Society in Focus An Introduction To Sociology 7th Edition Thompson Test Bank

Society in Focus An Introduction to
Sociology 7th Edition Thompson Test

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Chapter 8 Social Stratification and the U.S. Class System
Multiple Choice
1) What is the process that sets the stage for social inequality?
A) social differentiation
B) social solidarity
C) the credentialism of society
D) the hidden curriculum in schools
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 199
Skill: Applied
2) Which set of statuses is given the greatest power and prestige in even the simplest of all societies?
A) the young, children, females
B) the old, parents, males
C) the young, parents, females
D) the old, children, males
Answer: B
Skill: Factual
3) What is the most important variable in determining how permeable social strata can be?
A) the personal fortitude of the individual
B) the nature of the stratification system
C) the social network of the individual
D) the type of government within a society
Answer: B
Skill: Factual
4) What system of stratification is employed by a society with two distinct strata, a category of people who
are free and a category of people who are legally the property of others?
A) the slave system
B) the estate system
C) the class system
D) the caste system
Answer: A
Skill: Factual
5) In traditional India what is another name for the castes or major categories in which people are placed
by virtue of birth?
A) strata
B) tracks
C) varna
D) estates
Answer: C
Skill: Factual
Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

96
Test Bank for Thompson and Hickey’s Society in Focus: An Introduction to Sociology, Census Update, 7e
6) In Europe, what was another name for the estate system that developed after the fall of the Roman
empire?
A) totalitarianism
B) socialism
C) capitalism
D) feudalism
Answer: D
Skill: Factual
7) What is the most recent form of worldwide stratification that is based primarily on economic factors and
achieved statuses?
A) the caste system
B) the track and level system
C) the class system
D) the estate system
Answer: C
Skill: Factual
8) In open systems of stratification how are boundaries determined?

A) Social boundaries are determined by custom and law.
B) Social boundaries are determined by public attitude and opinion.
C) Social boundaries are determined by achievement.
D) Social boundaries are determined by heredity and family.
Answer: C
Skill: Applied
9) What position did sociologist Max Weber advocate as the determining variable(s) in assigning social
class?
A) Weber believed one's social class was dependent upon one’s access to the means of production.
B) Weber believed that personal wealth was the only factor important in determining social class.
C) Weber limited social class to royalty who were land owners and peasants who worked for the royalty.
D) Weber believed that social class was a combination of wealth, power, and prestige.
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 202-203
Skill: Applied
10) Which two families of entrepreneurs fall into the category of Old Money?
A) the Trumps and the Gates
B) the Trumps and the Du Ponts
C) the Du Ponts and the Rockefellers
D) the Gates and the Rockefellers
Answer: C
Skill: Applied
11) In the estate system, what groups hold a monopoly of power and ownership of land?
A) priests and scholars
B) warriors and royalty
C) owners of the means of production
D) religious and political elites
Answer: D
Skill: Factual

97
12) What is the most common length of time that families on welfare receive payments from the
government?
A) one to two years
B) two to five years
C) five to ten years
D) more than ten years
Answer: A
Skill: Factual
13) What is the term used to describe the norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes that trap a small percentage
of urban poor in a perpetual cycle of poverty?
A) ideology of perpetual poverty
B) relative poverty
C) culture of poverty
D) ideology of economic irresponsibility
Answer: C
Skill: Factual
14) What theoretical explanation of poverty states that everyone should have the chance to compete on an
equal basis and to win any of society's rewards ?
A) the theory of relative poverty
B) the ideology of equal opportunity
C) the theory of human ecology
D) the ideology of personal responsibility
Answer: B
Skill: Applied
15) According to conflict theorists, the form of capitalism prominent in the nineteenth century was:
A) equality capitalism
B) competitive capitalism
C) postindustrial capitalism
D) monopoly capitalism
Answer: B
Skill: Factual
16) According to conflict theorists, the form of capitalism prominent beginning in the twentieth century is:
A) equality capitalism
B) competitive capitalism
C) monopoly capitalism
D) postindustrial capitalism
Answer: C
Skill: Factual

98
17) What sociological perspective is aligned with the Davis-Moore hypothesis that inequality is created by
the needs of society and Gans' proposal that poverty can be beneficial to society?
A) the functionalist perspective
B) the conflict perspective
C) the neo-conflict perspective
D) the symbolic interactionist perspective
Answer: A
Skill: Applied
18) What theory explaining poverty states that each person is largely to blame for his or her own actions,
successes or failures, and social standing?
A) the culture of poverty
B) the ideology of equal opportunity
C) the theory of economic deprivation
D) the ideology of personal responsibility
Answer: D
Skill: Applied
19) Roger, who holds a Ph.D. in economics, was a Deputy Administrator in a business firm earning in
excess of $100,000 a year. He decided on a career change and was appointed to an associate professorship
at a state university where he makes half as much money as he did as administrator. He and his family still
live in the same home in the suburbs and associate with the same circle of friends. In view of this, which
type of social mobility best describes the transformation Roger has experienced?
A) vertical mobility
B) intergenerational mobility
C) horizontal mobility
D) exchange mobility
Answer: C
Skill: Conceptual
20) Based on the objective method of assigning socioeconomic status, which of the following variables are
used?
A) race, sex, level of education
B) level of education, race, income
C) sex, occupational prestige, race
D) income, occupational prestige, level of education, neighborhood
Answer: D
Skill: Applied
21) Approximately what is the percentage of the American population that would be classified as upper
class on the social class ladder?
A) about five percent
B) less than three percent
C) eight percent
D) more than ten percent
Answer: A
Skill: Factual

99
22) Which of the following variables MOST distinguishes members of the upper middle class from the
other social classes in America?
A) Members of the upper middle class are more likely to earn $250,000 a year or more.
B) Members of the upper middle class are more likely to have advanced college degrees.
C) Members of the upper middle class are more likely to be school teachers, midlevel supervisors, and sales
people.
D) Members of the upper middle class pride themselves in doing "real work."
Answer: B
Skill: Applied
23) What is the qualitative variable that determines if someone falls into absolute poverty?
A) They have a lack of resources relative to others and the overall standards of society.
B) Their income falls below the median average income of society.
C) They have been unemployed for five or more years in a row.
D) Their income prohibits them from affording essentials needed to be functioning members of society.
Answer: D
Skill: Applied
24) Which of the following statements is MOST ACCURATE regarding the reality of poverty?
A) Most poor people are African Americans.
B) About ten percent of white Americans live in poverty.
C) Asians and African Americans have the highest rates of poverty.
D) Native Americans have the lowest poverty rate among all minorities.
Answer: B
Skill: Factual
25) Frank is nearly 50 years of age and has not had a job for the past 25 years. He holds a bachelor’s
degree in engineering and is in good health. When he casually discusses his lack of employment with
friends, he tells them "there are no jobs out there," "no one wants to pay me what I'm worth," or "I was
offered a job but it's too far to travel." Based on this scenario, which statement BEST explains Frank's lack
of a job?
A) Frank is trapped in the culture of poverty.
B) Frank is a victim of the ideology of equal opportunity.
C) Frank is experiencing a midlife vocational crisis.
D) Frank is an example of the ideology of personal responsibility.
Answer: D
Skill: Applied
26) Who were the two sociologists who argued that social stratification is created by the needs of society?
A) Richard Cloward and Lloyd Ohlin
B) Clifford Shaw and Henry McKay
C) Robert Park and Ernest Burgess
D) Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore
Answer: D
Skill: Factual

100
27) A condition in which people have unequal access to wealth, power, and prestige is ________.
A) social differentiation
B) social inequality
C) social stratification
D) social mobility
Answer: B
Skill: Factual
28) What is a system called where classes and groups vote in their best interest and at times vote against
others to keep them from dominating the political process?
A) the pluralist perspective
B) the libertarian perspective
C) the centrist perspective
D) the socialist perspective
Answer: A
Skill: Factual
29) What social class is sometimes referred to as “old money?”

A) The upper-upper class.
B) The working class.
C) The upper-middle class.
D) The lower-upper class.
Answer: A
Skill: Factual
30) What are the three methods sociologists use to identify social classes?
A) the centrist method, pluralist method, and libertarian method
B) the first-level, second-level, and third-level model
C) the high-income, middle-income, and low-income model
D) the reputational method, subjective method, and objective method
Answer: D
Skill: Factual
31) Sam qualifies as being in the category of absolute poverty. In view of this, which of the following
statements BEST describes Sam?
A) Sam has less income and resources relative to those living next to him.
B) Sam's income falls below the median average income of others in society.
C) Sam has been unemployed for most of his life.
D) Sam cannot afford the essentials needed to be a functioning member of society.
Answer: D
Skill: Applied
32) Overall, which minority group has the highest rate of poverty which may reach as much as sixty
percent?
A) African Americans
B) Native Americans
C) Latinos
D) Pacific Islanders
Answer: B
Skill: Factual

101
33) Popeye is nearly 50 years of age but has never held a full-time job. He lives in an area of the inner city
that has been dominated by drug dealers and gangs as long as he can remember. There is no public
transportation where he lives, and most people who aren't drug entrepreneurs get by doing odd jobs. Based
on this scenario, which statement BEST explains Popeye's lack of a job and poor economic status?
A) Popeye is trapped in the culture of relative poverty.
B) Popeye is a victim of the ideology of equal opportunity.
C) Popeye is experiencing the effects of urban gentrification.
D) Popeye is an example of the ideology of personal responsibility.
Answer: B
Skill: Applied
34) What is the term used to describe the disproportionate share of women and girls among those in
poverty?
A) the feminization of poverty
B) the Gailbraith Syndrome
C) economic sexism
D) the Klinefelter Syndrome
Answer: A
Skill: Factual
35) Who was the sociologist who argued that social stratification is actually beneficial to society because it
creates jobs for a certain segment of the population and provides a clientele to purchase inferior products
and housing?
A) Lloyd Ohlin
B) Henry McKay
C) Ernest Burgess
D) Herbert Gans
Answer: D
Skill: Factual
True/False
1) A form of inequality in which categories of people are systematically ranked in a hierarchy on the basis
of their access to scarce but valuable resources is social stratification.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 199
2) Boundaries between social strata are considered as being "semipermeable" meaning they can be crossed,
but only with difficulty.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 200
3) The stratification system defined as a monopoly of power and ownership of land by religious and
political elites is called the caste system.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 201
4) Throughout history, slavery has been considered as the lowest strata in society, one which was
permanent, usually based on racism, and one in which the slave had no legal rights.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 201

102
5) Competitive capitalism describes a system in which large multinational corporations dominate various
sectors of the economy.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 222
6) Sociologists agree that, like wealth, power is unequally shared.

Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 203
7) In traditional India the lowest varna, or caste, is occupied by people who do the most undesirable work
and is called the Harijan.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 201
8) In the class system, the two principal means of ranking are based on race and ethnicity.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 201
9) In closed systems of stratification boundaries are determined by ascribed status such as heredity.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 200
10) With the exception of the upper class, the remaining four social classes are relatively equal in size,
although there is a considerable difference in their incomes and lifestyles.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 207-211
11) In a class system, the PRIMARY economic asset for most people that enters into their status of wealth
is income earned in the form of wages and salaries.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 202
12) The American social class most defined by advanced college degrees and that has an annual household
income of $100,000 or more is the upper class.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 209
13) Of all industrial nations, the United States has the highest rate of young children (under the age of six)
living in poverty.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 214
14) More of the nation's poor live in central cities than in the suburbs and rural areas combined.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 214
15) The number of homeless people in America ranges from a conservative estimate of 250,000 to as many
as two million if a more strict definition of homelessness is used.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 215

103
16) Although America is considered as the land of opportunity, fewer than one percent of the members of
society move from the bottom to the top of the social hierarchy according to a study by Peter Blau and Otis
Duncan.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 219
17) The hypothesis of Kingsley Davis and Wilbert Moore that social inequality is created by the needs of
society is generally accepted as the prominent belief of most sociologists.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 221
18) Most capitalist nations have an economy based on competitive capitalism rather than monopoly
capitalism.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 222
19) Current immigration policies of the United States favor the wealthy, educated professionals from other
countries, especially wealthy Asian families from Hong Kong and other Pacific Rim nations.
Answer: TRUE
Page Ref: 223
20) Today, 5 out of 6 of the wealthiest people in the United States continue to make their fortune in the
manufacturing sector.
Answer: FALSE
Page Ref: 223
Fill-in-the-Blanks
1) Max Weber stated social class ranking was dependent on three factors which were a person’s access to
________, ________, and ________.
Answer: wealth, power, prestige
Page Ref: 202
2) The process in which people are set apart for differential treatment by virtue of their statuses, roles, and
other social characteristics is ________.
Answer: social differentiation
Page Ref: 199
3) The ability to realize one's will, even against resistance and the opposition of others is called ________.
Answer: power
Page Ref: 202
4) The term used to describe opportunities for securing things such as health, education, autonomy, leisure,
and a long life is ________.
Answer: life chances
Page Ref: 217
5) The distinctive ways in which group members consume goods and services and display rank is called
________.
Answer: lifestyle
Page Ref: 221

104
6) The term culture of poverty, used to describe the norms, values, beliefs, and attitudes that trap a small
percentage of urban poor in a perpetual cycle of poverty, was coined by ________.
Answer: Oscar Lewis
Page Ref: 216
7) A form of inequality in which categories of people are systematically ranked in a hierarchy on the basis
of their access to scarce but valuable resources is ________.
Answer: social stratification
Page Ref: 199
8) The form of power Max Weber believed carried the greatest weight in the conduct of human affairs was
________.
Answer: authority
Page Ref: 203
9) A ranking that combines income, occupational prestige, level of education, and neighborhood to assess
people's positions in the stratification system is called ________.
Answer: socioeconomic status
Page Ref: 204
10) The term ________ refers to people who fall below a minimum subsistence level and are unable to
function as members of society, whereas ________ refers to people who lack resources relative to others
and the overall standard of society.
Answer: absolute poverty; relative poverty
Page Ref: 212

105
Matching
Match the following:
1) The sociologist who defined wealth as including a person's or A) wealth

family's total economic assets.
Page Ref: 202
2) The American businessman who is a new money billionaire made in B) prestige
a computer software company.
Page Ref: 206
3) The anthropologist who coined the term "culture of poverty." C) upper middle class
Page Ref: 216
4) A person's or family's total economic assets. D) social mobility
Page Ref: 202
5) Along with Wilbert Moore this sociologist argued that inequality is E) lifestyles
created by the needs of society.
Page Ref: 221
6) The respect and admiration people attach to various social positions. F) Lyndon B. Johnson
Page Ref: 203
7) The social scientist who noted that those at the top of the social G) Bill Gates
hierarchy typically convert wealth into prestige through
conspicuous consumption.
Page Ref: 221
8) The "overworked" and "overspent" class of Americans that includes H) Thorsten Veblen
teachers and midlevel supervisors.
Page Ref: 209
9) The American social class that constitutes 15 percent of the I) lower middle class
population and is characterized by members with advanced college
degrees.
Page Ref: 209
10) The politician who linked welfare benefits to work, transforming J) Oscar Lewis
"welfare" to "workfare."
Page Ref: 225
11) The politician who declared a "War on Poverty" as a part of his K) William Jefferson Clinton
national platform.
Page Ref: 212
12) A set of norms, beliefs, values, and attitudes that trap a small L) culture of poverty
number of urban poor in a permanent cycle of poverty.
Page Ref: 216
13) Opportunities for securing such things as health, education, M) life chances
autonomy, leisure, and a long life.
Page Ref: 217
14) The movement of people from one social position to another in the N) Max Weber
stratification system.
Page Ref: 217
15) The distinctive ways in which group members consume goods and O) Kingsley Davis
services and display rank.
Page Ref: 221
1) N 2) G 3) J 4) A
5) O 6) B 7) H 8) I
9) C 10) K 11) F 12) L
13) M 14) D 15) E

106
Essay
1) Discuss the three primary factors that determine social class ranking in the United States. Why are these
criteria inadequate in developing an objective image of one's social class?
Answer: Weber stated the three components that combine to determine one's social class are wealth, power,
and prestige. This may account for why individuals who accumulate wealth in devious ways fail to
be classified as a higher social class than hard-working, legitimate members of society. Wealth
includes a person's or family's total economic assets. This includes both property and income.
Power is the ability to realize one's will even against resistance and the opposition of others.
Personal power is the ability to make decisions that affect one's own life, and social power refers
to the ability to make decisions that affect the lives of other people. Prestige is the respect and
admiration people attach to various social positions that may be either achieved statuses, such as
occupation and level of education, or ascribed status, such as race and sex. Of the three factors,
wealth is given more credence in determining one's social class than the other two. The formula
fails to take into consideration other factors that members of society value, albeit they may be
prejudicial, such as sex, race, and ethnicity in determining social class as well as level of
education, occupation, and neighborhood.
Page Ref: 201-205
2) Identify and discuss the five major social class groupings in the United States.
Answer: (1) The Upper Class: This class constitutes about 5% of the population. The net worth of members
of this class extends into the millions and billions of dollars. Members of this class dominate
corporate America. This class includes Old Money that has been in families for generations, such
as the Du Ponts and Rockefellers, and New Money that includes the Walton family of Wal-Mart
fame and Bill Gates of Microsoft.
(2) Upper Middle Class: The upper middle class comprises about 15% of the population, includes
professional employees such as corporate executives, physicians, attorneys, and white-collar
management. Age is an important variable in this class, and advanced college degrees are a
common factor. As members of this class become older they have more money to invest.
(3) Lower Middle Class: This class includes 33% of the population. Members of this class share
the same values of the upper middle class but lack the affluence because of a reduced income.
Many members have degrees from community colleges or state universities. They are often
supervised by members of the upper middle class. The authors classify this group as being
"overworked" and "overspent."
(4) Working Class: The working class constitutes 30% of the population and includes both blue-
collar and clerical workers who work for low wages and sometimes in unpleasant and dangerous
conditions. This class enjoys less benefits than classes above them but are proud of doing "real
work."
(5) Lower Class: This class includes the poor and constitutes 14% of the population. Most of the
members of this class work at erratic jobs that pay minimum wage. The class also includes the
chronically unemployed, the homeless, and people on welfare. The most deprived members of this
class account for about three million Americans or 1% of the population.
Page Ref: 207-211

107
3) Discuss the two dominant ideologies of what creates social class in the United States. Who would most
likely be a supporter of each particular ideology?
Answer: The ideology of personal responsibility and the ideology of equal opportunity are the two
competing ideologies to explain the development of the social class system in the United States.
The ideology of personal responsibility is embraced by Americans who value their independence,
the chance to compete as individuals, and the ability to make personal choices. The ideology of
personal responsibility maintains that each person is largely responsible for his or her own actions,
successes or failures, and social standing. Upper-class Americans would be more likely to
embrace this ideology. They would look down upon welfare recipients and those who are
unemployed.
The ideology of equal opportunity takes an opposite view to the ideology of personal
responsibility. It maintains that everyone should have the chance to compete on an equal basis
with everyone else and to win society's rewards. Individuals who embrace this view tend to see the
unequal distribution of wealth, power, and prestige as inevitable and even socially beneficial. They
believe the gifted and hard-working rise to the top, and those lacking these qualities fall to the
bottom. Social reformers and others who believe more in the conflict perspective would point to
this ideology as the reason for people being unemployed; it is no fault of their own but the fault of
society's social structure that results in a large percentage of the population being unemployed,
underemployed, and in poverty.
Page Ref: 216-217
4) Summarize the main points of the three sociological perspectives as they relate to social stratification.
Answer: Followers of the functionalist perspective argue that social inequality that leads to social
stratification is created by the needs of society. The differential reward structure motivates people
to defer gratification and spend many years training for specialized work. Another aspect of the
functionalist perspective is that it benefits the segments of society who make their living assisting,
controlling, or serving the poor.
The interactionist perspective focuses on how members of all classes use symbols, language,
clothing, and other things to differentiate themselves from other social levels. Class boundaries are
also maintained by language, speech patterns, and pronunciation. The differences in these patterns
reflect varying levels of educational achievement, occupational status, and lifestyle.
Conflict theorists believe there are only two major groups, those who own the means of
production and those who work for the owners of the means of production, who are exploited.
The conflict perspective was based on Karl Marx’s class conflict, with family-owned business and
competitive capitalism. However, in the twentieth century, large multinational corporations
dominated various sections of the economy in monopoly capitalism, and in the twenty-first
century, multinationals seek profit throughout the world. Page Ref: 221-222

108
5) Develop a profile of the poor in the United States relying on factual data supported by research rather
than media images and myth.
Answer: About 14 percent of the American population, over 43 million Americans, qualify as being in
poverty. But because of the high turnover rate of the number of people in poverty, the total
number in one year may be closer to 20 percent of the population. The majority of the poor, about
46 percent of those classified as being poor, are white. Proportionately only about 10 percent of
the white population is in poverty. The greatest proportion of those in poverty is accounted for by
African Americans (24.5% of the African-American population), Latinos (21.5% of the Latino
population), and Native Americans (25% of the Native American population...perhaps as many as
60 percent). Asian Americans have a proportion of their population in poverty similar to white
Americans. Children are most adversely affected by poverty, followed by women. The
feminization of poverty refers to the disproportionate number of women trapped in poverty, many
of whom are single mothers with dependent children. Although poverty is basically an urban
problem, with 60 percent of the nation's poor living in cities, this leaves 40 percent of the nation's
poor living in rural America. Many poor people are employed, some being fully employed.
However, their wages are so low that, combined with their family size, they are still considered to
be poor. The image of the poor being only "skid row bums," the homeless, and destitute is a myth
partially perpetuated by the mass media. There are fewer elderly people in poverty today than in
the past.
Page Ref: 213-216

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Society in Focus An Introduction to

Sociology 7th Edition Thompson Test

Chapter 8 Social Stratification and the U.S. Class System

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

8) In open systems of stratification how are boundaries determined?

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

29) What social class is sometimes referred to as “old money?”

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

6) Sociologists agree that, like wealth, power is unequally shared.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

1) The sociologist who defined wealth as including a person's or A) wealth

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2012 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.

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