Intro Sociology Practice Questions
Intro sociology practice questions with answers: 12 scenario and concept questions across 12 units, each with the reasoning, from Encodr's free sociology deck.
These are 12 practice questions from Encodr's free Intro to Sociology deck, drawn from 12 of the course's 21 units. Intro sociology exams reward one skill above the rest: reading a short everyday scenario and naming the concept it illustrates. That is the pattern here. Each question has the answer and the reason it fits.
How to use this set
Say your answer before you look, and commit to one concept. Sociology terms come in near-miss pairs, such as role conflict and role strain, or intragenerational and intergenerational mobility, and the exam is built to separate them. When you miss one, write the pair down and the one detail that tells them apart. Retrieving the answer from memory first is the testing effect, and it is why practice questions work better than rereading a chapter.
Two questions ask which theory or perspective fits. If those feel shaky, functionalism, conflict theory and symbolic interactionism compares the main perspectives side by side.
The questions
1. An introduction to sociology
Which perspective sees society as a structure of interrelated parts that work together to meet people's needs?
- A. Conflict theory
- B. Symbolic interactionism
- C. Dramaturgical analysis
- D. Structural functionalism
Answer: D. Structural functionalism
Why: Functionalists often compare society to a body whose organs each serve the whole.
2. Sociological research
In the hypothesis "if unemployment rises, crime rises", which is the independent variable?
- A. Crime
- B. The sample
- C. Unemployment
- D. The literature review
Answer: C. Unemployment
Why: The independent variable is the presumed cause; the dependent variable is the effect.
3. Culture
A traveler decides that all the food in a foreign country is disgusting compared with food at home. This attitude is:
- A. Xenocentrism
- B. Ethnocentrism
- C. Cultural relativism
- D. Xenophobia
Answer: B. Ethnocentrism
Why: The traveler measures another culture against their own and finds it lacking.
4. Society and social interaction
A parent has a work deadline but must also collect a sick child from school. Which term describes this clash?
- A. Role strain
- B. Achieved status
- C. Role conflict
- D. Impression management
Answer: C. Role conflict
Why: Role conflict is when the demands of two roles (worker and parent) contradict.
5. Socialization
Which is the first agent of socialization in most people's lives?
- A. Family
- B. Peer group
- C. School
- D. Mass media
Answer: A. Family
Why: The family is where a person first learns language, norms and values.
6. Groups and organizations
Which group can survive when one member leaves and also allows two members to side against one?
- A. Triad
- B. Dyad
- C. Aggregate
- D. Category
Answer: A. Triad
Why: Georg Simmel noted that three members change the dynamics: coalitions and majorities become possible.
7. Deviance, crime and social control
A would-be entrepreneur cannot afford start-up funds and embezzles money to launch a business. Which response to strain is this?
- A. Innovation
- B. Ritualism
- C. Retreatism
- D. Rebellion
Answer: A. Innovation
Why: The person keeps the goal of success but uses illegitimate means.
8. Social stratification in the US
A janitor works up to owning a cleaning company over a career. Which type of mobility is this?
- A. Intergenerational
- B. Structural
- C. Intragenerational
- D. Downward
Answer: C. Intragenerational
Why: A change within one person's lifetime is intragenerational mobility.
9. Global inequality
Which three areas does the Human Development Index combine?
- A. Trade, military strength and population
- B. Housing, religion and crime rates
- C. Health, education and income
- D. Democracy, literacy and land area
Answer: C. Health, education and income
Why: The index mixes a financial factor (income) with non-financial ones (lifespan and schooling).
10. Gender, sex and sexuality
True or false? Sociologists treat sex as biological and gender as socially attributed.
Answer: True
Why: The distinction was drawn from the 1950s onward.
11. Aging and the elderly
A retired man cancels the newspaper, stops golfing and loses touch with old friends. Which theory sees this withdrawal as natural?
- A. Activity theory
- B. Disengagement theory
- C. Continuity theory
- D. Exchange theory
Answer: B. Disengagement theory
Why: Cumming and Henry (1961) proposed that mutual withdrawal is a natural part of aging.
12. Religion
True or false? Durkheim held that the distinction between the sacred and the profane is central to what makes something a religion.
Answer: True
Why: He defined religion as a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things.
Where to go from here
Tally your misses by unit and look for the near-miss pairs. A term you confuse with its neighbor needs a contrast to study, not a longer definition.
- The whole course is in the free Intro to Sociology deck, which brings missed cards back sooner.
- What's in Intro to Sociology lists the units in order, and How to study for Intro to Sociology covers study methods for the course.
- Key vocabulary is collected unit by unit in sociology key terms.
- Pace your review with how to build a study schedule before an exam.
Encodr turns this into a habit: study anything in a feed, and it schedules the rest.
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