SOCIOLOGY CLEP UPDATED CORE EXAM MANUAL
QUESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS GUARANTEE A+
✔✔birth rate - ✔✔the ratio of live births in an area to the population of that area
✔✔Bourgeoisie - ✔✔Those individuals who control the means of production.
✔✔Upper class - ✔✔...
✔✔Bureaucracy - ✔✔A social structure made up of a hierarchy of statuses and roles
that is prescribed by explicit rules and procedures and based on a division of function
and authority.
✔✔caste system - ✔✔a social structure in which classes are determined by heredity
✔✔charismatic authority - ✔✔Power that is legitimated by the extraordinary
superhuman or supernatural attributes people attribute to a leader.
✔✔Church - ✔✔A religious organization that considers itself uniquely legitimate and
enjoys a positive relationship with the dominant society.
✔✔Cognitive Development theory - ✔✔Piaget's theory that children actively construct
knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world; children experiences expand as
their brain develops; they move through
✔✔4 stages: - ✔✔...
✔✔sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational - ✔✔...
✔✔collective behavior - ✔✔voluntary, often spontaneous activity that is engaged in by a
large number of people and typically violates dominant-group norms and values.
✔✔Concrete operational stage of Cognitive development theory - ✔✔begins around
age 7-11. Children begin thinking logically about concrete events, but have difficulty
understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts.
✔✔conflict perspective - ✔✔A sociological approach that assumes that social behavior
is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups
✔✔Contagion theory - ✔✔An approach to crowd behavior that emphasizes the part
played in crowd settings by rapidly communicated and uncritically accepted feelings,
attitudes, and actions
, ✔✔Control Group - ✔✔The group that affords a neutral standard against which the
changes in an experimental group can be measured.
✔✔Convergence theory - ✔✔An approach to crowd behavior stating that a crowd
consists of a highly unrepresentative body of people who assemble because they share
the same predispositions.
✔✔counterculture - ✔✔a subculture deliberately and consciously opposed to certain
central beliefs or attitudes of the dominant culture
✔✔Cult - ✔✔A religious movement that represents a new and independent religious
tradition.
✔✔Culture - ✔✔The social heritage of a people; those learned patterns for thinking,
feeling, and acting that are transmitted from one generation to the next, including the
embodiment of these patterns in material items.
✔✔cultural relativism - ✔✔A value-free or neutral approach that views the behavior of a
people from the perspective of their own culture.
✔✔death rate - ✔✔the ratio of deaths in an area to the population of that area
✔✔democratic government - ✔✔A government in which the rulers are elected by the
people through fair, free, competitive, and periodic elections. Public decision making is
delegated to the representatives elected by the people.
✔✔Deviance - ✔✔Behavior that a considerable number of people in a society view as
reprehensible and beyond the limits of tolerance.
✔✔Differential Association theory - ✔✔A general theory of crime that states that
deviants come to learn the motivations and the technical knowledge of criminal activity
through exposure to deviants and deviant behavior.
✔✔Division of labor - ✔✔Division of work into a number of separate tasks to be
performed by different workers
✔✔Dyad - ✔✔A two-member group.
✔✔Norms - ✔✔Social rules that specify appropriate and inappropriate behavior in given
situations.
✔✔Values - ✔✔Broad ideas regarding what is desirable, correct, and good that most
members of a society share.
QUESTIONS AND SOLUTIONS GUARANTEE A+
✔✔birth rate - ✔✔the ratio of live births in an area to the population of that area
✔✔Bourgeoisie - ✔✔Those individuals who control the means of production.
✔✔Upper class - ✔✔...
✔✔Bureaucracy - ✔✔A social structure made up of a hierarchy of statuses and roles
that is prescribed by explicit rules and procedures and based on a division of function
and authority.
✔✔caste system - ✔✔a social structure in which classes are determined by heredity
✔✔charismatic authority - ✔✔Power that is legitimated by the extraordinary
superhuman or supernatural attributes people attribute to a leader.
✔✔Church - ✔✔A religious organization that considers itself uniquely legitimate and
enjoys a positive relationship with the dominant society.
✔✔Cognitive Development theory - ✔✔Piaget's theory that children actively construct
knowledge as they manipulate and explore their world; children experiences expand as
their brain develops; they move through
✔✔4 stages: - ✔✔...
✔✔sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational - ✔✔...
✔✔collective behavior - ✔✔voluntary, often spontaneous activity that is engaged in by a
large number of people and typically violates dominant-group norms and values.
✔✔Concrete operational stage of Cognitive development theory - ✔✔begins around
age 7-11. Children begin thinking logically about concrete events, but have difficulty
understanding abstract or hypothetical concepts.
✔✔conflict perspective - ✔✔A sociological approach that assumes that social behavior
is best understood in terms of conflict or tension between competing groups
✔✔Contagion theory - ✔✔An approach to crowd behavior that emphasizes the part
played in crowd settings by rapidly communicated and uncritically accepted feelings,
attitudes, and actions
, ✔✔Control Group - ✔✔The group that affords a neutral standard against which the
changes in an experimental group can be measured.
✔✔Convergence theory - ✔✔An approach to crowd behavior stating that a crowd
consists of a highly unrepresentative body of people who assemble because they share
the same predispositions.
✔✔counterculture - ✔✔a subculture deliberately and consciously opposed to certain
central beliefs or attitudes of the dominant culture
✔✔Cult - ✔✔A religious movement that represents a new and independent religious
tradition.
✔✔Culture - ✔✔The social heritage of a people; those learned patterns for thinking,
feeling, and acting that are transmitted from one generation to the next, including the
embodiment of these patterns in material items.
✔✔cultural relativism - ✔✔A value-free or neutral approach that views the behavior of a
people from the perspective of their own culture.
✔✔death rate - ✔✔the ratio of deaths in an area to the population of that area
✔✔democratic government - ✔✔A government in which the rulers are elected by the
people through fair, free, competitive, and periodic elections. Public decision making is
delegated to the representatives elected by the people.
✔✔Deviance - ✔✔Behavior that a considerable number of people in a society view as
reprehensible and beyond the limits of tolerance.
✔✔Differential Association theory - ✔✔A general theory of crime that states that
deviants come to learn the motivations and the technical knowledge of criminal activity
through exposure to deviants and deviant behavior.
✔✔Division of labor - ✔✔Division of work into a number of separate tasks to be
performed by different workers
✔✔Dyad - ✔✔A two-member group.
✔✔Norms - ✔✔Social rules that specify appropriate and inappropriate behavior in given
situations.
✔✔Values - ✔✔Broad ideas regarding what is desirable, correct, and good that most
members of a society share.
