Peoples and Cultures of the World Exam Questions
Course Introduction
Peoples and Cultures of the World is an introductory course that explores the rich diversity of human societies across the globe. Students will examine the fundamental concepts of cultural anthropology, including kinship, religion, language, economics, and social organization, through the study of various case studies from Africa, Asia, the Americas, Europe, and Oceania. The course emphasizes how peoples adapt to their environments, express their identities, and interact with broader global processes. By critically engaging with ethnographic materials, students gain a deeper understanding of the complexities and commonalities that shape human experience and cultural expression worldwide.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology A Toolkit for a Global Age 2nd Edition by Kenneth J. Guest
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Chapter 1: Anthropology in a Global Age
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Sample Questions
Q1) What type of anthropologists explore all aspects of living human culture-from war and violence to love, sexuality, and child rearing-and look at the meanings that people from all over the world place on these things?
A) ethnologists
B) sociolinguists
C) holistic anthropologists
D) cultural anthropologists
Answer: D
Q2) What do garbage dumps offer to both anthropologists and archaeologists?
A) understanding burial practices
B) analysis of nutritional intake
C) a deeper understanding of climate change
D) understanding cultural practices
Answer: D
Q3) Material remains help prehistoric archaeologists reconstruct:
A) human behavior.
B) written records.
C) garbage dumps.
D) burial sites.
Answer: A
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Chapter 2: Culture
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Q1) Early anthropologists suggested that all cultures would naturally evolve through the same sequence of stages, regardless of location or historical experience. What was this concept called and who were three of its early proponents? What were the three primary stages that all cultures pass through, according to this anthropological approach? In your opinion, what are some implications that an approach such as this could have on how societies are perceived around the world?
Answer: Students must correctly reference the concept of unilineal cultural evolution and identify Edward Burnett Tylor, James Frazer, and Henry Morgan as the three proponents. Students must also correctly identify the three stages as savage, barbarian, and civilized, and offer at least two implications that this approach could have on how societies are perceived around the world.
Q2) Early British anthropological researchers believed they could isolate and scientifically study the structure and function of what?
A) culture
B) gender
C) ethnicity
D) society
Answer: D
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Chapter 3: Fieldwork and Ethnography
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is the significant difference between quantitative and qualitative data?
A) Qualitative data is more difficult to obtain.
B) Qualitative data cannot be counted.
C) Quantitative data is subject to the bias of the ethnographer.
D) Quantitative data is only obtained via direct conversation.
Answer: B
Q2) The Minerva Initiative offers funding to anthropologists whose work can benefit defense planning. Many in anthropology see this as a problem for the discipline. What do they find problematic?
A) an excess of funding sources for a narrow range of interests
B) the "weaponizing of anthropology"
C) the "militarization of anthropology"
D) recruitment of anthropologists as fighting soldiers
Answer: B
Q3) The roots of cultural anthropology and ethnographic fieldwork lie in:
A) early biological models.
B) modern philosophical debates.
C) turn-of-the-century demographic trends.
D) late nineteenth-century globalization.
Answer: D
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Chapter 4: Language
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Hopi language has verb tenses that differ from those of English. Benjamin Whorf's linguistic research among the Hopi people suggested that they have:
A) a worldview where past and present represent lived reality and the future is hypothetical.
B) been able to retain their cultural traditions by only having one dialect.
C) a worldview that keeps past, present, and future as entirely separate concepts.
D) the same conceptual idea of time as everyone else.
Q2) What term do anthropologists use to refer to small units of sounds that make a critical difference in meaning within a language?
A) paralanguage
B) morphemes
C) phonemes
D) grammar
Q3) According to the textbook, what is happening to human languages worldwide?
A) Outside the United States, languages are being lost.
B) Languages are being lost at the rate of three per day.
C) New languages are being created at a rate faster than they are being lost.
D) Languages are being lost at the rate of one every ten days.
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Chapter 5: Human Origins
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Q1) According to the "out of Africa" theory, what led to the disappearance of Neandertals?
A) Modern Homo sapiens evolved first in Africa and then migrated to other areas, eventually replacing and assimilating with Neandertals.
B) Neandertals were unable to interbreed with Homo erectus after migrating out of Africa.
C) Modern Homo sapiens directly evolved from Neandertals once the Neandertals left Africa.
D) Modern Homo sapiens displaced Homo erectus in Africa, who in turn displaced Neandertals in Europe.
Q2) What do we call a group of related organisms that can interbreed and produce fertile, viable offspring?
A) founding population
B) subspecies
C) species
D) kinship group
Q3) Discuss the reasons why the appearance of Homo erectus signaled a major change in the evolution of humans.
Q4) Discuss the current thinking regarding the fate of the Neandertals.
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Chapter 6: Race and Racism
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Sample Questions
Q1) The current argument over whether to build a wall between Mexico and the United States reflects, in part, what long-standing aspect of how race is constructed and managed in the United States?
A) eugenics
B) "home first"
C) nationalism
D) nativism
Q2) Three hundred years of forced transport of millions of Africans to North and South America resulted in ________.
A) fascism
B) slavery
C) a new race
D) white supremacy
Q3) Patterns by which racial inequality is structured through key cultural institutions, policies, and systems are referred to as ________.
A) discrimination
B) racialization
C) institutional racism
D) racial ideology
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Page 8
Chapter 7: Ethnicity and Nationalism
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Sample Questions
Q1) Most ethnic groups establish traits that set them apart from others and identify members of their own group. Anthropologists call these ________.
A) culturally significant traits
B) ethnic boundary markers
C) ethnic-making projects
D) social signifiers
Q2) In South Africa, the Bafokeng were able to eventually get much of their land back from the white settlers who had taken it through the formation of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, Inc. This effort has subsequently flourished. This a good example of ________.
A) national agency
B) black supremacy
C) an ethno-corporation
D) a multinational corporation
Q3) Explain what is meant when we say that a nation is an imagined community, and give an example.
Q4) Define ethnic cleansing versus genocide and give an example of each to illustrate your answer.
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Chapter 8: Gender
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Sample Questions
Q1) What happened after Captain Kristen Griest and First Lieutenant Shaye Haver became the first women to complete the U.S. Army's elite Ranger School at Fort Benning, Georgia, in 2015?
A) They were required to have their gender verified by a physician.
B) They were still not eligible to join the elite 75th Ranger Regiment.
C) They were both discharged.
D) Griest was promoted while Haver was not.
Q2) Discuss ways that women's participation in the global economy, including the changes in traditional gender roles and expectations, reflects both gender role stereotypes and economic inequalities in the twenty-first century.
Q3) In popular conversations, emphasis is often placed on the role of biology in shaping gender identities and behaviors. What does research reveal regarding this topic?
A) Culture constantly shapes and reshapes our bodies throughout our lives.
B) Our DNA remains the same throughout the course of our lives.
C) Biology plays a more significant role than the environmental context.
D) A person's biological sex determines his or her innate personality traits.
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Chapter 9: Sexuality
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Sample Questions
Q1) How did Margaret Mead's work contribute to a greater understanding of human sexuality?
A) Her work provided evidence that men and women are naturally sexually promiscuous.
B) Her work challenged the assumption that sexual practices should be private rather than public.
C) Her work challenged the assumption that U.S. attitudes toward sexuality were universal traits fixed in human nature.
D) Her work explored the commonalities between human sexual practices and the sexual practices of other primates.
Q2) Philosopher Michel Foucault describes sexuality as "an especially dense transfer point for relations of power." Discuss his claim. How does the private act of sex become a transfer point for power? What are the public channels in which we might expect to observe this process?
Q3) Why do the "salary men" of white-collar Japan go to hostess bars?
A) to find suitable companions for the evening
B) to build and strengthen office relationships and corporate culture
C) to relieve their sexual tensions
D) to enjoy banter about women's breasts
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Chapter 10: Kinship, Family, and Marriage
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Sample Questions
Q1) Ambilineal descent groups such as Samoans, Maori, and Hawaiians are sometimes referred to as what kind of descent groups?
A) unilineal
B) polylineal
C) cognatic
D) monolineal
Q2) In 2004, the American Anthropological Association (AAA)-the largest association of anthropologists in the United States-issued a statement regarding same-sex marriages and what was then a contentious piece of legislation, the Defense of Marriage Act. What position did the AAA take on same-sex marriages? Did the AAA have research data to substantiate its position? Do you think that professional associations such as the AAA should make formal position statements about issues that are part of a "culture clash"? Why or why not?
Q3) Families and kinship networks have the power to provide support and to nurture. What else do kinship networks do in a society?
A) encourage monogamous marriage
B) prevent genetic abnormalities
C) ensure reproduction of the next generation
D) ensure stability in the political system
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Class and Inequality
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Q1) What is significant about Hutterite society in contrast to present-day social structures?
A) It is an example of a successful effort to establish an egalitarian system of economic and social relations within highly stratified societies.
B) It is an example of a failed effort to establish an egalitarian system of economic and social relations within highly stratified societies.
C) It is an example of a successful effort to establish a highly religious society.
D) It is an example of a successful effort to establish an authoritarian system of economic and social relations within highly stratified societies.
Q2) The dramatic increases in debt and student loan costs have helped perpetuate what aspect of life in U.S. society?
A) the housing crisis
B) access to quality education
C) the culture of consumption
D) maintaining a good credit rating
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Chapter 12: The Global Economy
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Q1) The text suggests that "ecological overshoot" is a likely consequence of our current global economy. What exactly does this mean?
A) We have damaged the environment beyond its ability to repair itself.
B) We have exceeded the ability of the planet to provide for our needs.
C) Development planners have not properly accounted for the ecological costs of growth.
D) The free market must pull back from the environmental practices that destroy the planet.
Q2) Both horticulture and agriculture focus on the use of plants as a source of food. What is the difference between them?
A) the use of seeds to start the crops
B) a requirement of different systems of irrigation
C) the level of intensity needed in the process
D) neither includes any other source of foodstuffs
Q3) What major event set the stage for the end of European colonialism?
A) the Haitian revolution
B) World War I
C) the Battle of Algiers
D) World War II
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Page 14
Chapter 13: Migration
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Sample Questions
Q1) What happened in the United States in 1965 that shifted patterns of immigration?
A) The United States passed the National Origins Act.
B) The immigration from Eastern Europe and Italy reached its peak.
C) The policy of restricting immigrants with quotas by nationality ended.
D) A fence along the U.S.-Mexico border was completed.
Q2) What do we call the economic resources that are transferred from migrants to family members or institutions in their country of origin?
A) smuggling
B) remittances
C) transactions
D) economic diversification
Q3) With which of the following groups do we often associate the idea of remittances?
A) only labor immigrants
B) only professional immigrants
C) only entrepreneurial immigrants
D) all types of immigrants
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Chapter 14: Politics and Power
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Sample Questions
Q1) Margaret Mead says people must first recognize militarism as a problem before attempting to change it. What else does she say is needed?
A) a belief that social invention is possible
B) participatory democracy
C) a redistributed budget
D) gender equality
Q2) Most of us never consider how our immediate families function in a larger social context in our lives. In reality, though, what aspect of social behavior is strongly present in our family relationships and echoed in our place in society as a whole?
A) power
B) hegemony
C) agency
D) financial success
Q3) Civil society organizations have become important actors on the world stage. Discuss what they are, where they came from, and how they work.
Q4) In a brief essay, describe three elements of a social movement. Provide examples to illustrate your description.
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Chapter 15: Religion
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Q1) Whether studying a small temple in a remote village or the most famous Catholic cathedral in Rome, anthropologists try to convey each religion's sense of moral order, dynamic public expressions, and:
A) truthfulness.
B) appeal in order to convert new followers.
C) connection to all the major world religions.
D) interactions with other systems of meaning and power.
Q2) Anthropologist Clifford Geertz examines the role of symbols in religion. He argues that each symbol has deep meaning and evokes powerful emotions and motivations in the religion's followers. What are two different examples of religious symbols used in the world today? What meaning do the symbols have for the religious followers? What emotions and motivations do the symbols evoke in followers and why? How do these symbols help followers make sense of their worlds? What purpose do these symbols likely serve regarding community life? Do you think symbols are imperative to religious beliefs and practices? Why or why not? What are some of the problems posed by Geertz's approach to religion?
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Chapter 16: Health, Illness, and the Body
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Q1) What is biomedicine, and how do the practitioners view and treat diseases? Discuss two criticisms that anthropologists have about the European biases in the model.
Q2) Fieldwork allows the anthropologist to accurately record the life and conditions of a people. These results are almost always shared with others. Such efforts frequently increase awareness of a particular people, but as Paul Farmer notes, rarely result in what?
A) a deep understanding of local problems
B) direct or indirect intervention to help solve problems
C) an influx of financial support to those in greatest need
D) a lasting recognition by governments that their citizens may need particular forms of help
Q3) Anthropologist and physician Paul Farmer took many steps to improve health conditions in the rural community of Cange. What was one of the most important first steps?
A) conducting a health census of the community
B) finding physicians and nurses to improve health care
C) providing clean drinking water to the community
D) creating a channel for foreign aid to improve the community
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Chapter 17: Art and Media
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Sample Questions
Q1) What is indigenous media?
A) videos made about indigenous peoples
B) use of the media by those who have experienced significant disruption at a local level
C) films that are unusually clever in delivering a powerful message
D) the type of media used by Native Americans
Q2) What is one result of the attention focused on Morrinho?
A) art students receiving scholarships to study at a university in Madrid
B) the number of Internet users in Paris increasing dramatically
C) an opportunity for the creators to install a replica of it at an arts festival in London
D) new guidelines in regulations about television broadcasts for children
Q3) What form of technology emerged in the twentieth century as a dominant form of global communication, impacting art and art production?
A) telephones
B) the Internet
C) television
D) computers
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