Anthropology 201 Cultural Anthropology

Study Guide for Test No. 1

A. Concepts: find the definition in the text, glossary or lecture notes. Any of these terms and concepts may appear on the test.

1. social
2. strategic
3. enculturation
4. emic
5. etic
6. participant observation
7. instinct
8. symbol
9. diffusion
10. values
11. ethnocentrism
12. subculture
13. cultural relativism
14. biological evolution
15. bipedalism
16. natural selection
17. species
18. differential reproduction
19. variability
20. hominids
21. selective pressure
22. neoteny
23. language
24. semantic universality
25. phoneme
26. morpheme
27. syntax/grammar
28. foraging
29. slash and burn / shifting / hoe cultivation
30. plow cultivation/agriculture
31. pastoralism
32. industrial agriculture
33. technology
34. carrying capacity
35. reciprocity
36. trade partners
37. market exchange
38. redistribution
39. egalitarian redistribution
40. stratified redistribution
41. silent trade
42. sustainability
43. entitlement
44. consumerism

B. Information-organizing questions. If you can pull together strong answers to these questions, you will do well on the test.

1. What are the subfields of anthropology and how are they related to each other?
2. What does it mean that anthropology is global and comparative?
3. How do anthropologists carry out their research and how do they protect their results from ethnocentric bias?
4. What is the difference between cultural relativism and moral relativism?
5. How do children acquire their culture?
6. How does culture change take place, and what kinds of changes are more likely to become long-lasting?
7. How does natural selection explain organic evolution?
8. Explain the importance of bipedalism to human learning ability.
9. What is the difference between language and other communication systems?
10. Why do linguists not believe there are superior or inferior languages?
11. Identify and describe five different patterns of food production. Relate them to each other in terms of the energy they produce and the energy they require.
12. Discuss the difference in efficiency in industrial agriculture with regard to human labor energy and fossil fuel energy.
13. How do egalitarian and stratified redistribution differ. What is an example of each?
14. Why do people who distribute food by reciprocity not calculate who give and gets what carefully each time they give some?
15. Why is market exchange a relatively recent pattern of distribution?

C. Mini Practice Test. These are typical questions, but not questions that appear on this term's test.

1. What is the name of the distinctive method of research used by cultural anthropologists?

a. ethnology
b. statistical analysis
c. practical observation
d. participant observation

2. Ethnography is

a. a type of government report used in formulating foreign policy
b. a philosophical argument examining the ethics of social science
c. a report which describes and interprets the way of life of a society
d. a style of novel which weaves fact and fiction seamlessly

3. ____________ refers to the learned, socially acquired patterns of thought and behavior found in human societies.

a. instinct
b. culture
c. science
d. fieldwork

4. Science leads to

a. the final answer
b. ethnocentrism
c. temporary, testable knowledge
d. philosophical skepticism

5. Cultural materialism, the theoretical position in anthropology associated with Marvin Harris, claims that

a. each culture, with its unique perspective on the world, cannot be understood by outsiders
b. a scientific understanding of human culture is impossible
c. cultural phenomena can be best explained by reference to a society's patterns of material production
d. anthropologists can only investigate a culture's material possessions, not its ideas and behaviors

6. The basic principle that governs biological evolution is called

a. enculturation
b. morphogenesis
c. speciation
d. natural selection

7. The smallest unit of sound that has a definite meaning in a language is called a

a. phoneme
b. syntheme
c. morpheme
d. morphine

8. Syntax refers to rules

a. that govern behavior in daily life
b. for code switching
c. for measuring density of neural matter in brains
d. governing arrangements of sounds and words into meaningful utterances

9. In linguistics, the concept of arbitrariness refers to

a. the relationship between the sound of a word and its meaning
b. the number of languages a person can learn to speak
c. the relation between the language a child speaks and the language its parents speak
d. the difference between the written and spoken forms of a language

10. The earliest humans relied on which of the following for their subsistence?

a. foraging
b. slash and burn horticulture
c. intensive agriculture
d. hydroponics

11. The upper limit on production and population in a given environment is called

a. diminishing returns
b. carrying capacity
c. superstructure
d. renewable resources

12. The process of increasing the caloric output of a crop by increasing the time and energy devoted to its production is called

a. deflation
b. diminishing returns
c. intensification
d. restructuring

13. Although a chief does have higher status than his followers, the systems of distribution by run by chiefs are known as

        a. negative reciprocity
        b. egalitarian redistribution
        c. stratified redistribution
        d. market exchange

14.  Dowry is property a woman takes with her at the time of her marriage.  In agricultural societies, dowry is best understood as the equivalent of

        a. matriarchal management
        b. paternalistic protectionism
        c. gender differentiation
        d. male inheritance 
           

Here is the link to the answers