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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. On average, how many more days does a real estate agent generally keep her own house on the market as opposed to someone else's?

2. How does Paul Feldman view humanity as a result of his business records?

3. In what country is the daycare service examined at the beginning of this chapter?

4. What do the authors argue is the primary incentive for not soliciting a prostitute?

5. With what band did Sudhir Venkatesh tour as part of his sociological research?

Short Essay Questions

1. What unorthodox theory do the authors offer regarding the drop in crime in the late 1990s?

2. How are nylon stockings and crack cocaine similar?

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

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

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

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 example do the authors use at the end of the chapter to show that people will cheat if they know they won't be caught?

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

10. What is important to women on dating sites?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Levitt states throughout FREAKONOMICS that the guiding force behind all systemic trends are incentives. A person or group acts according to what they believe they can gain. Write an essay about incentives in three parts:

Part 1) What incentive does a real estate agent have fore selling a house at a lower price? Doesn't she receive a larger commission if the house goes for more money? Does she have different selling practices regarding her own house?

Part 2) What incentive would a professional sumo wrestler have for throwing a fight? How does the ranking system of the sumo wrestling league create this incentive? How does cheating create a situation where everyone benefits?

Part 3) The authors detail in Chapter 3 the ways in which a crack-gang like the Black Gangster Disciple Nation offers little in the way of compensation to most of its members. Why do so many young urban men join? What incentive do they perceive in the gang and its dangerous activity?

Essay Topic 2

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?

Essay Topic 3

Much of the early section of FREAKONOMICS is dedicated to the idea of honesty in society. Write an essay about three of the analyzed systems and what they say about honesty. What incentives does each person in the system have either to act truthfully or cheat? How does this create a system in which cheating is common? How do arbiters attempt to affect the dynamic to stop cheating? Is it successful?

Part 1) The Sumo wrestling leagues of Japan.

Part 2) The Chicago Public School System.

Part 3) Paul Feldman's bagel business.

(see the answer keys)

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