Midterm Exam — Cumulative (Weeks 1–7) · Objectives 1–5

Course: Introduction to Sociology (SOC 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Adeyemi
Scope: Cumulative — Weeks 1–7, Objectives 1–5 (the sociological imagination & the three perspectives · research methods & reading social data · culture · socialization & the self · interaction, groups & organizations · deviance & social control · stratification & class). Objective 5 is represented by its stratification & class portion (Week 7); the global-inequality portion (Week 9) falls after the midterm and is assessed only on the cumulative final.
Format: 20 items, 100 points (5 each) · concept- and scenario-based (no arithmetic — sociology's quantitative work is the read-the-data skill, tested as interpretation) · mixed auto-gradable item types (multiple-choice, matching, multiple-answer, true/false). Closed-book; AI is not permitted (the prep tools are for getting ready, not for the exam).
Points: 100 · Assignment group: Midterm (20% of the course grade) · Window: opens at the start of the Week 8 module; due 6 days later. The midterm replaces Week 8's quiz, assignment, and Workshop.

This is the human-readable exam with its vetted answer key and one-line feedback. The import-ready Classic QTI 1.2 is in L-midterm-week-08-qti.xml (generated by a validated Python script — parses with 20 items, every single-answer item exactly one correct, each item worth 5 points). The item-bank/coverage note and the Canvas placement block are at the bottom of this file.

This is the live exam. Its paired ungraded rehearsal — O-practice-exam-week-08.md — mirrors this blueprint with fresh variants and shares none of these items.

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Blueprint (items → objective → source week)

Coverage is proportional to teaching time: Obj 1 = 4 · Obj 2 = 3 · Obj 3 = 4 · Obj 4 = 5 · Obj 5 = 4. No trick questions; every single-answer item has exactly one correct option; the matching items pair one-to-one; the multiple-answer item lists every correct option. Includes the discipline's required correlation-vs-causation item (Q7) and a perspective/founder → idea matching item (Q4).

#	Type	Concept	Objective	Week
1	Multiple choice	Definition of sociology (vs. the individual level)	1	1
2	Multiple answer	Personal troubles vs. public issues (Mills)	1	1
3	Multiple choice	Structural-functionalism (function for the whole)	1	1
4	Matching	Founders / perspective → core idea (Marx, Durkheim, interactionism, Du Bois)	1	1
5	Multiple choice	Operational definition	2	2
6	Multiple choice	Reliability vs. validity	2	2
7	True / False	Correlation vs. causation (spurious / third variable)	2	2
8	Multiple choice	Material vs. nonmaterial culture	3	3
9	Multiple choice	Folkways vs. mores	3	3
10	Multiple choice	Ethnocentrism vs. cultural relativism	3	3
11	Multiple choice	Mead's generalized other (vs. Cooley)	3	4
12	Multiple choice	Ascribed vs. achieved status	4	5
13	Multiple choice	Role conflict vs. role strain	4	5
14	Multiple choice	Dramaturgy — front vs. back stage (Goffman)	4	5
15	Matching	Deviance theories → core idea (Durkheim, Merton, Becker, Sutherland)	4	6
16	Multiple choice	Deviance is relative; deviance ≠ crime	4	6
17	Multiple choice	Income vs. wealth	5	7
18	Multiple choice	Caste vs. class	5	7
19	Multiple choice	Davis-Moore (functionalist) vs. conflict view	5	7
20	Multiple choice	Read median household income (a flow, not wealth)	5	7

Objective totals: Obj 1 = 4 items (20 pts) · Obj 2 = 3 (15) · Obj 3 = 4 (20) · Obj 4 = 5 (25) · Obj 5 = 4 (20) → 20 items, 100 points.

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Questions, key, and feedback

Objective 1 — The Sociological Imagination & the Three Perspectives (Week 1)

Q1 (MC). A sociologist and a biographer both study the same person's job loss. The sociologist is distinctive because she treats the case as one instance of a larger social pattern. Sociology is best defined as the —
- A. study of an individual's personality, motives, and inner emotional life
- B. systematic study of society, social behavior, and social structure ✅
- C. collection of moral rules prescribing how people in groups ought to act
- D. study of extinct human societies through their material remains
Feedback: Sociology zooms out to groups, institutions, and social structure, and it is systematic (evidence-based). (A is psychology's level of analysis; C is ethics, not a science; D is closer to archaeology.)

Q2 (Multiple answer — select all that apply). Using C. Wright Mills's sociological imagination, which of the following are best understood as public issues (structural) rather than purely personal troubles?
- A. A national rate of chronic loneliness that has climbed across an entire generation ✅
- B. One person feeling lonely after moving to a new town for a single semester
- C. A regional eviction rate that spiked after a large employer left the area ✅
- D. One renter being evicted after personally choosing not to pay rent one month
- E. Millions of workers losing jobs at once when an industry is automated ✅
Feedback: Public issues are society-wide patterns with structural causes (A, C, E — rates and aggregates across many people). One person's loneliness (B) and one renter's individual choice (D) are personal troubles. The imagination links the two without collapsing them.

Q3 (MC). A sociologist analyzes religion by asking what it contributes to keeping society stable: it promotes shared values, provides a sense of belonging, and marks major life transitions. This focus on the function a part plays for the whole social system is most characteristic of —
- A. conflict theory
- B. symbolic interactionism
- C. structural-functionalism ✅
- D. the sociological imagination
Feedback: Structural-functionalism (macro) asks what function a part serves to keep the whole stable. (Conflict theory asks who holds power; interactionism asks what things mean; the sociological imagination is a skill, not a theory.)

Q4 (Matching). Match each founder or perspective to the core idea correctly associated with it (all attributions are factual).
| Prompt | Correct core idea |
|---|---|
| Karl Marx | Society is an arena of class conflict and competition over scarce resources, and structures tend to benefit the powerful |
| Émile Durkheim | Social facts — forces outside the individual, such as a society's level of integration — shape behavior, as shown in his study of suicide rates |
| Symbolic interactionism | Society is built from the ground up through everyday interaction and the shared meanings people attach to symbols |
| W. E. B. Du Bois | "The color line" and "double consciousness," and pioneering empirical urban research in The Philadelphia Negro (1899) |
Feedback: The classic placements: Marx → conflict/class; Durkheim → social facts/functionalism (Suicide, 1897); interactionism → meaning in everyday interaction (Mead/Cooley/Blumer/Goffman); Du Bois → the color line/double consciousness. The most common error is crediting conflict theory to Durkheim — it's Marx.

Objective 2 — Research Methods & Reading Social Data (Week 2)

Q5 (MC). A researcher studying "civic engagement" decides to measure it as "the number of community meetings, volunteer events, or elections a person took part in over the past year." Turning an abstract concept into a specific, measurable indicator like this is called —
- A. random assignment
- B. an operational definition ✅
- C. a spurious correlation
- D. a hypothesis
Feedback: An operational definition turns an abstract concept into something concrete and measurable. (Random assignment sorts people into groups; a hypothesis is a testable prediction; a spurious correlation is a false apparent link.)

Q6 (MC). A survey question meant to measure "religiosity" actually just asks how often a person attends social events at any kind of venue. Asked repeatedly, it gives the same answer each time, but it does not really capture religiosity. By the reliability/validity distinction, this measure is —
- A. valid but not reliable
- B. reliable but not valid ✅
- C. both reliable and valid
- D. neither reliable nor valid
Feedback: Reliable = consistent/repeatable; valid = actually measures the intended thing. A measure can be perfectly consistent yet off-target — like a scale always 5 lbs high. Consistency ≠ accuracy.

Q7 (True / False). A study finds that U.S. counties with more fast-food restaurants also tend to have higher rates of a certain illness. A headline concludes, "Fast-food restaurants cause the illness." Because the two are correlated, this causal headline is a sound conclusion drawn directly from the data.
- True
- False ✅
Feedback: False. This is a correlation, not causation: a third (confounding) variable — for example, the income or age profile of who lives in those counties — could drive both. The association may be spurious. "Correlation is a clue, not a verdict."

Objective 3 — Culture & Socialization (Weeks 3–4)

Q8 (MC). At a graduation, a sociologist separates the physical caps, gowns, and diplomas from the intangible belief that education is valuable and the ritual norms about when to move the tassel. The caps, gowns, and diplomas are examples of —
- A. nonmaterial culture
- B. cultural relativism
- C. material culture ✅
- D. social facts
Feedback: Material culture is a society's physical, tangible objects. The belief that education matters and the norms about the ceremony are nonmaterial culture (the intangibles).

Q9 (MC). Standing too close to a stranger in an elevator draws mild discomfort but no moral outrage; betraying a friend's serious trust draws strong condemnation. The close-standing breaks a folkway and the betrayal breaks a more. The defining feature of mores is that they —
- A. are minor everyday customs of etiquette with little moral weight
- B. carry strong moral significance, so violating them brings serious condemnation ✅
- C. apply only to physical objects rather than to behavior
- D. must always be written down as formal laws to count
Feedback: Mores carry strong moral significance (violating them brings serious condemnation); folkways are everyday etiquette with mild reaction. (Neither must be a written law — many of the strongest norms are unwritten.)

Q10 (MC). An anthropologist studying an unfamiliar mourning ritual deliberately sets aside her own culture's customs and works to understand the ritual's meaning within that society's own framework. This practice of understanding a culture on its own terms is called —
- A. ethnocentrism
- B. culture shock
- C. cultural relativism ✅
- D. cultural lag
Feedback: Cultural relativism = understanding a culture on its own terms. Its opposite, ethnocentrism, judges another culture by the standards of one's own. (Culture shock is the disorientation of an unfamiliar setting; cultural lag is nonmaterial culture trailing material change.)

Q11 (MC). A child who once only copied a parent's gestures can now play a pretend game of "store" that requires juggling several roles at once — cashier, customer, and bagger — and grasping the whole game's rules. In George Herbert Mead's theory of the self, this ability to take on many coordinated roles and internalize society's broad expectations is captured by the —
- A. looking-glass self
- B. generalized other ✅
- C. front stage
- D. master status
Feedback: Mead's generalized other is the internalized attitudes and expectations of society as a whole, grasped once a child can coordinate many roles (the "game" stage). (The looking-glass self is Cooley; front stage is Goffman; master status is a stratification/role term.)

Objective 4 — Interaction, Groups, Organizations & Deviance (Weeks 5–6)

Q12 (MC). At birth, Jordan was assigned the status of "youngest child" in the family; years later, after training and exams, Jordan earned the status of "firefighter." In sociological terms, "youngest child" is an ascribed status and "firefighter" is an —
- A. achieved status ✅
- B. master status
- C. role strain
- D. reference group
Feedback: An achieved status is earned through effort or action (firefighter); an ascribed status is given — assigned at birth or independent of effort (youngest child). (A master status overrides others; role strain and reference group are different concepts.)

Q13 (MC). A college student finds that the single role of "student" itself pulls her in competing directions: she is expected to collaborate generously with classmates yet also to compete against them for the top grades. Tension among the demands of one role is best described as —
- A. role conflict
- B. role strain ✅
- C. role exit
- D. an ascribed status
Feedback: Role strain is tension within a single role; role conflict is tension between two different roles (e.g., worker vs. parent). The cue here is that one role — "student" — contains the competing demands.

Q14 (MC). In Erving Goffman's dramaturgical approach, a flight attendant who is warm and unflappable with passengers in the cabin but slumps and complains in the galley out of view is moving from the —
- A. back stage to the front stage
- B. front stage to the back stage ✅
- C. in-group to the out-group
- D. primary group to the secondary group
Feedback: The polished public performance is the front stage; the galley out of view, where the performer drops the act, is the back stage. The attendant moves front → back. (In-group/out-group and primary/secondary group are group concepts, not the dramaturgical stages.)

Q15 (Matching). Match each theorist or theory of deviance to its core idea (all attributions are factual).
| Prompt | Correct core idea |
|---|---|
| Durkheim (functionalist) | A limited amount of deviance is normal and even functional — punishing it reaffirms shared norms and can spur change |
| Merton's strain theory | Deviance arises from a gap between culturally approved goals and the legitimate means available to reach them |
| Becker's labeling theory | Deviance lies not in the act itself but in society's response — the label that gets applied |
| Sutherland's differential association | Deviant behavior, like any behavior, is learned through interaction with others |
Feedback: The four big placements: Durkheim (deviance is functional), Merton (goals-vs-means strain), Becker (labeling — it's the response), Sutherland (differential association — it's learned). Watch the interactionist pair: labeling = the label; differential association = learned from others.

Q16 (MC). A sociologist reminds students that wearing pajamas to a formal restaurant is widely seen as deviant yet is perfectly legal, while many acts vary in their deviance from one society or era to another. The best summary of these two points is that —
- A. all deviance is illegal, and what counts as deviant never changes
- B. deviance is relative to social context, and not all deviance is crime ✅
- C. only written laws can make an act deviant
- D. deviance is caused entirely by an individual's biology
Feedback: Two anchors of the sociology of deviance: deviance is relative (it varies by time, place, and culture) and deviance ≠ crime (much deviance, like the pajamas, is not illegal). (C and D ignore both the relativity and the breadth of deviance.)

Objective 5 — Social Stratification & Class (Week 7)

Q17 (MC). Two friends each earn the same $70,000 salary this year. One has inherited a mortgage-free house and a large investment account; the other has no savings and owes substantial credit-card and student debt. They are equal in income but far apart in wealth. The best statement of the income–wealth distinction is —
- A. income is what you own; wealth is the money you earn each year
- B. income is a flow (money received over a period); wealth is a stock (assets minus debts) ✅
- C. income and wealth are simply two names for the same quantity
- D. wealth is always exactly equal to one year's income
Feedback: Income is a flow (money received over a period — wages); wealth is a stock (everything you own minus what you owe). They can diverge sharply — and wealth is far more unequally distributed. (A reverses the two.)

Q18 (MC). In one stratification system a person's rank is fixed at birth and cannot be changed by effort or achievement; in another, rank rests on economic position and can, in principle, change over a lifetime. These two systems are, respectively, a —
- A. class system (open) and a caste system (closed)
- B. caste system (closed) and a class system (open) ✅
- C. meritocracy and an estate system
- D. slavery system and an absolute-poverty system
Feedback: A caste system is closed (rank ascribed at birth, fixed); a class system is open (based on economic position, in principle changeable). (A reverses them.)

Q19 (MC). Two sociologists debate inequality. One argues that attaching higher rewards to important, hard-to-fill positions motivates talented people to take them on, benefiting society; the other argues that stratification mostly reflects the powerful protecting their advantage and exploiting others. These two views are, respectively —
- A. the conflict view and the Davis-Moore (functionalist) thesis
- B. the Davis-Moore (functionalist) thesis and the conflict view ✅
- C. symbolic interactionism and cultural relativism
- D. Weber's status dimension and Marx's class dimension
Feedback: The first is the Davis-Moore thesis (functionalist — stratification motivates talent into key roles); the second is the conflict view (stratification = exploitation and the reproduction of advantage). This is the central stratification debate. (A reverses them.)

Q20 (MC). The U.S. Census Bureau reported that real median household income was $80,610 in 2023. Which interpretation of this single figure is correct?
- A. It is the average income of the richest U.S. households.
- B. It is the income of the household exactly in the middle of the distribution — half of households earned more and half less — and it measures income (a flow), not wealth. ✅
- C. It proves that every U.S. household's income increased that year.
- D. It is the total wealth owned by the typical U.S. household.
Feedback: A median is the middle value (half above, half below), not an average of the top, and this figure measures income (a flow), not wealth (a stock). A single year's figure also can't prove every household rose or that any one policy caused a change. (Figure verified live against the U.S. Census Bureau, "Income in the United States: 2023," report P60-282 — real median household income $80,610 in 2023, up from $77,540 in 2022.)

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Answer key (quick reference)

Q	Answer	Q	Answer
1	B	11	B (generalized other — Mead)
2	A, C, E	12	A (achieved status)
3	C (structural-functionalism)	13	B (role strain)
4	Marx→conflict/class / Durkheim→social facts / Interactionism→meaning in interaction / Du Bois→color line & double consciousness	14	B (front → back stage)
5	B (operational definition)	15	Durkheim→functional / Merton→goals-means strain / Becker→labeling / Sutherland→learned (differential association)
6	B (reliable but not valid)	16	B (relative; deviance ≠ crime)
7	False (correlation ≠ causation)	17	B (income = flow; wealth = stock)
8	C (material culture)	18	B (caste closed; class open)
9	B (mores — moral weight)	19	B (Davis-Moore then conflict)
10	C (cultural relativism)	20	B (middle household; income, not wealth)

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Quality gate (self-checked)

• Structure: 20 items, 5 points each, 100 points total; coverage Obj 1 = 4 · Obj 2 = 3 · Obj 3 = 4 · Obj 4 = 5 · Obj 5 = 4 matches the shared blueprint exactly.
• Single-answer integrity: every multiple-choice and true/false item (Q1, Q3, Q5–Q14, Q16–Q20) has exactly one correct option; the two matching items (Q4, Q15) each pair four prompts one-to-one to four distinct ideas; the multiple-answer item (Q2) keys A, C, E (and requires B and D to be left unselected). Confirmed by parsing the QTI (17 single-answer items each with exactly one SCORE-100 condition; both matching items have four Add conditions).
• No arithmetic: sociology is conceptual; all items test concepts, perspectives, theorists, and data-reading judgment (no computation to mis-key), consistent with the course's discipline-fit note. The required correlation-vs-causation item is Q7 (keyed False), and Q4 is the perspective/founder → idea matching item.
• Fact-and-data-accuracy gate PASS. Real founders/theorists named factually: Marx (conflict/class), Durkheim (social facts; Suicide, 1897), Weber (rationalization/verstehen), Du Bois (the color line/double consciousness; The Philadelphia Negro, 1899), Mead (generalized other; imitation→play→game), Cooley (looking-glass self), Goffman (dramaturgy; total institutions), Merton (strain), Becker (labeling), Sutherland (differential association). The one published figure — real median household income $80,610 in 2023 — was verified live against the U.S. Census Bureau report Income in the United States: 2023 (P60-282, released Sept 10, 2024). The NCVS "about 2 in 5 reported to police" reporting fact (used in the lecture/tutorial context, not asserted as a graded item answer) reflects published BJS NCVS findings. No correlation is presented as causation (Q7 explicitly corrects the fallacy; Q20 cautions against over-reading a single figure). No fabricated statistic, study, or quotation.
• QTI parse confirmation: L-midterm-week-08-qti.xml parses as imsqti_xmlv1p2 with 20 items; every single-answer respcondition sets SCORE = 100 on exactly one option; each matching item's four partial-credit blocks sum to 100; the multiple-answer item requires the exact A/C/E set. Each item's points_possible = 5.0.
• Integrity vs. the practice exam: 0 items are shared with O-practice-exam-week-08.md (verified by full stem comparison — 0 identical prompts and 0 high-similarity pairs; the maximum overlap is a same-concept slot filled by a different scenario, e.g., the midterm tests Obj-1 with structural-functionalism on religion while the practice uses conflict theory on zoning).
• Freshness vs. the weekly quizzes: every scenario is a new variant with contexts distinct from the Week 1–7 quiz items (e.g., the income/wealth item here uses two $70,000 friends, not the Week-7 Maria and Devon; the dramaturgy item uses a flight attendant, not the Week-5 restaurant server; the ethnocentrism/relativism item uses a mourning ritual, not the Week-3 unfamiliar dish).

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Item-bank & coverage note

All 20 items are fresh variants assembled from the Week 1–7 item banks (changed scenarios and contexts to reduce answer-sharing with the weekly quizzes), tagged course=SOC1 · exam=midterm · weeks=1–7 · objectives=1–5 and deposited back into the banks for future per-term ($39) regenerations:

Objective	Drawn from banks	Items
1	Week 1 (The Sociological Imagination & Perspectives)	Q1–Q4
2	Week 2 (Research Methods & Reading Social Data)	Q5–Q7
3	Weeks 3–4 (Culture; Socialization & the Self)	Q8–Q11
4	Weeks 5–6 (Interaction, Groups & Organizations; Deviance)	Q12–Q16
5	Week 7 (Social Stratification & Class)	Q17–Q20

Each term's update regenerates fresh midterm variants from these same banks; the paired practice exam is regenerated alongside and continues to share none of the live items.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object             = Quizzes::Quiz
title                     = "Midterm Exam — Cumulative (Weeks 1–7)"
assignment_group          = "Midterm"
points_possible           = 100
grading_type              = points
available_from_offset_days = 0        # opens at the start of the Week 8 module (Mon Oct 19)
due_offset_days           = 6        # 6 days after module start (Sun Oct 25)
published                 = true
allowed_attempts          = 1
shuffle_answers           = true
ip_filter / lockdown      = closed-book, no AI (per course AI policy: AI not permitted on the midterm)
provenance                = "~ Prof. Adeyemi's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"