Biological Anthropology Practice Exam
Course Introduction
Biological Anthropology explores the biological and evolutionary aspects of the human species, examining the origins, adaptations, and diversity of humans and our closest relatives. The course covers fundamental topics such as genetics, human evolution, fossil records, primatology, and the variation within and among contemporary human populations. Through the study of osteology, forensic anthropology, and paleopathology, students gain insights into how biology and culture have shaped the human experience over time. This discipline bridges the gap between the natural and social sciences, providing a comprehensive understanding of what it means to be human from a biological perspective.
Recommended Textbook
The Essence of Anthropology 3rd Edition by William A. Haviland
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16 Chapters
1823 Verified Questions
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Chapter 1: The Essence of Anthropology
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117 Verified Questions
117 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following describes how anthropologists study culture:
A) anthropologists study individuals who are more "cultured" than others
B) anthropologists study a society's shared and socially transmitted ideas
C) anthropologists grow microbial organisms
D) anthropologists do not study culture
Answer: B
Q2) An ethnographer may work among stock brokers in New York City.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) A midden is a _______________.
Answer: prehistoric refuse mound
Q4) Participant observation means that the anthropologist should be involved in everything that a cultural group does in order to study them.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q5) In the United States, most archaeological fieldwork is carried out as __________ .
Answer: cultural resource management
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Chapter 2: Biology and Evolution
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138 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What do we call the factors that separate two breeding populations?
A) fission factors
B) isolating factors
C) punctuated equilibria
D) cladogenesis
Answer: B
Q2) Choose one kind of evolutionary force and describe it.
Answer: Students may choose and describe mutation, gene flow, genetic drift, or natural selection.
Q3) Geneticists believe that humans have approximately how many functioning genes?
A) 1,062
B) 25,000
C) 15,000
D) scientists have no idea how many genes humans have
Answer: B
Q4) Historical processes can shape evolutionary theory.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 3: Living Primates
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Sample Questions
Q1) Among primates, the limb pattern structure allows for speed.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Binocular and stereoscopic vision developed as a response to arboreal life.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) Particularly when hunting for _______________, chimpanzees hunt in teams.
Answer: baboons
Q4) What are the purposes of primate grooming?
Answer: It serves hygienic purposes to clean parasites and debris off the skin and is also a gesture of friendliness, closeness, reconciliation and, at times, submission.
Q5) All primates have single births.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q6) Lemurs, in their native habitat, are found only in _______________.
Answer: Madagascar
Page 5
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Chapter 4: Human Evolution
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Sample Questions
Q1) The earliest definite australopithecine fossils date back:
A) 3.6 million years
B) 4.3 million years
C) 23 million years
D) 2.4 million years
Q2) Based on current evidence, Homo erectus first appeared in:
A) Europe, about 2 million years ago
B) Laurasia, about 4 million years ago
C) Africa, about 1 million years ago
D) Africa, about 2 million years ago
Q3) Homo erectus placed a new emphasis on:
A) larger tools
B) smaller tools
C) more multi-purpose tools
D) pebble tools
Q4) All of the following advantages are conferred by obsidian except:
A) it allows a surgeon greater control over cutting
B) it can be made sharper than conventional sources for blades
C) it is harder than conventional sources for blades
D) it is always very difficult to obtain
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Chapter 5: The Neolithic Revolution: The Domestication of
Plants and Animals
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following died out at the time of the Neolithic transition?
A) mammoths
B) musk oxen
C) reindeer
D) yaks
Q2) Where do we find terra preta?
A) northern Argentina
B) eastern Turkey
C) southern Mexico
D) central Amazonia
Q3) The ultimate source of all culture change is diffusion.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Beginning about 11,000 years ago, the percentage of immature sheep eaten in Southwest Asian highlands increased to approximately what percent?
A) 75 percent
B) 50 percent
C) 65 percent
D) 90 percent
Q5) Plant variants that do well in disturbed habitats are called
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Chapter 6: The Emergence of Cities and States
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Sample Questions
Q1) The root word civitas of civilization means:
A) trade and exchange
B) refinement and manners
C) top hierarchy of a city
D) urban area of dwelling
Q2) During the time of the development of early state societies, northern Europeans developed a tendency for sickle-cell anemia.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What form of writing did the Maya use?
A) reed stylus on clay tablets
B) tokens
C) hieroglyphics
D) tortoise carvings
Q4) What are the four basic changes that mark the transition from Neolithic village life to life in the first urban centers?
Q5) The Maya constructed water reservoirs.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 7: Modern Human Diversity: Race and Racism
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Sample Questions
Q1) What do we call the practice in the United States of assigning race to the parent believed to pertain to a minority group (known also as the "one drop rule")?
A) racism
B) clinal distribution
C) partial birth
D) hypodescent
Q2) Members of the genus Homo have primarily adapted through culture over the past: A) 50,000 years
B) 1.5 million years
C) 2.5 million years
D) 7.7 million years
Q3) Samuel Morton argued that the skull of a woman from the Caucasus region was the most beautiful human specimen he had studied because it was a spherical shape.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Over the past 2.5 million years, humans have primarily adapted through ________________.
Q5) The expression of genes always occurs from within a/an _______________.
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Chapter 8: The Characteristics of Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) Among the Kapauku, descent reckoning through men and near constant warfare tends to promote:
A) male dominance
B) female dominance
C) extreme religious fervor
D) political favoritism
Q2) Globalization lays the foundation for worldwide experiences, such as the recent economic downturn that faces most world societies today. How might culture and cultural adaptation function to ameliorate some of the effects among subcultural groups?
Q3) With which group of American Indians did George Esber work to design more culturally-adaptive house structures? ________________.
Q4) Because of globalization, cultures change more quickly today than in the past.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Which best describes adaptation among humans?
A) a process of cultural adaptation over time
B) a process of biological and cultural adjustment over time
C) a process of physiological adjustments over time
D) a process of migration and learning over time
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Chapter 9: Language and Communication
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Sample Questions
Q1) What does Noam Chomsky mean when he says that language is a dialect without an army?
Q2) In English it is estimated that about _______________ of emotional information is transmitted not by words spoken but by body language.
A) less than 50%
B) 85%
C) 90%
D) 95%
Q3) How does context affect what is considered an appropriate use of space? Are there are any differences between how men engage social space versus how women engage social space? What happens when there are mixtures of people? Are there patterns in the usage of social distance?
Q4) It takes many years of practice for people to master the muscular movements needed to produce the precise sounds of any particular language.
A)True
B)False
Q5) _________________________ is the distinction between male and female speech styles.
Q6) _______________ are varying forms of a language that are mutually intelligible.
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Chapter 10: Social Identity, Personality, and Gender
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Sample Questions
Q1) When a person's delusional system is so different that it in no way reflects his or her society's norms, the individual can be considered:
A) psychological
B) transgendered
C) psychotic
D) psychoanalytic
Q2) Dependence training helps an individual become self-reliant, independent, and ambitious.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The Aymara Indians celebrate a First Laugh Ceremony.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Approximately how many sadhus live in India and Nepal?
A) 150,000
B) 500,000
C) 3 million
D) 5 million
Q5) Anthropologists use the technical term _______________ for "two-spirits."
Page 12
Q6) Children are biologically ill-equipped to survive without _______________.
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Chapter 11: Subsistence and Exchange
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Sample Questions
Q1) The _______________ are pastoralists in Bolivia who tend llamas.
Q2) _______________________ is a strong motivating force for the distribution of wealth.
Q3) The control of resources is characteristic of all societies. Historically natural resources such as land and water (obvious necessities) have been central in framing disputes over who controls these resources and who has access to them. Over the past decade anthropologists have become more concerned with conflicts arising over the access and privilege to water. Discuss arguments for and against privatizing an essential component to human life.
Q4) The Kula Ring is an example of balanced reciprocity.
A)True B)False
Q5) A ceremonial event in which a village chief publicly gives away stockpiled food and other goods that signify wealth is called a _______________.
Q6) In non-industrial societies the _______________ is a specific place where people meet in person to exchange goods at certain designated times and affirm heir social networks.
Q7) Why is horticulture considered to be ecologically sustainable?
Q8) What is the role of the environment in adaptation?
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Chapter 12: Sex, Marriage, and Family
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Sample Questions
Q1) Currently, first cousin marriage is illegal in how many states in the United States?
A) none
B) 19
C) 31
D) 50
Q2) A family established through marriage is called a:
A) consanguineal family
B) conjugal family
C) nuclear family
D) group family
Q3) China has more than 114 million migrant workers.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following societies is traditionally polyandrous?
A) English
B) Samoan
C) Trobriand Islanders
D) Nyimba of Nepal
Q5) What is the adaptive value of fraternal polyandry?
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Chapter 13: Kinship and Other Methods of Grouping
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Sample Questions
Q1) Among pastoralists and agriculturalists you normally find _______________ descent.
Q2) India constitutionally abolished the caste system in 1975.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Often archaeologists can detect social organization from material structure. A)True
B)False
Q4) People form groups based on gender, age, and social rank.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Globalization is a major force in redefining society today. Discuss the role of "virtual communities" in the social structure today.
Q6) How do new reproductive technologies challenge kinship terminology systems?
Q7) Today, those who claim Maori ancestry number approximately:
A) 600,000
B) 2.7 million
C) 193,000
D) 7,500
Q8) The ability to
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Chapter 14: Politics, Power, and Violence
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Sample Questions
Q1) In contemporary warfare, casualties of civilians as well as children far outnumber those of soldiers.
A)True
B)False
Q2) A _______________ society is one which has within its borders people of more than one nation.
Q3) States first emerged around 7,000 years ago.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Power based on legitimacy is considered:
A) symbolic
B) absolute
C) authentic
D) divine
Q5) Distinguish between a cultural control and a social control. Give an example of each.
Q6) Wars have only become a significant problem among societies since the invention of ____________________________.
Q7) What do tribal members have in common? Name five commonalities.
Q8) A _______________ is a people who share a collective identity.
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Chapter 15: Spirituality, Religion, and the Supernatural
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is one of the most common activities of shamans cross-culturally?
A) controlling animals
B) healing the sick
C) bringing rain
D) punishing enemies
Q2) The ancient Greeks had a type of religion known as:
A) pluralism
B) pantheonism
C) polytheism
D) polyvalence
Q3) Which of the following best describes witchcraft?
A) belief that some individuals possess the supernatural power to manipulate objects
B) belief that some individuals possess psychic power to cause harm
C) belief that some individuals can travel at night and cause altered states
D) belief that some individuals possess specific formulas to temporarily change people
Q4) Describe the traditional role of the shaman.
Q5) Choose a rite of passage and analyze it through each of the three stages.
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Chapter 16: Global Changes and the Role of Anthropology
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Sample Questions
Q1) Two or more neighboring ethnic groups maintaining a loose political union while retaining their own cultural identities is referred to as a:
A) pluralistic society
B) ethnocentric society
C) international society
D) multicultural society
Q2) Body image is:
A) pedagogical
B) cultural
C) biological
D) institutional
Q3) Globalization has expanded and intensified structural violence.
A)True
B)False
Q4) _______________ is the belief that the ways of one's own culture are the only proper ones.
Q5) About 6 billion people in the world are undernourished.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Name four kinds of external migration.
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