View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. What is Arne Duncan's first course of action after the CPS researchers release their report on cheating?

2. Which two groups are the most discriminated against on Weakest Link?

3. What surprising fact about themselves do 7% of the men in the dating-site study reveal on their profiles?

4. Which President spoke to the House of Representatives early about the dangers of the Ku Klux Klan?

5. Why did Oscar Danilo Blandon claim that he sold such extensive quantities of crack cocaine in the late 1970s?

Short Essay Questions

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

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

3. What argument do the authors make about experts?

4. What are the defining characteristics of conventional wisdom?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 the subject of honesty. What drives human beings either to act honestly or to cheat, according to the authors of FREAKONOMICS? What systems do they study in order to uncover trends and motivations behind honesty and deception? How do these systems create a dynamic in which cheating is incentivized?

Essay Topic 3

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?

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 951 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample