Soc 105  Intro to Sociology   Dr. D. Levy

Study Guide For Exam 1  Spring 2008

The first test will cover Chapters 1- 4 in the McIntyre text, Readings 1, 3, 5, and 9 and 18 in the reader; the Bryson reading from the website, the "Machismo"  video, and all the lecture material since the beginning of the semester.  Now, I'm covered, but it is clear that an exam with approximately 50 items cannot cover all of this completely.    If you have read the material, know the key concepts, attended lectures, and worked with the quizzes on the website, you should be in good shape for the exam.

The questions below should help guide your study.  Please take the practice tests on the website for more study.

2.   Discuss Durkheim's Suicide and how it illustrates the sociological approach to reality.

3.   What is the sociological imagination?   Be able to distinguish between personal troubles and public issues and give several examples.

4.   Understand why sociology is a "skeptical" discipline.  What are manifest and latent functions?

5.    Be able to distinguish among the four major theoretical approaches mentioned in text and lecture, and apply them to examples.

6.    Be able to use the concepts "ethnocentrism" , "culture shock," and "cultural relativism" and apply them to specific situations.

7.    Understand and give examples of "inconvenient facts".

You should be very familiar with the readings, not so much for specific details, but for how each reading illustrates sociological concepts.