Social Problems Practice Exam
Course Introduction
This course examines the major social problems facing contemporary societies, such as poverty, crime, inequality, discrimination, substance abuse, environmental degradation, and family conflict. Through the lens of sociological theories and research, students will analyze the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to these issues. The course encourages critical thinking about how social structures, cultural values, and policy decisions contribute to these problems, while also exploring the roles individuals and groups play in both perpetuating and addressing them.
Recommended Textbook
Criminology A Sociological Understanding 7th Edition by Steven E Barkan
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18 Chapters
1034 Verified Questions
1034 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: Criminology and the Sociological Perspective
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56 Verified Questions
56 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In his study of suicide,Durkheim found that:
A) People in groups with high social integration had higher suicide rates.
B) People in groups with high social integration had lower suicide rates.
C) Social integration did not play a role in suicide rates.
D) Jews had higher rates of suicides than Protestants.
Answer: B
Q2) Despite the attention it receives,the ___ defense is rarely used.
Answer: Insanity
Q3) Which of the following best describes horizontal social structure?
A) It is how society ranks different groups of people.
B) It is the basis of understanding the biological workings of the brain.
C) It is rooted in psychological theory.
D) It is the social and physical characteristics of communities and the networks of social relationships to which an individual belongs.
Answer: D
Q4) Crime is solely an individual problem.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Chapter 2: Public Opinion, the News Media, and the Crime Problem
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55 Verified Questions
55 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The media overreports on white-collar crime.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Crime victims come from all walks of life.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) While its use was actually declining in the 1980s,news stories about _____ gave the public the impression that it had become an epidemic.
A) Marijuana use
B) Crack cocaine use
C) Gun-related crime
D) Juvenile DUI
Answer: B
Q4) Most violent crime is committed by friends or intimates.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Page 4
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Chapter 3: The Measurement and Patterning of Criminal Behavior
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Sample Questions
Q1) Beginning in the 1960s,explanations focusing on a ______ of violence (e.g.,attitudes approving violence)and on deficiencies in African-American family structure became popular.
Answer: Subculture
Q2) Crime has skyrocketed in the US since the 1990s.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) Burglary,larceny,motor vehicle theft,and arson are classified as _____ crime.
Answer: Property
Q4) According to Sigmund Freud,who would commit crime due to penis envy?
A) Men
B) Women
C) Minorities
D) Elderly
Answer: B
Q5) The NCVS contacts approximately 90,000 households each year.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 4: Victims and Victimization
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Sample Questions
Q1) How would you address the high rates of crime and victimization among teenagers?
Q2) According to the NCVS,female college student are more likely to be victims than male students.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Victims of _____ crime remain a prime subject for social science research and for government action.
Q4) Repeat _____ is a fairly common occurrence,particularly among adolescents.
Q5) According to the ICVS,which of the following countries had the lowest victimization rate?
A) United States
B) Ireland
C) Portugal
D) Mexico
Q6) Few individuals are victims of crime more than once.
A)True
B)False
Q7) Younger people have higher victimization rates than older people.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: Classical and Neoclassical Perspectives
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56 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Classical theory is grounded in utopianism.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Which type of crime offense is committed for material gain with some degree of planning?
A) Terminal
B) Instrumental
C) Expressive
D) Penal
Q3) Which of the following best reflects the Age of Reason,or the Enlightenment?
A) A time when religious views began to give way to scientific explanations
B) An era when the Christian majority began to adopt Islamic ideas about behavior
C) A period when psychology began to develop scientific explanations for crime
D) A century when Marxists explanations for behavior began to emerge
Q4) Which of the following statements fits neoclassical thinking?
A) Crime is the result of genetic predisposition.
B) Criminals act with free will.
C) Crime is the result of one's social ecology.
D) Criminals act due to demonic possession.
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Chapter 6: Biological and Psychological Explanations
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following suggests why low IQ may lead to crime?
A) It increases the likelihood of low testosterone levels
B) It lowers serotonin levels
C) It decreases social bonds
D) It impairs moral judgment
Q2) Discuss what adoption studies say about the biological link to crime.
Q3) Which stage did Freud think represents internalization of society's moral code?
A) Superego
B) Id
C) Ego
D) Ethos
Q4) _____ are athletic and muscular and tend to be aggressive.
Q5) Psychological approaches also suggest that criminality results from psychological
A) Abnormality
B) Development
C) Recidivism
D) Innovation
Q6) Some of the most important work today in psychology and crime focuses on
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Chapter 7: Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Structure
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61 Verified Questions
61 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Structural theories have a shared emphasis on poverty as a criminogenic social condition.
A)True B)False
Q2) Does your hometown or a nearby city have a "concentric zone"? What are some of the physical characteristics of that area? What can you find about crime rate,population,preventative measures?
Q3) Which of the following best reflects the concept of relative deprivation?
A) The causes of poverty are relative to the amount of gross domestic product
B) Criminals tend to have been deprived by their relatives while they were young and thus develop early learning disorders
C) The reason the poor become angry and frustrated might be their realization that other people in society have more money
D) People who are depraved feel isolated from the larger culture and thus act out against it
Q4) Two lower-class subcultural focal concerns are cooperation and trust. A)True B)False
Q5) What is Anderson's code of the street? What is its central feature?
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Chapter 8: Sociological Theories: Emphasis on Social Process
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61 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Differential association may vary in frequency,duration,priority,and intensity.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Social controls concern attachments to and involvement in _____,such as the family,schools,and religion.
A) Unconventional subcultures
B) Adolescent attachment groups
C) Juvenile boundary enforcers
D) Conventional social institutions
Q3) Self- control theory attributes a lack of self-control to delinquency.Discuss a time in which you lacked self-control and fully analyze the situation.What could you have done to have better self-control? How could this be applied to improve your self-control in the future?
Q4) In the 1950s and 1960s,sociologist Walter C.Reckless developed his _____ theory of delinquency,which stressed that inner and outer restraints help prevent juvenile offending.
Q5) Family _____ refers to the way the family is set up or organized.
Q6) Differential association may vary in _____,duration,priority,and intensity.
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Q7) ______ has long had the lowest crime rate in the industrialized world,or nearly so.
Chapter 9: Sociological Theories: Critical Perspectives
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following would be an example of secondary deviance?
A) An offense occurs in the neighborhood, and police fail to identify a suspect, thus encouraging the perpetrator to reoffend
B) A town lacks important community efforts such as after school activities which lead youths to engage in crime
C) An offense occurs in the neighborhood, and a youth is suspected. He becomes angry and resentful and "acts out"
D) A town passes a law such as truancy and begins to arrest many juveniles for what is a new crime
Q2) Deviance is not a quality of the act a person commits; some people and behaviors are more likely than others to be labeled _____.
A) Deviant
B) Destructive
C) Deterred
D) Demonic
Q3) In a self-fulfilling prophecy,the social-psychological and practical consequences of official labeling thus lead to deviance _____.
Q4) Critical perspectives are often called social _____ theories.
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Page 11
Chapter 10: Violent Crime: Homicide,assault,and Robbery
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Sample Questions
Q1) Looking at different regions of the United States,homicide rates are highest in the
Q2) Which of the following is traditionally committed with malice aforethought,meaning that the offender planned to kill someone and then did so?
A) Third-degree murder
B) Fourth-degree murder
C) Second-degree murder
D) First-degree murder
Q3) Which of the following rob in order to acquire money to buy illegal drugs?
A) Adderall robbers
B) Opportunist robbers
C) Professional robbers
D) Addict robbers
Q4) Robbery is a prototypical example of innovation in Merton's anomie theory.
A)True
B)False
Q5) _____ homicide refers to the killing of armed and dangerous felons by police or private citizens.
Q6) The _____ type of robber,robs to acquire money to buy illegal drugs.
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Chapter 11: Violence Against Women
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Sample Questions
Q1) Men are never the victim of sexual assault.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Another myth is that:
A) Many women see the abuse as a help in defining their relationship
B) Since only poor women are abused, there is nothing police can do
C) Men are abused as often as women, and more so in wealthy households
D) Because many women do not leave their batterers or call the police, the battering cannot be that bad
Q3) Women who serve our country in the _____ often are victims of sexual assault.
Q4) Violence against women is
A) A global epidemic
B) A problem only in Western nations
C) Is not significant in third world countries
D) Often over reported
Q5) International organizations estimate that over 50% of women worldwide have been physically and/or sexually assaulted by a former or current spouse.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 12: Property Crime and Fraud
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Sample Questions
Q1) The male proportion of larceny arrests is lower than for the other crimes because females are more involved in one type of larceny,_____,than they are in other crimes.
A) Shoplifting
B) Burglary
C) Motor vehicle theft
D) Arson
Q2) Which of the following groups of property crimes does the FBI classifies as Part I offenses?
A) Burglary, larceny/theft, motor vehicle theft, and arson
B) Burglary, motor vehicle theft, truancy, and simple assault
C) Arson, rape, larceny/theft, and burglary
D) Arson, simple assault, DUII, and motor vehicle theft
Q3) Given the opportunity,how would you target harden your home? Have some target hardening steps that have already been taken?
Q4) Write a mini example of each burglary,larceny,and robbery.Be sure to distinguish what is involved in each offense.
Q5) When teenage boys steal a car,it is generally for _____.
Q6) When crime occurs on the internet it is known as ______.
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Chapter 13: White-Collar and Organized Crime
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Sample Questions
Q1) Embezzlement involves the theft of cash and the misappropriation or misuse of funds.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Insider trading is a form of medical fraud.
A)True
B)False
Q3) _____ involves the theft of merchandise,tools,stationery,and other items.
Q4) Which of the following terms emphasizes that crime can be done by and on behalf of organizations,many of them corporations,but some of them small businesses,including blue-collar businesses such as auto repair shops?
A) Walmart crime
B) Institutional crime
C) Situation crime
D) Organizational crime
Q5) The news media tends to cover white-collar crime more than street crime.
A)True
B)False
Q6) Discuss the monetary cost of street crime compared to white-collar crime.
Q7) Organized crime members in Japan are called the _____.
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Chapter 14: Political Crime
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56 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Political corruptions is only committed for economic gain.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Crime by government aims to change the existing order and includes terrorism.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The story of Rosa Parks is an example of _____.
A) Corporate crime
B) Civil disobedience
C) State violence
D) Vigilante terrorism
Q4) Stalin's reign of terror involved many _____ trials that depicted his opponents as dangerous threats to law and order.
Q5) Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin committed _____ terrorism during a purge of Communist Party leaders threatened his reign.The result was thousands of executions.
Q6) In the concentration camps of World War II,American scientists performed some hideous experiments in the name of science.
A)True
B)False
Page 16
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Chapter 15: Consensual Crime
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Sample Questions
Q1) Coffee,soda and chocolate all contain the legal drug _____.
Q2) Most prostitutes are _____.
A) Women
B) Men
C) Elderly
D) Juveniles
Q3) The federal and state governments spend about _____ annually on law enforcement expenses related to illegal drugs.
A) $12 million
B) $213 million
C) $49 billion
D) $879 billion
Q4) Homicide is a type consensual crime.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Prostitution is legal in the state of _____.
Q6) Almost all individuals who are trafficked for sex are women or girls.
A)True
B)False
Q7) Do you support drug legalization? If so,which drugs? Why?
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Chapter 16: Policing: Dilemmas of Crime Control in a Democratic Society
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Sample Questions
Q1) Research on white,male police officers indicates that they face a double burden of both racism and sexism.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Rodney King was a victim of police _____ and suffered severe injuries.
Q3) In the 1990s,New York City began to use an ongoing,aggressive style called zero-tolerance policing.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Ten tithings living on a particular noble's estate were called a hundred.The noble appointed an unpaid _____ to monitor their behavior.
A) Sheriff
B) Justice of the peace
C) State trooper
D) Constable
Q5) Discuss some of the key concepts related to women and arrest.
Q6) Racial profiling may affect which citizens get stopped and _____ while walking down the street or simply hanging out.
Page 18
Q7) The outcome of Mapp v.Ohio lead to what is known as the _____ rule.
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Chapter 17: Prosecution and Punishment
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Sample Questions
Q1) Does use of plea bargain deny accused individuals their right to justice? Would a more just system demand more cases go to trial?
Q2) The vast majority of cases end in _____ bargaining.
Q3) Social inequality affects the exercise of _____ and the extent to which reliance on the criminal justice system can reduce crime.
A) Legal discretion
B) Legal maxims
C) Personal discretion
D) Personal maxims
Q4) What type of strategy does a society adopt when it protects society by keeping dangerous criminals behind bars?
A) Rehabilitation
B) Incapacitation
C) Just Desserts
D) Restitution
Q5) The courtroom _____ group consists of defense attorneys and judges.
Q6) The United States has long been said to have a(n)_____ system of criminal justice.
Q7) Heavy _____ burden,prosecutors,defense attorneys and judges.
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Chapter 18: Conclusion: How Can We Reduce Crime
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Sample Questions
Q1) Primary prevention tries to prevent disease or injury from occurring at all by focusing on aspects of the social or physical environment that contribute to the disease or injury.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Secondary prevention aims to identify practices and situations that put certain individuals at risk for illness or injury.
A)True
B)False
Q3) A _____ prevention approach to crime focuses on preventing recidivism,or repeat offending,by offenders and on protecting society from these offenders.
Q4) Which of the following decreases the odds that children will come to respect the need to obey laws and other social norms?
A) Dilapidated neighborhoods
B) Expanded use of the death penalty
C) Violent video games
D) Drug decriminalization
Q5) Which of the primary forms of prevention do you think would be most effective?
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