Sample exam for Anth1000D
75 minutes
Section one, short answers (you will be given 20 minutes to answer all of these
questions).
1. What is the "we-they dichotomy"?
2. What is the Eurocentric perspective? What cultural forces helped to foster this
perspective?
3. What is the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. What is the major criticism of this hypothesis?
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Section two: definitions (you will have 15 minutes to answer these).
Define five of the following seven key terms.
1. culture
2. symbols
3. theory
4. semantics
5. functionalism
6. natural selection
7. evolution
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Section three: true-false questions (you will have 10 minutes for these).
First of all, make sure that you answer all the questions. In order to get a bonus point you
can correct the statement if it is false. Replace the wrong section or word with the correct
one, or rewrite the sentence to make it correct. You should only go on to this bonus stage
after you have finished circling true or false for each question. Do not lose time by trying
to do these corrections first.
Example:
The formal organization of a group, including its politics, economics, kinship, and
religion, is referred to as culture. T or F (The answer is false, "culture" has to be replaced
with "social structure".)
1. A paradigm is a scientific perspective that has been developed after an accumulation of
data and theoretical formulations. T or F
2. The dissimilarity between humans and other animals can best be understood in terms
of a continuum rather than as an opposition. T or F
3. People always identify with and name themselves after the animals or physical features
that provide them with their livelihood. T or F
4. Since the sun is not the opposite of the moon as a celestial body, the sun and the moon
cannot be regarded as a binary opposition. T or F
5. Kin groups that trace their relationship back to a founding ancestor are called totems. T
or F
6. Ethnocentrism is the view that the values of one's own group are superior to those of
all other groups and it is one of the features of anthropology. T or F
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7. Logical categories of attributes that vary according to certain conditions are called
data. T or F
8. Morgan contributed to anthropological knowledge by identifying the concepts of
monogamy and lineage. T or F
9. Malinowski is regarded as the 'Founding Father of American Anthropology'. T or F
10. Deborah Tannen argues that men do not ask directions because the socialization
which they have gone through has given them a better sense of direction. T or F
Section four: Fill in the blanks (ten minutes)
1. Formal systems of rules are also called---------------.
2. ------------- is the study of human communication.
3. A------------- is a symbolic story detailing how a group came into being.
4. Viewing a culture from the perspective of an insider is known as the -----------perspective.
5. A descriptive account of a particular culture is called ---------------.
6. Systematic variations in language related to geographical regions or social class are
known as -----------------.
7. A vocabulary of words in a language is also known as -------------.
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8. Chomsky introduced the idea of ----------------- grammar.
9. The idea that societies function to preserve the social order is called ------------.
10. The Chinese yin/yang symbol represents an ordering of the universe into ------------.
Section five: Multiple choice (15 minutes for 20 questions).
Here I am giving only five examples; you can test yourself by trying 15 more from the
study guide.
1.--------------has developed a definition of culture that is still in use today.
a) Margaret Mead
b) Franz Boas
c) Malinowski
d) E.B. Tylor
2. ----------- is the practice of marrying outside a given group.
a) exogamy
b) endogamy
c) affinity
d) couvade
3. Which of the following is the 'minimum distinctive unit of sound' which in
combination with other such units creates meaning in a particular language?
a) phone
b) morpheme
c) phoneme
d) metaphor
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4. Which of the following is a feature of anthropology.
a) holism
b) cross-cultural perspective
c) cultural relativism
d) all of the above
5. Which of the following was not a tribe which you formed in the class?
a) Fruitcake haters
b) AA (Alberta Alcoholics)
c) Left-handed people
d) Pyromaniacs
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