ASSEB HS Anthropology study plan

Distinguish the four subfields and explain how each contributes evidence to a single anthropological question

Define holism, cultural relativism, and ethnocentrism, and give one counterexample for each misuse

Compare participant observation, structured interviews, surveys, and archival research on validity and feasibility

Explain sampling, reflexivity, and informed consent as they apply to ethnographic fieldwork

Outline the culture concept from Tylor through Boas to interpretive and practice approaches

Apply the code of ethics to three realistic fieldwork dilemmas and justify each decision

Summarize the nature-versus-culture debates and state what evidence would settle them

Trace the shift from nineteenth-century unilineal evolutionism to historical particularism and functionalism

Identify the main critiques of the culture concept, including essentialism and bounded-culture assumptions

Practice writing exam-style short answers that define and apply theoretical terms

Explain the mechanisms of natural selection, gene flow, genetic drift, and mutation with worked examples

Map hominin species and their key derived traits onto a dated timeline

Compare bipedalism hypotheses and evaluate the fossil evidence for each

Distinguish biological from cultural explanations of modern human variation and debunk race-as-biology claims

Interpret a simple allele-frequency calculation and explain Hardy-Weinberg assumptions

Summarize the Out of Africa and multiregional models and the genetic evidence bearing on each

Explain how primate behavior studies inform models of early hominin social organization

Describe stratigraphy, relative dating, and radiometric dating, and state each method's limits

Distinguish survey, excavation, and remote sensing in how they generate archaeological evidence

Evaluate how taphonomy and site formation processes can distort the archaeological record

Classify lithic technologies and infer subsistence and social behavior from assemblages

Analyze how pottery, metals, and exchange goods trace trade networks and social complexity

Explain the emergence of food production and states, weighing competing causal explanations

Define the core design features of human language and contrast them with animal communication

Apply the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis and its critiques to a concrete linguistic example

Distinguish phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics using data from a language you do not speak

Compare descent systems, residence rules, and terminology systems using concrete kinship diagrams

Distinguish bridewealth, dowry, and brideservice, and predict their social correlates

Explain incest taboos, exogamy, and endogamy through alliance and descent theories

Contrast reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange, and analyze a gift economy case

Compare band, tribe, chiefdom, and state, and critique typologies of political organization

Analyze ritual, myth, and magic through functionalist, structuralist, and practice perspectives

Apply anthropological methods to a development, health, or heritage case and state the ethical risks

Explain informed consent, cultural property, and repatriation obligations under professional ethics codes

Evaluate the risks of extractive or military research and the principle of returning benefits to communities

Synthesize two theoretical traditions to explain one contemporary issue such as migration or climate adaptation

Draft a structured essay outline that links theory, evidence, and policy implications

Complete two full-length timed practice exams under exam conditions

Rank your error patterns by domain and re-study your two weakest domains first

Rehearse definitions and key theorists from memory using spaced-repetition cards

Practice diagram-based items in kinship and hominin evolution until you can draw them unaided

Write a final one-page summary sheet of your highest-risk facts and concepts