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BSEH SS Sociology study materials
BSEH SS Sociology study resources

BSEH SS Sociology practice questions

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Question 1Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which definition best captures the scope of sociology as an academic discipline?

  1. The scientific study of human social relationships, groups, institutions, and societies Correct answer.
  2. The study of individual personality traits formed in early childhood
  3. The study of how governments draft and enforce legal statutes
  4. The study of ancient texts to reconstruct past belief systems

Explanation

Sociology is conventionally defined as the systematic study of social life, social change, and the social causes and consequences of human behaviour, encompassing groups, institutions, and whole societies. It is broader than psychology because it centres on collective and structural phenomena rather than individual traits alone.

Question 2Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Auguste Comte is credited with coining the term 'sociology'. What did he originally propose the new discipline should do?

  1. Document only the customs of non-industrial peoples
  2. Restrict analysis to the economic relations of production
  3. Replace philosophy entirely with literary criticism
  4. Apply the methods of the natural sciences to the study of society Correct answer.

Explanation

Comte envisioned a positive science of society modelled on the natural sciences, using observation and comparison to discover social laws. He coined the term in the 1830s and divided the field into social statics and social dynamics.

Question 3Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

The sociological perspective that emphasises how social structures constrain and shape individual action is best described by which term?

  1. Cultural relativism
  2. Social structure and agency Correct answer.
  3. Psychoanalytic determinism
  4. Behaviourist conditioning

Explanation

Sociology's central problem is the relationship between social structure and human agency, that is, how institutions shape individuals and how individuals in turn reproduce or transform institutions. This duality is a defining feature of the sociological perspective.

Question 4Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which statement correctly distinguishes sociology from psychology?

  1. Sociology is a natural science, while psychology is a humanities subject
  2. Sociology studies only industrial societies, while psychology studies only pre-industrial ones
  3. Sociology focuses on social groups and institutions, while psychology focuses mainly on individual mental processes Correct answer.
  4. Sociology uses only qualitative methods, while psychology uses only quantitative methods

Explanation

The conventional distinction is one of unit of analysis: psychology centres on individual cognition, emotion, and behaviour, whereas sociology centres on groups, institutions, and social structures. The two overlap in social psychology but remain analytically distinct.

Question 5Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

A researcher argues that to understand a ritual she must grasp the meanings participants themselves attach to it. This methodological stance is most closely associated with which tradition?

  1. Behaviourist psychology
  2. Interpretive sociology Correct answer.
  3. Positivist sociology
  4. Rational choice theory

Explanation

Interpretive sociology, associated with Weber and later with symbolic interactionism, holds that social action must be understood through the subjective meanings actors give to their conduct. It contrasts with positivism, which seeks external causal laws.

Question 6Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which pair of disciplines both study human behaviour but differ in that one examines the individual organism and the other examines social organisation?

  1. History and geography
  2. Philosophy and linguistics
  3. Psychology and sociology Correct answer.
  4. Economics and statistics

Explanation

Psychology and sociology share an interest in human behaviour, but psychology's unit of analysis is typically the individual, while sociology's is the group, institution, or society. This is the classic boundary between the two neighbouring social sciences.

Question 7Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

What does the term 'social anthropology' most commonly designate in relation to sociology?

  1. The study of biological evolution in human populations
  2. The study of statistical sampling techniques
  3. The study of small-scale societies and culture, often through ethnographic fieldwork Correct answer.
  4. The study of public administration and bureaucracy

Explanation

Social anthropology traditionally focuses on small-scale, non-industrial societies and on culture, relying heavily on participant observation and ethnographic fieldwork. Sociology developed with a stronger emphasis on industrial, complex societies and structural analysis.

Question 8Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which statement best describes the relationship between sociology and history?

  1. Sociology and history are identical in method and subject matter
  2. History is a natural science while sociology is a humanity
  3. Sociology ignores the past entirely, while history ignores social structure
  4. Sociology generalises about social patterns while history reconstructs particular sequences of past events Correct answer.

Explanation

History typically reconstructs particular events and sequences in their context, while sociology seeks generalisations about social relationships and structures. The two are complementary, since sociological generalisations require historical evidence and historical explanation benefits from sociological concepts.

Question 9Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Political science and sociology overlap in studying power. Which topic is most distinctly sociological rather than narrowly political-scientific?

  1. How treaties are ratified by national legislatures
  2. How electoral systems translate votes into parliamentary seats
  3. How constitutions allocate authority among branches of government
  4. How social class and status groups shape patterns of political participation Correct answer.

Explanation

Sociology's distinctive contribution to the study of power is its attention to class, status, and broader social stratification as these shape political behaviour. Formal constitutional, electoral, and treaty processes are the more specialised concerns of political science and law.

Question 10Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Economists and sociologists both study markets. What is the distinctively sociological emphasis in studying economic life?

  1. Determination of equilibrium prices by supply and demand
  2. Maximisation of utility under conditions of scarcity
  3. Embeddedness of economic action in social relations, norms, and institutions Correct answer.
  4. Measurement of national income through accounting identities

Explanation

Economic sociology stresses that economic action is embedded in social relations, cultural norms, and institutions, rather than being purely a matter of individual utility maximisation. This concept of embeddedness, associated with Polanyi and Granovetter, marks the sociological contribution.

Question 11Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which of the following best exemplifies the application of sociological reasoning to a practical policy problem?

  1. Assessing how neighbourhood segregation affects residents' access to employment networks Correct answer.
  2. Determining the correct dosage of a pharmaceutical drug
  3. Measuring the tensile strength of construction materials
  4. Calculating the interest rate that balances a national budget

Explanation

Sociological analysis links social structure, such as residential segregation, to life chances such as employment access. This is an applied use of sociological concepts to inform policy, unlike technical calculations in economics, engineering, or medicine.

Question 12Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

The debate over whether sociology can be a 'value-free' science is most closely associated with which thinker's methodological writings?

  1. Emile Durkheim
  2. Karl Marx
  3. Max Weber Correct answer.
  4. Herbert Spencer

Explanation

Weber argued for value freedom in the selection and conduct of research, while recognising that values inform the choice of problems. He distinguished value judgements from empirical analysis in his methodological essays.

Question 13Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which statement best captures the relationship between sociology and common sense?

  1. Sociology rejects all everyday knowledge as worthless
  2. Sociology simply restates what everyone already knows in technical language
  3. Sociology tests and often challenges taken-for-granted assumptions using systematic evidence Correct answer.
  4. Sociology relies solely on personal intuition rather than evidence

Explanation

Sociology is often defined by its capacity to question common-sense assumptions and to subject them to systematic empirical scrutiny. This critical stance, sometimes called the sociological imagination, distinguishes it from mere opinion.

Question 14Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which of the following is a reason sociology is often described as an 'interdisciplinary' enterprise?

  1. It refuses to use any methods developed outside its own tradition
  2. It is limited to the study of one single institution
  3. It has no theoretical traditions of its own
  4. It borrows concepts and methods from history, psychology, economics, and anthropology Correct answer.

Explanation

Sociology draws on neighbouring disciplines for concepts and methods, for example historical comparison, psychological theories of the self, and economic analysis of markets. This borrowing makes it interdisciplinary while retaining its own theoretical traditions.

Question 15Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

A scholar studying how colonial rule reshaped local kinship systems draws on both history and sociology. Which description best fits this work?

  1. Historical sociology Correct answer.
  2. Pure experimental psychology
  3. Formal economic modelling
  4. Constitutional law

Explanation

Historical sociology examines how past social processes shape present social structures, using historical evidence to answer sociological questions. Studies of colonial transformation of kinship are a classic example of this approach.

Question 16Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which of the following best describes the relationship between sociology and social work?

  1. Sociology supplies theoretical understanding of social problems, which social work applies in practice Correct answer.
  2. Sociology is a branch of social work
  3. Sociology and social work are identical in aims and methods
  4. Social work is purely theoretical while sociology is purely practical

Explanation

Sociology provides concepts and research about social structure, inequality, and institutions, while social work uses such understanding in professional practice with individuals and communities. The relationship is one of theory informing application, not identity.

Question 17Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Emile Durkheim's argument that social facts must be treated as 'things' implies which methodological position?

  1. Social phenomena should be explained solely by individual intentions
  2. Social phenomena can only be understood through personal empathy
  3. Social phenomena should be studied through external, observable indicators rather than introspection Correct answer.
  4. Social phenomena cannot be studied scientifically at all

Explanation

Durkheim argued that social facts are external to individuals and exercise constraint over them, so they should be studied through observable indicators such as statistics. This methodological rule underpins his study of suicide rates.

Question 18Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which statement most accurately expresses the relationship between sociology and the natural sciences in the discipline's self-understanding?

  1. Sociology is simply a branch of biology
  2. Sociology rejects all scientific method as inapplicable to human affairs
  3. Sociology unanimously accepts that social life obeys laws identical to those of physics
  4. Sociology debates whether to model itself on natural science or to rely on interpretive understanding of meaning Correct answer.

Explanation

Sociology has a long-running methodological debate between positivist approaches that model themselves on natural science and interpretive approaches that stress meaning and understanding. The discipline has never reached unanimity on this question.

Question 19Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

A sociologist argues that unemployment statistics are not neutral descriptions but are produced through administrative definitions that shape what is counted. Which disciplinary boundary is being questioned here?

  1. The boundary between botany and zoology
  2. The boundary between sociological critique and taken-for-granted official measurement Correct answer.
  3. The boundary between musicology and art history
  4. The boundary between chemistry and physics

Explanation

Sociological analysis of official statistics examines how categories and definitions construct the phenomena they measure, a critique associated with ethnomethodology and the sociology of knowledge. This questions the treatment of administrative data as neutral fact.

Question 20Sociology and Society: Nature, Scope, and Relationship with Other Social Sciences

Which of the following best illustrates the claim that sociology has both a 'scientific' and a 'critical' dimension?

  1. Sociologists only describe society without ever evaluating it
  2. Sociologists only evaluate society without ever gathering evidence
  3. Sociologists limit themselves to studying individual attitudes
  4. Sociologists produce systematic evidence about inequality while also questioning the assumptions behind how inequality is measured Correct answer.

Explanation

Sociology combines systematic empirical research with critical reflection on the categories and assumptions embedded in social arrangements and in measurement itself. The two dimensions are complementary rather than mutually exclusive.

Question 21Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

In sociology, what distinguishes a society from a mere aggregation of people such as a crowd waiting at a bus stop?

  1. It is characterized by momentary emotional contagion among its members
  2. It occupies a shared territory and possesses enduring institutions and patterned relationships Correct answer.
  3. It contains a large number of individuals gathered in one physical location
  4. It exists whenever individuals happen to share a common goal for a short time

Explanation

A society is a relatively self-sufficient, enduring system of interaction whose members share territory, culture, and institutions across generations. A crowd is a temporary aggregate lacking durable norms and structures. The defining features are persistence and institutionalized relationships, not size or momentary emotion.

Question 22Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A village in which people live together, share a common territory, and feel a sense of belonging and mutual obligation is best described sociologically as which of the following?

  1. A community Correct answer.
  2. A formal organization
  3. A statistical category
  4. A secondary group

Explanation

A community is a relatively small, territorially based collectivity whose members share identity, interaction, and a sense of we-feeling. Formal organizations rely on explicit rules and offices, secondary groups are impersonal and instrumental, and statistical categories are aggregates defined by an attribute rather than interaction.

Question 23Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

Which feature most clearly marks an association rather than a community?

  1. Members share a general sense of belonging to a place
  2. Membership is organized around a specific, explicitly stated purpose Correct answer.
  3. Members interact mainly through face-to-face personal ties
  4. Members are bound by kinship and long-standing tradition

Explanation

An association is a deliberately formed collectivity organized to pursue a specific interest or goal, with relatively formal membership. Community rests on diffuse belonging, territory, and tradition rather than a single explicit purpose. Purpose-specific organization is therefore the distinguishing mark.

Question 24Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

Sociologists describe an institution as which of the following?

  1. A single organization registered under law
  2. A temporary rule created to manage one event
  3. A building constructed for a public function
  4. An established pattern of norms and roles organized around a basic social need Correct answer.

Explanation

An institution is a stable cluster of norms, values, roles, and procedures that addresses a fundamental social need such as family, education, or religion. It is not a physical building, a single legal entity, or a short-lived rule. Institutions persist through patterned expectations rather than architecture.

Question 25Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A family, a cricket club, and a crowd of spectators are all examples of which broad sociological category?

  1. Social groups Correct answer.
  2. Institutions
  3. Communities
  4. Associations

Explanation

A social group is any set of individuals who interact and share a sense of membership; families, clubs, and even crowds can be analysed as groups of differing kinds. Institutions are normative patterns, associations are purposive collectivities, and communities are territorially based. Group is the broadest category covering all three examples.

Question 26Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

Which statement correctly pairs status with role?

  1. Status refers to groups, while role refers to institutions
  2. Status is the position occupied, while role is the expected behaviour attached to it Correct answer.
  3. Status is the behavioural expectation, while role is the position occupied
  4. Status and role are identical terms used interchangeably in sociology

Explanation

A status is a social position such as student or parent, whereas a role is the set of expectations and behaviours attached to that position. The relationship is positional versus behavioural. Confusing the two reverses the standard sociological usage.

Question 27Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A student is simultaneously a daughter, a part-time cashier, and a volleyball player. Sociologists would call this set of positions which of the following?

  1. Role conflict
  2. Role set
  3. Status sequence
  4. Status set Correct answer.

Explanation

The status set is the full array of positions an individual occupies at a given time. Role set refers to the multiple role partners attached to one status, role conflict involves incompatible expectations, and status sequence describes positions held over a life course. The question describes several distinct positions, so status set is correct.

Question 28Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A nurse who is also a mother is expected to stay late at the hospital while her child waits to be collected from school. This situation illustrates which concept?

  1. Role strain
  2. Role taking
  3. Role conflict Correct answer.
  4. Role distance

Explanation

Role conflict occurs when the demands of two different statuses, here nurse and mother, are incompatible. Role strain refers to difficulty meeting the demands of a single role, role distance is detachment from a role, and role taking is anticipating another's perspective. Because two statuses clash, conflict is the accurate term.

Question 29Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A teacher must be a disciplinarian for unruly pupils, a mentor for anxious ones, and an evaluator for examinations. This internal tension within the single status of teacher is best called which of the following?

  1. Role strain Correct answer.
  2. Role conflict
  3. Role set
  4. Role exit

Explanation

Role strain is the tension experienced when the demands of a single role pull in different directions. Role conflict involves competing demands from different statuses, role exit is disengagement from a role, and role set is the range of role partners attached to a status. All the pressures here arise within one status, so strain is correct.

Question 30Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

Ascribed status differs from achieved status in that an ascribed status is which of the following?

  1. Assigned by birth or social circumstance largely beyond individual control Correct answer.
  2. Earned through individual effort and merit
  3. Attained only through formal examination
  4. Chosen freely by the individual in adulthood

Explanation

Ascribed statuses such as caste, sex assigned at birth, or royal lineage are conferred by birth or social circumstance rather than effort. Achieved statuses such as doctor or graduate are gained through action and are, in principle, open to competition. Effort and examination belong to the achieved category.

Question 31Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

An individual occupies a status but does not fully internalize its expected behaviour, sometimes joking about the role while performing it. Which concept best captures this detachment?

  1. Role set
  2. Role distance Correct answer.
  3. Role performance
  4. Role making

Explanation

Role distance describes the way individuals signal that they are not wholly identified with a role they nevertheless perform. Role performance is the actual enactment of expectations, role making is creative modification of a role, and role set is the collection of role partners. Joking about a role while performing it is a classic marker of distance.

Question 32Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A primary group is distinguished from a secondary group chiefly by which characteristic?

  1. Existence only for a short and temporary period
  2. Face-to-face, personal, and emotionally diffuse relationships among members Correct answer.
  3. A large membership with written rules and formal offices
  4. Absence of any shared norms among members

Explanation

Primary groups, such as family and close friendship circles, involve intimate, face-to-face relations that engage the whole person. Secondary groups are larger, more impersonal, and organized around specific instrumental goals. Size, formality, and emotional depth are the standard contrasts between them.

Question 33Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A person belongs to a political party and also compares their own status against that of a more affluent social class to which they aspire. The latter class functions as which of the following?

  1. A primary group
  2. An in-group
  3. A statistical aggregate
  4. A reference group Correct answer.

Explanation

A reference group is a collectivity that individuals use as a standard for evaluating themselves and shaping their aspirations or behaviour, whether or not they belong to it. An in-group is one's own group, a primary group involves intimate ties, and an aggregate lacks interaction. Aspiration toward a class one does not belong to is a reference-group relation.

Question 34Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

Which of the following best illustrates an in-group and its corresponding out-group?

  1. Two strangers who never interact and share no identity
  2. Members of a supporters' club who treat rival fans as outsiders Correct answer.
  3. A researcher and the population she studies
  4. A student and the textbook she reads

Explanation

In-groups are groups of which one is a member and toward which one feels loyalty, while out-groups are those defined as outside that boundary. A supporters' club that treats rival fans as outsiders displays this boundary and loyalty. Non-interacting strangers or a person and an object do not constitute in-group and out-group.

Question 35Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

What is the key difference between a social category and a social group?

  1. A category is always smaller than a group
  2. A category involves interaction and shared norms, while a group does not
  3. A category is an aggregate sharing an attribute without interaction, while a group involves interaction and membership Correct answer.
  4. A group is defined only by shared physical location

Explanation

A social category is a collection of people who share a characteristic, such as all left-handed people, without necessarily interacting. A social group requires interaction and a sense of membership. Size and mere co-location are not the defining criteria.

Question 36Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A trade union is formed by workers who join voluntarily to pursue better wages and conditions. Sociologically, this is best classified as which of the following?

  1. A community based on shared territory
  2. A primary group based on kinship
  3. An association organized for a specific interest Correct answer.
  4. A status group defined by lifestyle consumption

Explanation

An association is a deliberately joined, purposively organized collectivity formed to pursue defined interests, and a union pursuing wages and conditions fits this precisely. It is not territorially based like a community, not kinship-based like a primary group, and not primarily a lifestyle status group.

Question 37Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

Caste in traditional India is often cited as an example of which type of status, and why?

  1. Role set, because it links a person to many role partners
  2. Master status, because it is the only status a person ever holds
  3. Ascribed status, because membership is fixed by birth and largely closed to mobility Correct answer.
  4. Achieved status, because members work to improve their rank

Explanation

Caste is assigned at birth, is endogamous, and historically restricts mobility, which makes it a paradigm case of ascribed status. Achieved status is gained through effort, master status is one that overshadows others rather than the sole status held, and role set refers to role partners attached to a status. Birth-based closure is the defining reason.

Question 38Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A person is a prison inmate in one setting and a respected elder in their family. Which concept best explains how this person manages the incompatible expectations attached to these two positions?

  1. Role conflict requiring compartmentalization or negotiation between the two statuses Correct answer.
  2. Role strain arising solely within the inmate status
  3. Status sequence describing the order of positions over a lifetime
  4. Role distance expressed only toward the family role

Explanation

When expectations attached to two distinct statuses clash, the individual faces role conflict and may manage it by separating settings, prioritizing one status, or negotiating demands. Role strain would involve tension within a single role, status sequence concerns the order of statuses over time, and role distance concerns detachment from a role. Two different statuses are in tension here.

Question 39Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

An organization's written rules, offices, and procedures are best understood as institutionalized because they do which of the following?

  1. Persist as standardized expectations that outlast particular individuals Correct answer.
  2. Exist only for the duration of a single project
  3. Apply to outsiders but not to members
  4. Depend on the personal charisma of the current office-holder

Explanation

Institutionalization is the process by which norms, roles, and procedures become established and taken for granted, so they continue beyond the tenure of particular people. Charisma-based arrangements are the opposite of institutionalized ones. Persistence and standardization, not project duration or selective application, define the concept.

Question 40Basic Concepts: Society, Community, Association, Institution, Social Group, Status and Role

A researcher studies how a community's long-standing norms of mutual aid shape residents' roles during a flood, while a newly formed relief association coordinates volunteers. Which pairing correctly identifies institution and association in this case?

  1. Both the norms and the relief association are communities
  2. The norms of mutual aid are the institution; the relief association is the association Correct answer.
  3. The relief association is the institution; the norms of mutual aid are the association
  4. Both the norms and the relief association are primary groups

Explanation

Institutions are established normative patterns addressing social needs, so the enduring norms of mutual aid qualify. Associations are purposively organized collectivities, which describes the relief association coordinating volunteers. The pairing is therefore norms-as-institution and organized body-as-association.

Question 41Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

In sociology, which term refers to the culturally approved rule that a person may be married to only one spouse at a time?

  1. Endogamy
  2. Polyandry
  3. Monogamy Correct answer.
  4. Polygyny

Explanation

Monogamy is the marriage form in which one individual is married to a single spouse at a given time, and it is the legally prescribed form in most modern states. Polygyny and polyandry are subtypes of polygamy involving multiple spouses, while endogamy concerns whom one may marry rather than how many.

Question 42Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

A society in which a newly married couple establishes an independent household rather than living with either spouse's parents is practicing which residence pattern?

  1. Avunculocal residence
  2. Neolocal residence Correct answer.
  3. Patrilocal residence
  4. Matrilocal residence

Explanation

Neolocal residence means the couple forms a new, separate household, a pattern typical of many industrial and post-industrial societies where employment rather than land inheritance determines where people live. Patrilocal and matrilocal patterns place the couple with the husband's or wife's kin respectively.

Question 43Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

Which concept describes a kinship system in which descent is traced exclusively through the father's line?

  1. Bilateral descent
  2. Matrilineal descent
  3. Patrilineal descent Correct answer.
  4. Cognatic descent

Explanation

Patrilineal descent reckons group membership and inheritance through males only, so a child belongs to the father's lineage. Matrilineal systems trace through mothers, while bilateral and cognatic systems reckon descent through both parents.

Question 44Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

Émile Durkheim's analysis of religion emphasized that its core function is to separate the world into which two categories?

  1. Natural and supernatural
  2. Monotheistic and polytheistic
  3. Sacred and profane Correct answer.
  4. Ritual and belief

Explanation

Durkheim argued that religion is fundamentally a classification of things into the sacred, set apart and forbidden, and the profane, the ordinary realm of everyday life. Rituals and beliefs organize social solidarity around this division rather than around a supernatural/natural split.

Question 45Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

In kinship terminology, the parents of one's spouse are referred to as which type of relatives?

  1. Fictive kin
  2. Consanguineal relatives
  3. Lineal relatives
  4. Affinal relatives Correct answer.

Explanation

Affinal relatives are those connected through marriage rather than blood, so a spouse's parents are affines. Consanguineal and lineal relatives are linked by descent, and fictive kin are non-relatives treated as family.

Question 46Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

Which term best describes a family consisting of parents and their dependent children living together, without other relatives?

  1. Nuclear family Correct answer.
  2. Blended family
  3. Extended family
  4. Joint family

Explanation

The nuclear family is the minimal residential unit of parents and their children. Extended and joint families add other kin such as grandparents, married siblings, or cousins to the household.

Question 47Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

The incest taboo is best understood sociologically as which kind of rule?

  1. A religious ritual performed before marriage
  2. A universal prohibition on marriage between close kin Correct answer.
  3. A legal requirement that marriages be registered
  4. An economic rule governing bridewealth

Explanation

The incest taboo is a norm prohibiting sexual and marital relations between close relatives, and anthropologists have long noted its near-universal presence in some form. Its specific scope varies across societies, but the prohibition itself is the defining feature.

Question 48Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

A researcher studying how a rural community's harvest festival reinforces shared values and group identity is applying which sociological approach to religion?

  1. Phenomenological analysis
  2. Functionalist analysis Correct answer.
  3. Rational choice analysis
  4. Conflict analysis

Explanation

Functionalist analysis asks how religion contributes to social integration, shared values, and solidarity, which is exactly what the festival's role in reinforcing group identity illustrates. Conflict analysis would instead examine inequality and power, while rational choice focuses on costs and benefits of religious participation.

Question 49Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

In a society practicing cross-cousin marriage, a man is permitted to marry which relative?

  1. His father's sister's husband's sister
  2. His father's brother's daughter
  3. His sister's daughter
  4. His mother's brother's daughter Correct answer.

Explanation

A cross-cousin is the child of a parent's opposite-sex sibling, so the mother's brother's daughter and the father's sister's daughter are cross-cousins. Marriage to a cross-cousin is permitted in many systems precisely because it links distinct lineages.

Question 50Social Institutions: Family, Marriage, Kinship, and Religion

Which of the following best illustrates the sociological concept of fictive kinship?

  1. A couple lives with the husband's parents after marriage
  2. A child calls a close family friend 'uncle' and treats him as a member of the family Correct answer.
  3. A man marries his deceased brother's widow
  4. A woman inherits land from her mother's brother

Explanation

Fictive kinship extends family terms and obligations to persons who are not related by blood or marriage, as when a close friend is treated as an uncle. The other options describe inheritance, residence, and levirate marriage, which involve real kin ties.