Course Introduction
Human Societies Exam Preparation Guide
Human Societies explores the complex structures, relationships, and cultural patterns that define human groups across time and place. This course examines the evolution of societies from small kinship networks to modern nation-states, investigating how factors such as social organization, economic systems, belief structures, and political institutions shape collective human life. Through comparative analysis of diverse cultures and societies, students develop an understanding of the forces that drive social change, identity formation, and the ways in which humans interact with their environments and each other.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology 11th Edition by Serena Nanda
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Anthropology and Human Diversity
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Sample Questions
Q1) Medical anthropologists work in other cultures but are rarely focused on healthcare in the United States.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Which of the following problems would an applied anthropologist be most likely to study?
A)The ways in which families are organized to carry out the basic tasks of farming in agricultural societies.
B)The ways in which health care delivery to American minority communities might be improved.
C)The ways in which a society's religious beliefs relate to its artwork.
D)The relationship between the language members of a culture speak and the ways in which they understand the world.
E)The percentage of goods and practices in a culture that have their origins in a different culture.
Answer: B
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Doing Cultural Anthropology
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Q1) Franz Boas spent most of his professional career at the University of Berlin in Germany.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Which theoretical approach argues that no knowledge is objective and all knowledge is influenced by the observer's own culture,social position,and gender?
A)Native anthropology.
B)Feminist anthropology.
C)Postmodernism.
D)Transcendental ethnography.
E)Collaborative ethnography.
Answer: C
Q3) It is common for anthropologists to feel confused and disoriented when they first arrive to their field sites.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 3: The Idea of Culture
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Sample Questions
Q1) The change in the biological structure or lifeway of an individual that allows for better survival is called:
A)Adaptation.
B)Environmental determinism.
C)Biological manipulation.
D)Natural selection.
E)Plasticity.
Answer: A
Q2) Norms are best described as:
A)Symbolic meanings about values and beliefs.
B)Values held only by older members of a society.
C)Ideas people in a society share about the way things ought to be done.
D)Behaviors present in large hierarchical societies but absent in small egalitarian societies.
E)The same as laws in most societies.
Answer: C
Q3) Fully understanding an issue requires using many theoretical perspectives.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 4: Communication
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Q1) What are the four components of any language?
Q2) Human children appear to be programmed to learn language instinctively before the age of:
A)6 months.
B)3 years.
C)6 years.
D)12 years.
E)21 years.
Q3) Which of the following statements about language and culture in the United States is incorrect?
A)Simply sharing the same language is not sufficient for effective communication.
B)As of 2011,31 states have enacted legislation to make English their state's official language.
C)English is the national language of the United States.
D)In 2007,it was calculated that about 1 in every 8 U.S.residents was an immigrant.
E)The U.S.has increasingly become a multilingual society.
Q4) The study of the cultural use of interpersonal space is called _________.
Q5) What are the three things that make human language unique?
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Chapter 5: Making a Living
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Q1) Which of the following is a culture change that has occurred recently in Musha,Egypt?
A)Women are becoming better educated than men.
B)The population has decreased over the last 100 years.
C)The income from cash crops is not as important as it once was.
D)Few people leave the village to work.
E)Tractors are now used for many purposes.
Q2) Agriculture is characterized by a:
A)Simple technology,such as the use of a digging stick.
B)Low population densities when compared with other food getting strategies.
C)Relatively complex techniques of water and soil control.
D)Slashing and burning of forest cover.
E)Nomadic movement of village populations.
Q3) The earliest human food-getting strategy was:
A)Horticulture.
B)Industrialism.
C)Foraging.
D)Pastoralism.
E)Fishing.
Q4) Name three advantages of using a plow in agriculture.
Page 7
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Chapter 6: Economics
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Q1) Which of the following is one of the fundamental attributes of capitalism?
A)People in capitalist societies sell their labor for wages in order to survive.
B)Government plays a very little role in the regulation of the economy.
C)All people in capitalist societies are involved in capitalism.
D)Ownership of capital resources is spread roughly evenly throughout the population.
E)People receive approximately the full value of their labor.
Q2) In agricultural societies,the principal form of resources is:
A)Capital.
B)Trade.
C)Labor.
D)Livestock.
E)Status.
Q3) Under what conditions do we expect to find foragers defending their territory?
Q4) The idea of private ownership of land tends to develop in societies where:
A)Material and labor investment in land becomes substantial.
B)Land is freely available to all.
C)Population is declining.
D)Technology is not widespread.
E)Men hunt and women gather.
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Chapter 7: Kinship
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Q1) Relatives by marriage are called consanguineal kin.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Name the six primary forms of kinship that anthropologist recognize today.
Q3) The kinship system of the United States is most similar to that of:
A)The Eskimo.
B)The Yanomamo.
C)The Hawaiian.
D)The Hopi.
E)The Omaha.
Q4) In a society with matrilineal descent,the person with the most authority and responsibility for a woman and her child is her:
A)Brother.
B)Son.
C)Sister.
D)Father.
E)Husband.
Q5) Which three kinship systems are found most commonly within unilineal societies?
Q6) What are the two forms of nonunilineal descent?
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Q7) Describe the relationship between a son and his father in a matrilineal society.
Chapter 8: Marriage, family, and Domestic Groups
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Q1) Which of the following is the most important function of marriage?
A)Agreement between parties to maximize sexual competition.
B)Creation of a stable environment in which to raise children.
C)Arrangement between families for economic gains.
D)Accord between individuals so that they can obtain political status.
E)Ritual ordained by religion so that the church can endure.
Q2) Compare and contrast exogamy and endogamy.
Q3) The main function of bridewealth is to:
A)Assure that the new family has sufficient wealth to support itself.
B)Increase the status of the bride's family.
C)Legitimate the marriage.
D)Reimburse the bride's family for her high school fees.
E)Provide the bride and groom with furnishings for their new home.
Q4) How is dowry different from bridewealth?
Q5) The nuclear family appears to be well adapted to:
A)Horticulture.
B)Pastoralism.
C)Warfare.
D)Intensive cultivation.
E)Industrialization.
Page 10
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Chapter 9: Gender
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Q1) 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.
Q2) Gender is the social,cultural,and psychological constructs that are imposed on the biological differences of sex.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Margaret Mead was an important early cultural anthropologist who emphasized the importance of culture in gender behavior.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Political Organization
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Q1) What is meant by the term "well-founded fear"?
Q2) Thousands of Palestinians cross from the West Bank to Israel every day.This has resulted in increased militarization of the border and heightened tensions.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Band societies have neither warfare nor violence because they are egalitarian.
A)True
B)False
Q4) How does political leadership vary between tribes and chiefdoms?
Q5) Which of the following statements about chiefs is most correct?
A)Chiefs only exist in band-level societies.
B)Chiefs' roles are mainly symbolic and have little economic or political importance.
C)Much of a chief's power is based on his ability to redistribute goods and services.
D)Chiefs are most important during times of war and have little to do in times of peace.
E)Chiefs did not exist anywhere before contact with the West;they were created by Europeans to make political dominance easier.
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Stratification
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Q1) In a capitalist society,wealth is always a source of prestige.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Name the three main dimensions of stratification.
Q3) Real wealth in the U.S.is measured as income plus:
A)Assets.
B)Retirement accounts.
C)Prestige.
D)Education.
E)Private property.
F)Power.
Q4) The functionalist perspective on social stratification holds that:
A)The whole society benefits because the system provides motivation for people to take risks or to fill difficult jobs.
B)Only the upper class benefits from the system.
C)Class and caste systems are both based on economic exploitation.
D)Affirmative action programs have no justifiable role in a democratic society.
E)Class conflict is the major way in which a society changes.
Q5) What realities does the black-white racial dichotomy found in the United States ignore?
13
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Chapter 12: Religion
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Q1) Anthropologist Sara Castle has argued that Fulani parents seem indifferent to their children because:
A)They cannot conceptualize their family size.
B)Fulani society looks down on children and sees pregnancy as embarrassing.
C)In such a patriarchal society,anything having to do with women is devalued and all children are seen as associated with women rather than men.
D)They believe that showing concern for children will attract evil sorcerers or spirits.
E)They do not believe that individuals have souls until they reach puberty.
Q2) What was the role of the spirit in the vision quest?
Q3) The Christian notion that reenacting the Last Supper stands for communion with God is an example of:
A)Superstition.
B)Science.
C)Prophecy.
D)Magic.
E)Symbolism.
Q4) What are the six characteristics of religion?
Q5) Why do Fulani of Mali insult their children?
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Chapter 13: Creative Expression: Anthropology and the Arts
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Q1) 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.
Q2) Fritz Scholder's paintings combine historical images with abstract expressionism and pop art.A fundamental theme of his work is:
A)The oppression of Native Americans by the U.S.government.
B)His ambivalence about his Indian identity.
C)The need for Native Americans to get over the injustices of the past and get on with their lives.
D)The importance of the repatriation of Native American remains and artifacts.
E)The underlying humanity of all people,regardless of superficial racial and ethnic differences.
Q3) Art can provide many functions in society,especially for ritual meanings.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the relationship between art and symbolism?
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Chapter 14: Power, conquest, and a World System
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Q1) Most of the members of the original Tirailleurs Senegalais were:
A)Children of the poor.
B)Sons of chiefs.
C)Sons of merchants.
D)Slaves.
E)Among the most educated people in their culture.
Q2) What were two functions of taxation in European colonies?
Q3) Where did the Dutch East India Company primarily operate?
Q4) The pace of change over the past several centuries has been:
A)Enormous,with innovation occurring at quicker and quicker rates.
B)Constant,with innovation occurring at a steady rate.
C)Static,with little innovation occurring
D)Sporadic,with intermittent occurrences of innovation.
E)There are no reliable statistics to gauge such an abstract idea.
Q5) Define pillage and give one example.
Q6) Pillage was one of the main ways that Europeans transferred wealth from newly discovered areas to their home countries.
A)True
B)False
Q7) What is a "national narrative"?
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Chapter 15: Culture, change, and the Modern World
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Q1) Which of the following statements about sweatshop labor is correct?
A)Sweatshop labor has been eliminated in Europe and America.
B)Sweatshop laborers are rarely subject to psychological or verbal abuse.
C)Western economists agree that sweatshops are generally good for developing countries,even though the conditions are challenging.
D)America and European nations made extensive use of sweatshop labor in the past.
E)Western economists agree that most attempts to end sweatshop labor harm the very people they are aimed at helping.
Q2) Define neoliberalism.
Q3) Thomas Friedman has argued that the result of globalization will be a more unequal and more violent world.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In the 1980s,most Ju/'hoansi foragers ended up fighting for the freedom of Namibia with the Southwest African People's Organization (SWAPO).
A)True
B)False
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