1. Who wrote, “We are headed to an increasingly centralized world with less individual freedom”?
a. Alexis de Tocqueville
b. Herbert Spencer
c. Karl Marx
d. Emile Durkheim
Ans: A
Answer Location: A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
2. Who wrote, “We are moving in the direction of a world dominated by science”?
a. Alexis de Tocqueville
b. Auguste Comte
c. Karl Marx
d. Emile Durkheim
Ans: B
Answer Location: A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
3. Who wrote, “Capitalism is based on the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists”?
a. Alexis de Tocqueville
b. Herbert Spencer
c. Karl Marx
d. Emile Durkheim
Ans: C
Answer Location: A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
4. Who wrote, “The modern world offers less moral cohesion than did earlier societies”?
a. Alexis de Tocqueville
b. Herbert Spencer
c. Karl Marx
d. Emile Durkheim
Ans: D
Answer Location: A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
5. Who wrote, “The modern world is an iron cage of rational systems from which there is no escape”?
a. Alexis de Tocqueville
b. Emile Durkheim
c. Karl Marx
d. Max Weber
Ans: D
Answer Location: A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
6. Who wrote, “Gender inequality explains most of individual experience, the ills in society, and history”?
a. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
b. Emile Durkheim
c. W. E. B. Du Bois
d. Alexis de Tocqueville
Ans: A
Answer Location: A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
7. Who wrote, “Race is one of the most important organizing categories of modern societies”?
a. Alexis de Tocqueville
b. George Simmel
c. George Herbert Mead
d. W. E. B. Du Bois
Ans: D
Answer Location: A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
8. Khaldun introduced which of the following in his most famous work, the Muqaddimah?
a. his ideas about social organization
b. a progressive explanation of social change
c. his ideas about race
d. an idealistic evolutionary theory
Ans: A
Answer Location: Premodern Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Medium
9. When did thinkers who could be clearly identified as sociologists first appear?
a. the 1300s
b. the 1500s
c. the 1700s
d. the 1800s
Ans: D
Answer Location: Premodern Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Medium
10. What was the most immediate social factor in the rise of sociological theorizing during the late 1800s?
a. political revolutions
b. the Industrial Revolution
c. the rise of capitalism
d. colonialism
Ans: A
Answer Location: Political Revolutions
Difficulty Level: Medium
11. Which of the following accompanied the Industrial Revolution?
a. the end of colonial expansion
b. the rise of capitalism
c. the rise of socialism
d. the rise of unionization
Ans: B
Answer Location: The Industrial Revolution and the Rise of Capitalism
Difficulty Level: Easy
12. Which of the following reflects an attempt to legitimize European domination of African and indigenous populations?
a. the Industrial Revolution
b. feminism
c. socialism
d. Social Darwinism
Ans: D
Answer Location: Colonialism
Difficulty Level: Medium
13. Which two intellectual currents influenced Enlightenment thinkers above all?
a. philosophy and sociology
b. philosophy and science
c. science and economics
d. religion and emotionalism
Ans: B
Answer Location: The Enlightenment
Difficulty Level: Easy
14. Which of the following is TRUE of conservatives who opposed the Enlightenment?
a. They assigned the irrational aspects of social life negative value.
b. They regarded tradition, imagination, emotionalism, and religion as useful.
c. They championed the French Revolution.
d. They rejected beliefs in traditional authority.
Ans: B
Answer Location: The Conservative Reaction to the Enlightenment
Difficulty Level: Medium
15. Alexis de Tocqueville was a great advocate of which of the following?
a. freedom
b. equality
c. centralization
d. socialism
Ans: A
Answer Location: Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
Difficulty Level: Hard
16. Which French sociologist directed his positivist critique toward the French Revolution and its aftermath?
a. Alexis de Tocqueville
b. Claude Henri Saint-Simon
c. Auguste Comte
d. Emile Durkheim
Ans: C
Answer Location: Auguste Comte (1798–1857)
Difficulty Level: Medium
17. What was Emile Durkheim’s view of social disorder?
a. It is a necessary part of the modern world.
b. It is immune to social reforms.
c. It is inherent in society.
d. It is harmful and unnecessary.
Ans: D
Answer Location: Emile Durkheim (1858–1917)
Difficulty Level: Medium
18. Durkheim referred to which of the following as forces and structures that are external to, and coercive of, the individual?
a. social problems
b. social disorders
c. social institutions
d. social facts
Ans: D
Answer Location: Social Facts
Difficulty Level: Easy
19. Which German philosopher developed dialectics and idealism to examine the dynamic aspects of society?
a. G. W. F. Hegel
b. Ludwig Feuerbach
c. Karl Marx
d. Max Weber
Ans: A
Answer Location: Hegel
Difficulty Level: Medium
20. Which German thinker developed a materialist philosophy he then applied toward understanding consciousness and religion?
a. G. W. F. Hegel
b. Ludwig Feuerbach
c. Karl Marx
d. Max Weber
Ans: B
Answer Location: Feuerbach
Difficulty Level: Medium
21. Which of the following is TRUE of Karl Marx?
a. He looked only at abstract mental labor.
b. He believed that evolution was occurring beyond the control of people and their activities.
c. He adopted a materialist orientation.
d. He focused on the religious world.
Ans: C
Answer Location: Marx, Hegel, and Feuerbach
Difficulty Level: Easy
22. According to Marx, which of the following is the breakdown of the natural interconnection among people and between people and what they produce?
a. dialectical materialism
b. capitalism
c. alienation
d. anomie
Ans: C
Answer Location: Marx’s Theory
Difficulty Level: Medium
23. Which German thinker emphasized rationality in his social theory that he famously applied to religion, economics, and bureaucracy?
a. G. W. F. Hegel
b. Ludwig Feuerbach
c. Karl Marx
d. Max Weber
Ans: D
Answer Location: The Roots and Nature of the Theories of Max Weber (1864–1920) and Georg Simmel (1858–1918)
Difficulty Level: Easy
24. Who is best known for his or her work on smaller-scale issues, particularly individual action and interaction?
a. Max Weber
b. Karl Marx
c. Georg Simmel
d. Harriet Martineau
Ans: C
Answer Location: Simmel’s Theory
Difficulty Level: Medium
25. Which of the following was one of Harriet Martineau’s goals?
a. to develop broad abstract laws of social life
b. to eradicate laissez-faire economics
c. to outline a large-scale theory of social evolution
d. to describe societies and assess whether or not they had lived up to their own ideals
Ans: D
Answer Location: Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)
Difficulty Level: Medium
26. What was Vilfred Pareto’s lasting contribution to sociology?
a. his rejection of Marx
b. his elite theory of social change
c. his scientific conception of sociology
d. his interest in social morality
Ans: C
Answer Location: The Key Figure in Early Italian Sociology
Difficulty Level: Hard
27. For the most part, discussion of which of the following is absent in classical sociological theory?
a. disorder
b. colonialism
c. capitalism
d. socialism
Ans: B
Answer Location: Non-European Classical Theory
Difficulty Level: Easy
Multiple Response
1. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following make a sociological theory a classic?
a. great scope
b. ambition
c. a central role in the development of sociology
d. continued relevance today
Ans: A, B, C, D
Answer Location: Introduction
Difficulty Level: Medium
2. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. According to Max Weber, which of the following are dimensions of stratification?
a. social class
b. prestige
c. power
d. gender
Ans: A, B, C
Answer Location: Weber and Marx
Difficulty Level: Medium
3. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. Which of the following intellectual currents were embraced by early British sociologists?
a. ameliorism
b. political economy
c. socialism
d. social evolution
Ans: A, B, D
Answer Location: Political Economy, Ameliorism, and Social Evolution
Difficulty Level: Medium
4. SELECT ALL THAT APPY. Herbert Spencer accepted which of the following?
a. a cyclical theory of social change
b. a laissez-faire doctrine
c. Social Darwinism
d. Comte’s Law of the Three Stages
Ans: B, C
Answer Location: Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
Difficulty Level: Hard
5. SELECT ALL THAT APPLY. According to Tiryakian, what makes a sociological work a classic?
a. It is considered a “must read” for new sociologists.
b. It demonstrates the imaginative power of sociology.
c. It is useful to contemporary theorists and researchers.
d. It is considered a “must reread” by established sociologists.
Ans: A, B, C, D
Answer Location: The Contemporary Relevance of Classical Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Medium
True/False
1. According to Kaldun, ‘asibayya’ (group feeling) is the strongest in sedentary societies.
Ans: F
Answer Location: Premodern Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Medium
2. Most classic sociologists rejected religion for the scientific rationalism offered by more secular styles of thinking.
Ans: F
Answer Location: Religion
Difficulty Level: Easy
3. The majority of early sociologists favored socialism over capitalism.
Ans: F
Answer Location: The Rise of Socialism
Difficulty Level: Easy
4. There was a debate among early sociologists about how much social science should mirror the natural sciences.
Ans: T
Answer Location: The Growth of Science
Difficulty Level: Easy
5. Most enlightenment thinkers embraced traditional authorities.
Ans: F
Answer Location: The Enlightenment
Difficulty Level: Easy
6. French Catholic counterrevolutionary philosophy challenged the Enlightenment by arguing that tradition, imagination, emotionalism, and religion are useful and even needed for social life.
Ans: T
Answer Location: The Conservative Reaction to the Enlightenment
Difficulty Level: Easy
7. Alexis de Tocqueville claimed to invent the concept of individualism.
Ans: T
Answer Location: Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
Difficulty Level: Medium
8. Claude Henri Saint-Simon wanted to undo the Enlightenment and return society to the Middle-Ages.
Ans: F
Answer Location: Claude Henri Saint-Simon (1760–1825)
Difficulty Level: Easy
9. Auguste Comte believed that social statics (existing social structures) is more important than social dynamics (social change).
Ans: F
Answer Location: Auguste Comte (1798–1857)
Difficulty Level: Medium
10. Emile Durkheim asserted that the complexities of modern society had caused a decline in the strength of the collective conscience.
Ans: T
Answer Location: Social Facts
Difficulty Level: Easy
11. Primarily because of Karl Max’s controversial yet influential work, early sociology was much more fragmented in Germany than it was in France.
Ans: T
Answer Location: The Development of German Sociology
Difficulty Level: Easy
12. Max Weber believed that the trend in the West was toward systems of charismatic authority.
Ans: F
Answer Location: Weber’s Theory
Difficulty Level: Medium
13. Like most German sociologists, George Simmel worked predominately at the macro level.
Ans: F
Answer Location: The Development of German Sociology
Difficulty Level: Easy
14. Herbert Spencer had a more critical perspective of laissez-faire economics than Harriet Martineau.
Ans: F
Answer Location: Harriet Martineau (1802–1876)
Difficulty Level: Medium
15. Vilfredo Pareto characterized society as being comprised of interdependent parts where a change in one part results in a change in another part so that equilibrium is maintained.
Ans: T
Answer Location: The Key Figure in Early Italian Sociology
Difficulty Level: Easy
Essay
1. Which social factor was the most important in the rise of sociology and why?
Ans:
- Explain whether political revolutions, the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism, colonialism, socialism, feminism, urbanization, religion or science were of great influence in the rise of sociology
Answer Location: Intellectual Forces and the Rise of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Hard
2. Explain how counter-enlightenment thought in addition to Enlightenment philosophy and science was also important to the development of sociology.
Ans:
- Sociology embraced the rational empiricism espoused as part of the Enlightenment
- Sociology did not embrace the emphasis on the individual that was central to the Enlightenment
Answer Location: Intellectual Forces and the Rise of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Hard
3. Explain how the unique social contexts in France, Germany, and Britain led to the development of unique sociological thought.
Ans:
- The sociology in France was primarily a reaction to the French Revolution and the Enlightenment
- The sociology in Germany was first a reaction to Hegel, and then a reaction to Karl Marx
- In not experiencing much of the upheaval that plagued continental Europe, British sociology generally applauded industrial capitalism while looking to reform individuals, not society
Answer Location: Intellectual Forces and the Rise of Sociological Theory
Difficulty Level: Hard
