Week 9 — Quiz (auto-graded) · Global Inequality

Course: Introduction to Sociology (SOC 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Adeyemi
Objective tested: Objective 5 — global stratification; measuring development; modernization vs. dependency vs. world-systems theory; reading cross-national data.
Points: 10 (1 each) · Assignment group: Quizzes (10% of grade) · Due: end of Module 9.

This is the human-readable quiz with its vetted answer key and feedback. The import-ready Classic QTI is in F-quiz-week-09-qti.xml. The reusable item-bank entries and the Canvas placement block are at the bottom of this file.

Blueprint

No trick questions; distractors target the Week 9 misconceptions named in the lecture outline (modernization vs. dependency; the world-systems zones vs. dependency theory; GDP-per-capita-as-development; correlation vs. causation in cross-national data).

Questions, key, and feedback

Q1 (MC). Global stratification is best defined as —
- A. the personal choices that make one individual richer than their neighbor
- B. the unequal distribution of resources, power, and opportunity among the world's nations ✅
- C. the layering of the earth's crust studied by geologists
- D. the natural tendency for the most talented people to rise to the top
Feedback: Global stratification is the Week-7 ladder applied to whole countries — inequality between the world's societies. (A is individual mobility; C is geology; D is the Davis-Moore functionalist claim, not a definition.)

Q2 (MC). The World Bank classifies countries into low-income, lower-middle-income, upper-middle-income, and high-income groups primarily on the basis of —
- A. each country's total population
- B. gross national income (GNI) per capita ✅
- C. how democratic the country's government is
- D. the country's total land area
Feedback: The income groups are defined by GNI per capita (Atlas method), a transparent income-per-person measure used in place of older value-laden labels like "Third World." (Population, regime type, and land area are not the basis.)

Q3 (MC). A development economist argues that low-income nations are poor mainly because they have not yet industrialized or adopted modern technology and institutions, and that they can advance by moving through stages of economic growth (as in Rostow's model). This explanation reflects —
- A. dependency theory
- B. world-systems theory
- C. modernization theory ✅
- D. labeling theory
Feedback: Modernization theory looks inward — it locates the cause of poverty in internal factors (technology, institutions, values) and prescribes industrializing and modernizing. Rostow's stages of growth are its best-known version. (Dependency and world-systems look at the global relationship; labeling theory is from the deviance unit.)

Q4 (MC). A sociologist argues that many low-income nations are not simply "behind" but have been kept poor by their exploited, dependent position in a global economy shaped by a history of colonialism. This argument is most characteristic of —
- A. modernization theory
- B. dependency theory ✅
- C. the Davis-Moore thesis
- D. symbolic interactionism
Feedback: Dependency theory explains global poverty by a nation's dependent, exploited position (a legacy of colonialism), tying the poverty of some to the wealth of others — a conflict-leaning view. (Modernization looks inward; Davis-Moore is the within-society functionalist stratification thesis from Week 7; interactionism is the micro lens.)

Q5 (MC). In Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems theory, nations that mainly supply raw materials and cheap labor to the global economy while capturing little of the profit occupy the —
- A. core
- B. semi-periphery
- C. periphery ✅
- D. high-income group, by definition
Feedback: In Wallerstein's world-systems theory, the periphery supplies raw materials and cheap labor for low profit; the core does the high-profit, high-wage work; the semi-periphery sits in between. (D confuses a World Bank income label with a world-systems zone.)

Q6 (Matching). Match each theory or term to its core idea about global inequality.
| Theory / term | Correct core idea |
|---|---|
| Modernization theory | Poor nations lag because they have not industrialized or adopted modern technology and values; they can advance through stages of growth (Rostow) |
| Dependency theory | Poor nations are kept poor by their dependent, exploited position in the global economy — a legacy of colonialism |
| World-systems theory (Wallerstein) | A single capitalist world economy divided into core, semi-periphery, and periphery positions |
| The Human Development Index (HDI) | A measure of development that combines income with life expectancy and schooling, rather than income alone |
Feedback: The three theories are competing explanations — modernization (internal causes; functionalist-leaning) vs. dependency and world-systems (the global relationship; conflict-leaning). The core/semi-periphery/periphery zones belong to Wallerstein's world-systems theory specifically — a classic mix-up. The HDI is a measure, not a theory, and captures why development is more than GDP per capita.

Q7 (Multiple answer — select all that apply). Why is GDP per capita, by itself, an incomplete measure of a nation's development?
- A. It is an average, so it can hide large inequality within the country ✅
- B. It is a flow (output/income per year) and says nothing about a population's health ✅
- C. It ignores non-income dimensions of development such as life expectancy and schooling ✅
- D. It is always a fabricated number that no source actually measures
- E. A high average (for example from oil exports) can mask widespread poverty ✅
Feedback: GDP per capita is one useful window, but it is an average (A, E — hides internal inequality), a flow that ignores health (B), and it leaves out schooling and life expectancy (C) — which is exactly why the HDI combines income with health and schooling. D is false: GDP per capita is a real, measured figure (from sources like the World Bank); the limitation is what it leaves out, not that it's invented.

Q8 (MC). On Our World in Data's "Life expectancy vs. GDP per capita" chart, each dot is a country, and the dots slope upward: countries with higher GDP per capita tend to have higher life expectancy. Which interpretation of this chart is correct?
- A. It proves that giving any country more GDP will directly cause its people to live longer.
- B. It shows a strong positive correlation across countries between income and life expectancy; it does not by itself establish that income causes longer life. ✅
- C. It shows that GDP per capita and life expectancy are unrelated.
- D. It shows that every individual in a rich country outlives every individual in a poor country.
Feedback: The chart shows a strong positive correlation across countries — a real, well-documented pattern — but a correlation is not proof of causation (B). Reverse direction (health can raise productivity) and third variables (sanitation, vaccines, schooling) are in play, and the curve flattens at high income. (A overclaims cause; C denies the clear pattern; D confuses a country-level average with a guarantee about every individual.)

Q9 (True / False). "Because richer countries tend to have higher life expectancy, this cross-national correlation by itself proves that raising a country's GDP per capita causes its people to live longer."
- True
- False ✅
Feedback: False. This is a correlation, not proven causation. The arrow could run the other way (healthier, longer-lived populations can be more productive), and third variables — clean water, sanitation, vaccination, schooling — lift both income and life expectancy. A correlation is a clue, not a verdict.

Q10 (MC). A common sociological criticism of modernization theory is that it can be ethnocentric. This criticism means that modernization theory —
- A. relies entirely on fabricated statistics
- B. tends to treat the wealthy nations' path as the single model all countries should follow, and can locate the "problem" inside poor nations while overlooking global history ✅
- C. is identical to world-systems theory
- D. denies that any nation has ever industrialized
Feedback: The ethnocentrism critique is that modernization theory tends to treat the rich world's path as the path for everyone and can blame poor nations' own cultures while ignoring colonial history and the global system (B) — which is exactly the opening dependency/world-systems theorists press. (Presenting the theory and this critique is the evenhanded treatment the course expects.)

Answer key (quick reference)

Quality gate (self-checked): each single-answer item (Q1–Q5, Q8, Q10) has exactly one correct option; the multiple-answer item (Q7) keys the four valid reasons (A, B, C, E) and requires the false option D to be left unselected; the matching item (Q6) pairs four prompts to four distinct ideas and deliberately keys the core/semi-periphery/periphery trio to Wallerstein's world-systems theory (the week's signature attribution trap). Theorists/terms are named factually (Rostow → modernization stages; Wallerstein → world-systems zones; the HDI = income + health + schooling). The cross-national figures referenced live only in the chart-reading and correlation items (Q8, Q9), which describe a well-documented positive correlation (life expectancy vs. GDP per capita, verified live at Our World in Data for this build) and are keyed so that no correlation is presented as causation (Q8 = B; Q9 = False). No specific numeric value is asserted in any keyed item, so there is no figure to mis-key here; the live-verified figures (World Bank income-group method; the June-2025 move of the International Poverty Line to $3/day; ~817 million in extreme poverty in 2024; the wealth–life-expectancy correlation) are carried in the lecture, the readings, and the Workshop.

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

All ten items are tagged course=SOC1 · week=9 · objective=5 · topic=global-inequality and deposited in Item Bank: Week 9 — Global Inequality. The final (Week 16) and per-term variant updates draw fresh items from this bank. (Tags: q1 global-stratification, q2 income-groups, q3 modernization, q4 dependency, q5 world-systems-periphery, q6 theories-match, q7 gdp-incomplete, q8 read-chart-life-exp-gdp, q9 correlation-causation, q10 modernization-critique.)

Canvas placement block

canvas_object   = Quizzes::Quiz
title           = "Week 9 Quiz — Global Inequality"
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. Adeyemi's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"