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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Stetson Kennedy's pseudonym at the Pittsburgh Courier?

2. By how much did the homicide rate among young black males increase over the first five years of the crack boom?

3. How do teachers most often cheat on standardized tests?

4. According to James Alan Fox in 1995, what is the minimum rise in violent crime to be expected in the next decade?

5. What did the clan call its book of beliefs?

Short Essay Questions

1. What mindset do the authors ask the reader to take at the end of the introduction?

2. How is a sumo wrestler's life affected by his ranking?

3. How does the inclusion of a small monetary compensation affect blood donation in the 1970s?

4. Why is a real estate agent inclined to keep her own house on the market longer than her client's?

5. How were predictions about violent crime in the Nineties incorrect?

6. Why is information crime so difficult to catch?

7. How do the authors show that money spent does not affect election results?

8. What argument do the authors make about experts?

9. How did the introduction of crack cocaine reverse a trajectory in American black culture?

10. What does Paul Feldman learn about honesty from his bagel business?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay about the final realization at the end of FREAKONOMICS that the two hypothetical children in Chapter 5 are Roland G. Fryer, Jr., and Ted Kaczynski. How does this realization fit in with the overall fatalism of the FREAKONOMICS view of human life? Are either or these figures typical of their upbringing? What, statistically, should have become of them based on their childhoods?

Essay Topic 2

Juxtaposition - almost like that in a fictional work - is central to the writing of FREAKONOMICS. Dubner and Levitt often choose two groups - sumo wrestlers and school teachers, a crack-gang and McDonald's - who are connected by some unseen trend or attribute. Write an essay, analyzing three such juxtapositions. How do the authors arrive at the point of comparing these two things? What do they surprisingly have in common? What trend does this connection reveal?

Essay Topic 3

Write an essay detailing the authors' comparison between America and Communist Romania's abortion policies. How is Roe v. Wade and Nicolae Ceausescu's accession drastically alter the availability of abortions? What affect id these changes have on the populace and social order in each country? According to Levitt and Dubner, what was the unexpected end result of these separate changes in abortion policy?

(see the answer keys)

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