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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 percentage of the vote does an incumbent candidate lose on average if he spends half as much money in his second campaign?

2. What did DuPont introduce in 1939 to make stockings more affordable?

3. What percentage commission does a real estate broker generally take from a home sale?

4. Why does Levitt believe there are few violent criminals in the end of the twentieth century?

5. The amount of money spent on every season's election campaigns is the same as the amount spent by Americans yearly on what?

Short Essay Questions

1. What argument do the authors make about experts?

2. What tactics do researchers use to determine if CPS teachers are cheating on standardized tests?

3. Why would some winning sumo wrestlers throw a match?

4. How did Stetson Kennedy use the information he compiled about the Ku Klux Klan?

5. What happens to the day-cares of Haifa, Israel when a late-pickup fee is introduced?

6. Why is information crime so difficult to catch?

7. Why would a foot soldier risk death or arrest in a gang that pays him less than minimum wage for his labor?

8. What is the nature of discrimination on The Weakest Link?

9. How did Sudhir Venkatesh become acquainted with the Black Gangster Disciple Nation?

10. How have attitudes toward public bigotry changed in recent years?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Write an essay on the theories surround the drop in violent crime in America in the nineties. In the essay, discuss two theories that the authors determine had no effect on crime and one that they determine did. Why is each theory either effective or ineffective? How do the authors go about showing the validity of each? For the one that is deemed effective, how could policy be changed to incorporate this theory?

Essay Topic 2

Write an essay on crack cocaine, dealing with its societal role in two parts: its origin and its effect. Where did crack cocaine come from, and how did it fill a hole in American drug culture? Why did it become so immensely popular in America? Secondly, how did it affect social trends regarding udban black Americans?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

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