d. In all societies except those at the very simplest sociocultural level.
e. Only in societies where writing has developed.
One critical economic difference between a firm and a household is:
a. Firms look for profit in their cash transactions, households rarely do.
b. Firms have no obligations to the communities in which they are found; households
have many.
c. Firms may grow with relative ease, but the structure of households limits their
growth.
d. Firms may expand their size through hiring new members but the membership of a
household is fixed.
e. Firms usually behave in a manner that is economically rational, households rarely do.
What do anthropologists call the feelings of alienation and helplessness that result from
rapid immersion in a new and different culture?
a. Cross-cultural shock.
b. Culture shock.
c. Cultural entropy.
d. Alienation orientation.
e. Psychological solipsism.
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda:
a. United Nation troops moved forcefully to stop the violence and re-establish
representative government.
b. French government officials tried to protect the victims of the genocide.
c. Priests and other religious officials sheltered victims from the genocidal wrath of
their neighbors.
d. More than 800,000 people were killed and every level of society was involved.
e. Men promoted the massacre of their neighbors but were held back from even greater
killings by the actions of women and children.
Use of the word “myth” is problematic in anthropology because:
a. Many things we call myths are true.
b. Since “myth” is generally used to talk about ancient culture, it is more appropriate to
history or archaeology.
c. We tend to use it to describe others’ beliefs that we consider false but rarely apply it
to our own beliefs.
d. “Myths” generally refer to origin stories but religious stories cover many subjects.
e. The central characters of “myths” are generally hero figures, but understanding these
isn”t very important in anthropology.
Which of the following is a distinction between unilineal and bilateral kinship systems?
a. Unilineal kinship systems involve tracking descent through both parents’ lines.
b. In bilateral kinship systems, the kin groups do not overlap.
c. In unilineal kinship systems, the kin groups do not overlap.
d. In bilateral kinship systems, there are no cousins.
e. In unilineal kinship systems, there is no designated mother or father.
All of the following are strong challenges that nation-states face from increasing
globalization except:
a. Rise of multinational corporations that cut across nation-state lines.
b. Rise of global governing organizations, such as United Nations, which takes away
their autonomy.
c. Increasingly international workforce both in and outside of the nation-state.
d. Rise of global forces integrating the world at a level beyond that of the nation-state.
e. Employees that are transnationals.
Anthropologist Eleanor Wynn’s work in a corporation demonstrates:
a. The ease of using anthropological skills outside of an academic setting.
b. How anthropologists are able to achieve independent status and recognition when
conducting research for a corporation.
c. The difficulty anthropologists experience when trying to find jobs outside of
academia.
d. The limited area of research available to anthropologists.
e. How anthropological skills are essential at the corporate level.
Archaeologists offer all of the following as explanations for cave art except:
a. They were drawn to magically increase the chance of a successful hunt.
b. They contain coded information about the hunt.
c. They were made for ritual use.
d. They depict things seen by shamans during trance.
e. They are for decorating the cave.
In a system of balanced reciprocity, giving a gift to someone:
a. Carries no obligations for either the giver or the receiver.
b. Starts a pattern in which the giver will continue to present gifts and the recipient will
show gratitude.
c. Requires that the recipient return a more-or-less equivalent gift at a later date.
d. Demands a counter-gift if the recipient is the same gender as the giver.
e. Is only permitted if the giver is an adult and the recipient a child.
One of the earliest definitions of human culture is that “complex whole which includes
knowledge, belief, art, law, morals, customs, and any other capabilities acquired by man
as a member of society.” Who introduced this definition?
a. Margaret Mead.
b. Pierre Bourdieu.
c. Sir Edward Tylor.
d. Franz Boas.
e. Bronislaw Malinowski.
All of the following have been suggested as a cause of Yanamamo warfare except:
a. Attempts of individuals from one village to capture women from other villages.
b. An indirect way of controlling population.
c. High levels of female infanticide and scarcity of females.
d. Competition over scarce resources as a result of Western encounters.
e. An expression of inability of primitive peoples to control their aggressive impulses.
Tlingit women generally consider men to be:
a. The only ones who can hold political office.
b. Physically weaker than women.
c. Irresponsible with money.
d. Unable to conduct ceremonies accurately.
e. The only ones who can properly accumulate wealth and handle money.
A society’s political organization is primarily related to:
a. The ecology of the area that they inhabit.
b. The degree of access individuals and groups have to basic material resources.
c. The presence of powerful individuals within the society.
d. The political organization of neighboring societies.
e. Whether or not they were ever colonized.
About what percentage of the world’s population currently lives in cities?
a. Under 15 percent.
b. About 30 percent.
c. Somewhat more than 50 percent.
d. About 60 percent.
e. About 75 percent.
One reason that some societies allow women to take on male roles is:
a. To assure that there are enough sexual partners for everyone.
b. To allow every individual to fulfill their potential.
c. To assure that there are people to fill all important kin positions.
d. To grant recognition to women in societies that generally oppress women.
e. To allow elite women to represent their families.
Which of the following terms indicates the yield per person per hour of labor invested?
a. Efficiency.
b. Productivity.
c. Population density.
d. Industrialism.
e. Labor.
Haptics refers to:
a. The study and analysis of touch.
b. The variation in musical taste among cultures.
c. The methods linguists use to describe phonemes.
d. The study of this history of linguistic change.
e. Any fieldwork in linguistic anthropology
An MNC is:
a. A type of role playing game.
b. A bilateral aid and development organization.
c. A corporation that owns businesses in more than one nation.
d. A type of treaty designed to preserve the rights of indigenous people.
e. A joint defense treaty between mutually antagonistic nations.
A major characteristic of the environment which shapes aboriginal Australian survival
is:
a. The absence of plants.
b. The generally benign climate.
c. Climatic stability throughout the year.
d. The shortage of water.
e. The presence of big game animals.
What are the advantages of polygyny? Name three.
What is a colony?
Why did indigenous peoples oppose the use of the term “primitive” for their art in
museums?
About 10 percent of the U.S. population belongs to non-Judeo-Christian religions.
Ethnocentrism is always bad.
The ability of humans to use language depends partially on the linkage between the
visual and auditory areas of the brain.
How do states create a national culture and identity?
Describe how gift-giving creates a social relationship, according to Marcel Mauss.
Why is work such as applied anthropology important in our world today?
Neolocal residence is when a couple can choose to live with either the wife or the
husband’s family.
Language is a human symbol system for communication, but it is not considered a
means of cultural transmission.
In the last fifty years, the Lua” have increasingly moved from horticulture to
agriculture.
What is the current kinship preference policy in the United States for immigration?
What is bhangra, and how does it express world music?
There are many different ways of showing maleness cross-culturally, but there is no
culture in which prestige is not part of it.
Race is an important social fact but the big differences among human beings are the
result of culture.
Art for art’s sake is a value that exists in all societies.
Members of the cultures that anthropologists study rarely have access to news of the
outside world.
Compare Tylor’s 1873 definition of culture with that which is most used today. How are
they alike and different?
Who were the Tirailleurs Senegalais?