Week 1 — Quiz (auto-graded) · What Is Political Science? Subfields, Concepts & Methods

Course: Introduction to Political Science (POLS 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Halloran
Objectives tested: Objective 1 — the discipline and its five subfields; the analysis toolkit; empirical vs. normative claims.
Points: 10 (1 each) · Assignment group: Quizzes (10% of grade) · Due: end of Module 1.

This is the human-readable quiz with its vetted answer key and feedback. The import-ready Classic QTI is in F-quiz-week-01-qti.xml (generated by the shared validated script — parses with 10 items, every single-answer item exactly one correct). Fact-and-source-accuracy gate — PASS: the Lasswell (1936 book title), Easton (1953), and Aristotle (Jowett trans.) attributions, the Declaration's date (July 4, 1776) and exact "pursuit of Happiness" wording, and the Senate's 100 members were each verified against the record. The Canvas placement block is at the bottom of this file.

Blueprint

No trick questions; distractors target the Week 1 misconceptions named in the lecture outline (sorting by topic instead of kind; "empirical = true"; subfield mix-ups; the Locke/Jefferson blur).

Questions, key, and feedback

Q1 (MC). Political science's most famous shorthand — the title of Harold Lasswell's 1936 book — says politics is about:
- A. "The greatest happiness of the greatest number"
- B. "Who gets what, when, how" ✅
- C. "The wealth of nations"
- D. "The survival of the fittest"
Feedback: Lasswell's 1936 book title — "Politics: Who Gets What, When, How" — is the discipline's bluntest definition: politics is the process by which groups make binding decisions about distribution. (A echoes utilitarianism, C is Adam Smith's economics title, D is a biology slogan.)

Q2 (MC). A researcher studies why states form military alliances when there is no world government to enforce agreements. Which subfield is this?
- A. Political theory
- B. American government
- C. International relations ✅
- D. Political methodology
Feedback: Politics between states — war, peace, alliances, international institutions — is international relations. (Comparative politics compares systems within countries; that "within vs. between" line is the classic mix-up.)

Q3 (Matching). Match each subfield to what it studies.
| Subfield | Studies |
|---|---|
| Political theory / philosophy | The ought questions — justice, liberty, and what makes power legitimate |
| Comparative politics | Political systems within countries, compared across them |
| International relations | Politics between states in a system with no world government |
| Political methodology | The tools of inquiry — measurement, polling, research design |
Feedback: Five lenses, one world (the fifth, American government, is the in-depth study of the U.S. case). "Ought / within / between / ours / how-we-know."

Q4 (MC). Which of the following is an empirical claim?
- A. Democracy is the best form of government.
- B. The voting age ought to be lowered to 16.
- C. Countries that use proportional representation tend to have more parties in parliament. ✅
- D. Citizens have a moral duty to vote.
Feedback: An empirical claim is about what is — checkable against evidence. The PR-and-parties claim can be tested by comparing real countries (we do exactly that in Week 11). The others are normative — claims about what ought to be.

Q5 (MC). Which of the following is a normative claim?
- A. The U.S. Senate has 100 members.
- B. Voter turnout is usually lower in midterm elections than in presidential elections.
- C. The Senate ought to be allocated by population rather than two per state. ✅
- D. The U.S. Constitution was signed in 1787.
Feedback: "Ought" is the tell — a value claim supported by reasons, not settled by counting. Note that A, B, and D concern the same institutional world but are empirical: sort claims by kind, not by topic.

Q6 (Multiple answer — select all that apply). Which of the following are subfields of political science?
- A. Comparative politics ✅
- B. Political theory / political philosophy ✅
- C. Macroeconomics
- D. Political methodology ✅
- E. Social psychology
Feedback: The five subfields are political theory, comparative politics, international relations, American government, and political methodology (A, B, D here). Macroeconomics is economics; social psychology is psychology — neighboring disciplines political scientists borrow from, but not subfields.

Q7 (MC). The comparative method is best described as:
- A. Running laboratory experiments on political behavior
- B. Comparing cases or systems on defined dimensions to test explanations ✅
- C. Asking citizens which political system they prefer
- D. Ranking countries from best to worst governed
Feedback: Comparison is the field's substitute for the lab: hold some things similar, see what varies together (Week 13 gives it a full treatment). (D is a value ranking — a different exercise; the method tests explanations, not verdicts.)

Q8 (True / False). "If a claim is empirical, that means the claim is true."
- True
- False ✅
Feedback: False. Empirical means checkable against evidence — and a checkable claim can fail the check ("the Senate has 120 members" is empirical and false). Kind and verdict are separate questions.

Q9 (MC). The Declaration of Independence says governments derive "their just powers from the consent of the governed." Which core political-science concept is that sentence about?
- A. Sovereignty — the state's final authority over its territory
- B. Legitimacy — what makes the exercise of power rightful ✅
- C. Federalism — the division of power between levels of government
- D. The comparative method — testing explanations across cases
Feedback: The sentence states a standard for legitimate power — consent. (Week 2 takes legitimacy apart properly, with Weber's three types and the social-contract thinkers.)

Q10 (MC). Aristotle wrote that "man is by nature a political animal." As discussed in class, he meant that:
- A. Everyone naturally enjoys following politics and campaigns
- B. Politicians behave like animals when competing for power
- C. Human beings naturally live in communities that must make collective decisions ✅
- D. Only those who hold office are truly living a human life
Feedback: The claim (from the Politics, Jowett translation) is about human nature: we live in communities — a polis — that must decide things together, so politics is a natural, unavoidable feature of human life, not a taste some people have.

Answer key (quick reference)

Quality gate (self-checked): each single-answer item has exactly one correct option; the multiple-answer item lists the three true subfields (A, B, D) and requires C and E to be left unselected; the matching item pairs each subfield with its real focus. Fact-and-source-accuracy gate — PASS: Lasswell's 1936 title, Easton's 1953 phrase (taught in lecture, not quizzed), the Aristotle attribution (Politics, Jowett trans.), the Declaration's "consent of the governed" wording (National Archives transcript), the Senate's 100 members, and the Constitution's 1787 signing were each verified against the record. Evenhandedness check: no item asks which ideology, party, or normative answer is correct; Q4/Q5 test the kind of claim, not its merits.

Item-bank entries (for variants + the midterm/final)

All ten items are tagged course=POLS1 · week=1 · objective=1 · topic=discipline-subfields-methods and deposited in Item Bank: Week 1 — What Is Political Science?. The midterm (Week 8) and the per-term variant updates draw fresh items from this bank. (Tags: q1 politics-defined, q2 subfield-ir, q3 subfield-matching, q4 empirical-id, q5 normative-id, q6 subfields-multi, q7 comparative-method, q8 empirical-not-true, q9 legitimacy-consent, q10 aristotle-political-animal.)

Canvas placement block

canvas_object    = Quizzes::Quiz
title            = "Week 1 Quiz — What Is Political Science?"
assignment_group = "Quizzes"
points_possible  = 10
grading_type     = points
due_offset_days  = 6        # 6 days after module start
published        = true
shuffle_answers  = true
provenance       = "~ Prof. Halloran's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"