Anthropological Theory Test
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Introduction
Anthropological Theory explores the major theoretical frameworks and key debates that have shaped the discipline of anthropology from its origins to the present day. This course examines classical and contemporary perspectives, including evolutionism, functionalism, structuralism, symbolic and interpretive anthropology, as well as postmodern and critical approaches. Students will analyze how these theories guide ethnographic research, interpretation of culture, and understanding of human diversity, while developing critical thinking skills for evaluating scholarly arguments and their ethical implications in a global context.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology 9th Edition by Raymond Scupin
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18 Chapters
1080 Verified Questions
1080 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Introduction to Anthropology
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60 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The scientific method is a logical system used to evaluate data derived from systematic observation.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) The people known as classical archaeologists conduct research on __________.
A) the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome
B) the evolution of prehistoric stone tools
C) societies of the recent past
D) ancestors of contemporary Native Americans
Answer: A
Q3) The study of past cultures and lifestyles is the goal of __________.
A) ethnologists
B) archaeologists
C) forensic anthropologists
D) primatologists
Answer: B
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Human Evolution
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Sample Questions
Q1) Fossil and archaeological evidence suggests that the first hominins to practice intentional burial of their dead were __________.
A) modern Upper Paleolithic Homo sapiens
B) Homo erectus
C) Neandertals
D) Homo habilis
Answer: C
Q2) Scientific evidence indicates that the earliest hominins were fully bipedal.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) One of the most important tool types invented by Homo erectus was the
A) hammer stone
B) projectile point
C) grinding stone
D) hand ax
Answer: D
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Chapter 3: Culture
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60 Verified Questions
60 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which one of the following statements is true of "real" culture?
A) It consists of what people say they do.
B) It consists of people's actual behavior.
C) It is the same as ideal culture.
D) It is the most authentic form of culture.
Answer: B
Q2) Anthropologist Leslie White wrote that the most distinctive feature of humanness is
A) the capacity for vocal communication
B) the ability to create symbols and assign them meanings
C) the importance of social learning
D) the ability to make tools
Answer: B
Q3) Symbols are directly associated with concrete physical objects or activities, while signs are arbitrary units of meaning.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 4: Psychological and Cognitive Anthropology
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60 Verified Questions
60 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Personality is a combination of enculturation and biologically based predispositions.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Berdache is a European term used to refer to biological males in Native American societies who __________.
A) asserted their personal power through public displays of heterosexual prowess
B) chose to abstain from sex so they could focus on spiritual growth
C) wore female clothing and may have engaged in homosexual relationships
D) participated in homosexual activity only when they were preparing for war
Q3) Recent research in new types of psychological anthropology show that children are not passive recipients during enculturation.
A)True
B)False
Q4) According to Margaret Mead, Samoan adolescents were openly permitted to engage in premarital sex.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: Language
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Sample Questions
Q1) __________ are used in societies that maintain marked social hierarchies.
A) Slang
B) Honorifics
C) Pidgins
D) Proxemics
Q2) It has been suggested that major cultural advances, cultural evolution, and human creativity could not have occurred before adequate language ability evolved.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Anthropologists use the ethnosemantic approach to study how different societies understand and classify everyday objects like animals, plants, and food.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The words "boy" and "girl" are __________.
A) bound phonemes
B) bound morphemes
C) free morphemes
D) bound phones
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Chapter 6: Anthropological Explanations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Symbolic anthropologists argue that human behavior cannot be explained through the use of the scientific method. Do you agree with their standpoint? Why or why not?
Q2) Feminist anthropologists have pointed out which of the following weaknesses in the ethnographic record?
A) The inequalities between men and women have been exaggerated.
B) The multidirectional process of cultural evolution has been overlooked.
C) Men have dominated the informant pool.
D) Women are unable to access information about the cultural practices of men.
Q3) According to Franz Boas, in order to conduct a historical particularist study of a society, one must adopt the notion of __________, or the belief that each society should be understood in terms of its own cultural practices and values.
A) particular evolution
B) cultural relativism
C) functionalism
D) neoevolutionism
Q4) Anthropologist Franz Boas was a powerful advocate for unilineal diffusion.
A)True
B)False
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Page 8
Chapter 7: Analyzing Sociocultural Systems
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Sample Questions
Q1) Intensive agriculture utilizes __________.
A) the production of surpluses and field rotation
B) sedentism and urbanization
C) horticulture and cultivation
D) irrigation and fertilizers
Q2) Geographical and ecological circumstances played little role in the development of state level societies.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The general categories used by anthropologists to describe different political systems are hunter-gatherers, horticulturalists, agriculturalists, and industrialists.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The major difference between state and prestate societies is __________.
A) permanent settlements
B) bureaucratic organization
C) prestige hierarchies
D) military skill
Q5) What are the benefits and limitations of conducting cross-cultural research?
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Chapter 8: Environment, Subsistence, and Demography
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60 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe the environments occupied by foragers today. How do these compare to areas occupied by foragers in the distant past? What accounts for these changes?
Q2) Demographic anthropologists are interested in demonstrating how cultural systems modify the natural environment.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Hunting-and-gathering societies have always existed in marginal environments. A)True
B)False
Q4) During the latter phase of the demographic transition, birth rates and mortality rates increase dramatically.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Compare and contrast horticulture and intensive agriculture in terms of how the environment is used to meet subsistence needs. Illustrate with cross-cultural examples.
Q6) Mortality rates have always been lower in agricultural societies.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 9: Technology and Economies
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe the exchange practices of foraging societies. What factors affected the way exchanges took place? How would you expect these practices to change in response to cultural change?
Q2) A form of exchange in which the time of repayment and the value of the return are not calculated is called generalized reciprocity.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Bronislaw Malinowski has argued that economic production and exchange in the Trobriand Islands are closely tied to the social and cultural norms of the kula exchange.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Today, the most industrially advanced societies have the vast majority of their people employed in the __________.
A) primary sector, extracting raw materials
B) secondary sector, processing raw materials
C) primary and secondary sectors
D) tertiary sector, providing services
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11
Chapter 10: Social Structure, The Family, Gender, and Age
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Sample Questions
Q1) Brideservice occurs when an eligible woman offers her domestic services to her future or potential husband's family in exchange for allowing her to marry their son.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Discuss the relationships among gender, subsistence, and family structure in agricultural states.
Q3) How are matrilineal societies different from matriarchal societies? Explain how rules of unilineal descent affect other aspects of culture, such as inheritance and marriage. How does female status differ between matrilineal and patrilineal societies? Support your answer with cross-cultural examples.
Q4) A society that is organized into moieties has a particular social organization that structures it into which of the following?
A) several competing patrilineal clans
B) a single, fictional family
C) a clear, pyramidal hierarchy
D) equal halves with specific functions
Q5) What is the difference between a closed society and an open society? Describe an example of each.
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Chapter 11: Politics, Warfare, and Law
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Sample Questions
Q1) By ensuring that the whole group will prevent a single individual from being politically dominant or from exercising undue coercive powers, reverse dominance accomplishes which of the following?
A) causes bands to be unstable political units that often fission without warning B) reinforces patterns of egalitarianism intrinsic to band-level societies
C) makes it impossible for a band leader to make any changes that might benefit the group
D) makes it extremely difficult for bands to find anyone who will assume a leadership role
Q2) Paramount chiefs in Hawaiian society were responsible for ruling at the __________ level.
A) descent group
B) island
C) district
D) national
Q3) What are the ways that a person can become chief in a chiefdom? What are the responsibilities of a chief? What are the limitations of a chief's power?
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Chapter 12: Religion and Aesthetics
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Sample Questions
Q1) In all industrial states, the increase in secularization has caused religion to disappear and be replaced by humanism.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which of the following would explain why certain aspects of religion appear to be universal?
A) Common experiences of suffering have prompted people to develop similar explanatory beliefs.
B) They are aspects that have offered the most rational explanations for natural phenomena.
C) Religious beliefs are hardwired into our genetic system.
D) The religious aspects that converge with human cognitive capacities have persisted over time.
Q3) Explain the difference between ecclesiastical and universalistic religions. Give an example of each and describe how it is connected to agricultural subsistence strategies and statedom.
Q4) What was the role of supernatural forces in legitimizing the power of the chief? Illustrate your answer with specific concepts from ethnographic case studies.
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Chapter 13: Globalization, Culture, and Indigenous Societies
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Sample Questions
Q1) Globalization began in the middle of the last century.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Yanomamö have become one of the wealthiest Native American tribes since gold was discovered on their traditional lands.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Rates of alcoholism among the Ju/'hoansi San have increased as a result of wage labor.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Based on your own knowledge, do you agree with what modernization theory has to say about traditionalism? Do you believe that traditional attitudes of reciprocity will always work against the drive for individual economic success? Why or why not?
Q5) Missionaries in Venezuela have helped preserve the Yanomamö culture.
A)True
B)False
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Page 15
Chapter 14: Globalization in Latin America,Africa, and the Caribbean
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Sample Questions
Q1) In open peasant communities, crops are raised primarily for __________.
A) local subsistence
B) outside markets
C) barter with other peasant communities
D) feeding livestock
Q2) As a result of problems with debt repayment, the International Monetary Fund required the Mexican government to cut back on __________.
A) social services
B) manufacturing
C) military spending
D) petroleum exports
Q3) Under apartheid in South Africa, the term "coloreds" referred to individuals of mixed __________ descent.
A) Spanish and Portuguese
B) African and European
C) Bantu and Zulu
D) Protestant and Catholic
Q4) What were the effects of the slave trade on African society with respect to mercantilism, warfare, social organization, demography, and technology?
Page 16
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Chapter 15: Globalization in the Middle East and Asia
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Sample Questions
Q1) Mao Zedong's "Great Leap Forward" was successful at improving both rural health care and literacy.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Who conquered and colonized India, Burma, and Malaysia?
A) the French
B) the British
C) the Dutch
D) the Portuguese
Q3) To what does "Zionism" refer?
A) the movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine
B) the concept of a Sunni Muslim "holy war"
C) Islamic fundamentalism as practiced in Egypt and Ethiopia
D) the movement to liberate the Middle East from European control
Q4) To what does the term purdah refer?
A) the idea of physical attractiveness and sensuality
B) the wearing of the veil and forced seclusion of Muslim women
C) the concept of the traditional extended family
D) bridewealth paid in traditional Islamic families
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Chapter 16: Ethnicity
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following describes the difference between "race" and "racism"?
A) "Race" refers to a typology, while "racism" refers to beliefs that some races are superior.
B) "Race" refers to the belief that some races are inferior, while "racism" refers to the belief that some races are superior.
C) "Race" refers to discriminatory belief systems, while "racism" is a means of classifying people.
D) "Race" refers to physical features, while "racism" refers to both physical and behavioral aspects.
Q2) Compare and contrast two culturally pluralistic societies. What is the basis of cultural pluralism and how is it fostered and maintained in each of these societies? Do you think the United States is a culturally pluralistic society? Why or why not?
Q3) Until the 1950s, it was illegal to give a blood transfusion from a black person to a white person in some parts of the United States.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 17: Contemporary Global Trends
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Sample Questions
Q1) What are the advantages of biodiversity? What role are humans playing in the threat to biodiversity? Describe the roles anthropologists could play in preserving biodiversity.
Q2) Based on the demographic-transition model, which of the following countries would be experiencing declining rates in both fertility and mortality?
A) Kenya
B) India
C) Mexico
D) Japan
Q3) Since anthropology is primarily a theoretical field, it has little or nothing to offer in terms of helping solve global issues such as overpopulation, deforestation, and agricultural pollution.
A)True
B)False
Q4) According to the demographic-transition model, populations go through three stages of change in fertility and mortality rates.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 18: Applied Anthropology
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Sample Questions
Q1) Private agencies and governments often employ anthropologists to provide them with an indication of the possible consequences of the planned change they are about to implement. What is this called?
A) a sociocultural blueprint
B) a social-impact study
C) an ethical relativism statement
D) a culture-change document
Q2) When patients in Thailand use a combination of ritual, magic, and modern scientific medicine to treat an illness, they are enacting __________.
A) a culture-specific disorder
B) polymedicalism
C) therapeutic pluralism
D) the multiple treatment scenario
Q3) Native Americans have no legal rights to the remains and artifacts of their ancestors that have been uncovered at archaeological sites.
A)True
B)False
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