World Cultures Question Bank
Course Introduction
World Cultures explores the rich diversity of human societies across the globe, examining the beliefs, practices, social structures, languages, and artistic expressions that define different cultures. By comparing traditions, values, and rituals from various regions, students gain a deeper understanding of the factors shaping cultural identities and global interactions. The course encourages critical thinking about cultural similarities and differences, fostering appreciation, empathy, and informed perspectives on contemporary global issues.
Recommended Textbook
Cultural Anthropology Appreciating Cultural Diversity 15th Edition by Conrad Kottak
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15 Chapters
963 Verified Questions
963 Flashcards
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Chapter 1: What Is Anthropology
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53 Verified Questions
53 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In general, Americans tend to maintain a greater physical distance from others they interact with on a day-to-day basis, especially when compared to Brazilians or Italians, who need less personal space. However, the story of American students' attitudes toward hugging in "Give Me a Hug" reminds us that
A) any nation usually contains diverse and even conflicting cultural values, and these cultural values are not static.
B) the key reason for the poor track-record of U.S. diplomacy begins with failures in the American school system.
C) some aspects of culture are more biologically determined than others.
D) cultural values regarding bodily touch and personal space are very difficult to change from one generation to another.
E) homosexuality is becoming more prevalent, and more accepted, among teenagers.
Answer: A
Q2) Although science relies on the use of unbiased methods, complete objectivity is impossible. There is always an observer bias.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 2: Culture
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62 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) What are cultural particularities?
A) traits isolated from other traits in the same culture
B) traits unique to a given culture, not shared with others
C) different levels of culture
D) the most general aspect of culture patterns
E) cultural traits of individuals rather than groups
Answer: B
Q2) Which of the following LEAST explains the existence of cultural generalities?
A) cultural borrowing
B) globalization
C) colonialism
D) isolationism
E) trade
Answer: D
Q3) In many countries, use of the English language reflects a colonial history and is thus a consequence of forced diffusion.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Page 4
Chapter 3: Method and Theory in Cultural Anthropology
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70 Verified Questions
70 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Ethnographers typically combine emic and etic research strategies in their fieldwork. This means they are interested in applying both
A) local- and scientist-oriented research approaches.
B) local and bifocal research approaches.
C) reflexive and salvage approaches.
D) personal and impersonal research approaches.
E) the genealogical and survey methods.
Answer: A
Q2) In survey research, what term is used to refer to the attributes that vary among the members of a population?
A) unknowns
B) questionnaires
C) interviews
D) variables
E) random samples
Answer: D
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Chapter 4: Applying Anthropology
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following does NOT illustrate the kinds of work that applied anthropologists do?
A) working for or with international development agencies, such as the World Bank and the U.S. Agency for International Development
B) helping the Environmental Protection Agency address environmental problems
C) borrowing from fields such as history and sociology to broaden the scope of theoretical anthropology
D) using the tools of medical anthropology to work as cultural interpreters in public health programs
E) applying the tools of forensic anthropology to work with police, medical examiners, the courts, and international organizations to identify victims of crimes, accidents, wars, and terrorism
Q2) In his comparison of rural versus urban communities, Robert Redfield found that cultural innovations spread from urban areas to rural ones.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Discuss the relevance of the ethnographic method for modern society, contemporary problems, and applied anthropology.
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6
Chapter 5: Language and Communication
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Q1) Linguistic stratification can occur between dialects when one is considered a prestige dialect, as is the case with High German and Low German, or with Standard English (SE) and Black English Vernacular (BEV).
A)True
B)False
Q2) Animal call systems exhibit linguistic productivity.
A)True
B)False
Q3) One aspect of linguistic history is language loss. When a language disappears,
A) less strain is put on the educational system, because it has less language diversity to deal with.
B) this is confirmation to historical linguists that language is also a victim of evolutionary forces.
C) so does pride in one's heritage.
D) cultural diversity is reduced as well.
E) humanity is that much closer to global integration.
Q4) Discuss some common interests of linguistics and ethnography. Of what use can knowledge of linguistic techniques and principles be to the ethnographer?
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7
Chapter 6: Ethnicity and Race
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Q1) What is the term for ethnic groups that once had, or wish to have or regain, autonomous political status?
A) ethnicities
B) captive nations
C) nations
D) nationalities
E) ethnic avengers
Q2) The term nation is used to refer to an ethnic group that shares a religion, language, history, territory, ancestry, and kinship.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Racial classification is a political issue. Compare the Canadian census in its treatment of racial categories to the U.S. census. What do you think would be the political consequences of using one census over another?
Q4) Brazilian racial classification is based exclusively on an individual's phenotype. A)True
B)False
Q5) What is hypodescent? Why is it an arbitrary rule of racial classification?
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Chapter 7: Making a Living
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is NOT characteristic of band-level societies?
A) an egalitarian social structure
B) nuclear families
C) the sexual division of labor
D) permanent villages
E) mechanisms of social control
Q2) In nonindustrial societies, economic activities are embedded in the society.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Although agriculture is much more productive per acre than horticulture, horticulture is more reliable and dependable in the long run.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following is NOT associated with the market principle?
A) the profit motive
B) the law of supply and demand
C) impersonal economic relations
D) industrialism
E) kin-based generalized reciprocity
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Chapter 8: Political Systems
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Sample Questions
Q1) The efficacy of social control depends on how clearly people envision the sanctions that an antisocial act might trigger.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In bands, the leader occupies an official office with coercive control over the members of the community.
A)True
B)False
Q3) What are the major results and implications of food production? How does reliance on food production affect the social, economic, and political organization of societies that practice it?
Q4) Pantribal sodalities function to integrate the community by providing a series of important nonkin relationships.
A)True
B)False
Q5) Contrast the Inuit and Yanomami with respect to their reasons for disputes, the effectiveness of their means of resolving disputes, and how they enforce decisions about resolving disputes.
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Page 10
Chapter 9: Gender
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Sample Questions
Q1) In agricultural societies, women generally dominate the practice of subsistence labor.
A)True
B)False
Q2) The specific roles assigned to each gender vary from culture to culture.
A)True
B)False
Q3) If a patriarchy is a political system ruled by men, what would a matriarchy be-a political system ruled by women? Anthropologist Peggy Sanday, who investigated these questions among the Minangkabau of West Sumatra, found that A) true matriarchies do not exist.
B) women in matriarchies see their male counterparts as being inferior.
C) women of newer generations are experimenting with new ideas of gender roles.
D) although matriarchies do exist, they are not mirror images of patriarchies because, at least for the Minangkabau, both men and women are seen as cooperative partners for the common good.
E) although Minangkabau women play a central role in their culture's social, economic, and ceremonial life, they are still regarded as having lower status than men.
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Chapter 10: Families, Kinship, and Descent
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Q1) Contemporary North American adults usually define their families as consisting of their husbands or wives and their children. In contrast, when middle-class Brazilians talk about their families, they mean their parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and on, down to their children. They rarely mention the spouse. Which of the following is among the reasons for this stark cultural contrast?
A) Brazilians readily incorporate strangers into their social worlds.
B) North Americans value independence over their family.
C) North Americans have more choices about where they can live, and they have chosen to live away from their relatives.
D) Brazilians live in a less mobile society and so stay in closer contact with their relatives, including members of their extended family, than do North Americans.
E) Brazilians have purely economic relationships with their spouses.
Q2) What kind of kinship is most common in the contemporary United States?
A) matrilateral kinship
B) bilateral kinship
C) patrilateral kinship
D) collateral kinship
E) generational kinship
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Page 12
Chapter 11: Marriage
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Sample Questions
Q1) "A person can have multiple spouses without ever getting divorced." Using the concepts you have learned in this chapter, explain this seemingly contradictory statement.
Q2) Polygynous marriages often serve important economic and political functions, with the number of wives a man has serving as an indicator of his wealth, prestige, and status.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Cultures have different definitions and expectations of relationships that are biologically or genetically equivalent. In other words, kinship is socially constructed.
A)True
B)False
Q4) What is the name of the custom by which a widower marries the sister of his deceased wife?
A) sororate marriage
B) serial polyandry
C) filial marriage
D) levirate marriage
E) fraternal marriage
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Chapter 12: Religion
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Sample Questions
Q1) By participating in a ritual, participants signal that they accept the common social and ethical order prescribed by their religion.
A)True
B)False
Q2) To Kottak, the widespread U.S. belief that recreation and religion are separate domains is both ethnocentric and false. Further, it may be taking the "fun" out of religion.
A)True
B)False
Q3) In Melanesia, mana is an essential sacred life force that resides in people, animals, plants, and objects.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Discuss two cases of religion's role in social change.
Q5) Contrast ritual behavior with ordinary behavior. Give examples of religious and secular rituals. What are the main differences between such kinds of rituals?
Q6) Is religion declining or becoming increasingly important in contemporary society? Why? If you believe that religion is declining, what is replacing it?
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Page 14
Chapter 13: Arts, Media, and Sports
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Sample Questions
Q1) What kind of society has buildings dedicated to the arts?
A) band
B) tribe
C) chiefdoms
D) segmentary lineage
E) state
Q2) Because music is a cultural universal and musical abilities seem to run in families,
A) everybody, regardless of culture, loves to dance.
B) it is possible to use musical abilities as a biological marker for human races.
C) it has been suggested that music is a concept of a social fiction.
D) anthropologists should investigate the connection between music and formerly misunderstood kinship arrangements.
E) it has been suggested that the predisposition for music may have a genetic basis.
Q3) In non-Western societies, artists tend to be iconoclastic and antisocial.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Where is art found? Is art found in the same contexts in all kinds of societies?
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15
Chapter 14: The World System and Colonialism
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Sample Questions
Q1) The labels First World, Second World, and Third World represent a common, if ethnocentric, way of categorizing nations. First World refers to the democratic West, which is traditionally conceived of as being in opposition to a Second World ruled by
A) folk economic and political models.
B) primitive neoliberalism.
C) Communism.
D) dictators.
E) imperialism.
Q2) What term refers to wealth or resources invested in business with the intent of producing a profit?
A) the modern world system
B) industrialization
C) an open class system
D) socioeconomic stratification
E) capital
Q3) How did the views of Marx and Weber on stratification differ? Relate their views to the modern global stratification system.
Q4) What is the world system perspective, and why is it important in anthropology?
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Chapter 15: Anthropologys Role in a Globalizing World
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Q1) Social movements worldwide have adopted the term indigenous people as a self-identifying and political label based on past oppression but are now legitimizing it in the search for social, cultural, and political rights.
A)True
B)False
Q2) In Spanish-speaking Latin America, social scientists and politicians favor which term over indio (Indian), the colonial term that the Spanish and Portuguese conquerors used to refer to the native inhabitants of the Americas?
A) indígena (indigenous person)
B) civilian
C) citizen
D) cultural patrimony
E) autochthon
Q3) Diaspora refers to the hegemonic policy of dominators to isolate individuals who publicly resist from the rest of the population.
A)True
B)False
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