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 the only television show to regularly appear on the top ten watched lists of both black and white viewers?

2. Which group generally tests highest?

3. Which ethnicity generally tests better than whites in the ECLS?

4. Which is a Hebrew name that the authors suggest may catch on en masse in the years to come?

5. To what technology do the authors compare the system they use for determining regression analysis?

Short Essay Questions

1. What theory guided Rudolph Giuliani and William Bratton in their policing strategies of the Nineties?

2. What determination do the authors make regarding parenting in this chapter?

3. To what extent does every chapter in FREAKONOMICS involve a closed system?

4. What do the authors determine about the social migration of names?

5. What action do the authors of FREAKONOMICS think a reader might take after finishing the book?

6. What situation in Chicago in 1980 offers the authors a chance to review the effect of education on children's development?

7. According to Dubner and Levitt, what is the essential function of the gun?

8. What point to Dubner and Levitt make regarding guns and swimming pools?

9. What is the history behind the emergence of distinctly black names in America?

10. What caveat of hope do Dubner and Levitt give regarding parenting at the end of the book?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

Throughout FREAKONOMICS, Levitt and Dubner regularly offer apologias to the reader, explaining that they understand that the conclusions they reach may be upsetting or offensive to some. Write an essay examining these apologias. With what findings are they associated? Why do you think the authors deem it necessary to offer an aesthetic caveat to these decisions? To what extent is the final moment of the book a final apologia to the reader?

Essay Topic 3

At its root, FREAKONOMICS is a study in contrarian thinking. Dubner and Levitt lionize the idea of the "hidden side," and their studies espouse a willful denial of conventional thought. Write an essay about the hidden side of three trends. What is the conventional wisdom regarding each trend? How do the authors disassemble these conventional theories? What fresh notion do they reach in the end?

Part 1) The drop in violent crime in the mid 1990's.

Part 2) The lucrative nature of hard drugs.

Part 3) The importance of parental involvement in a child's development.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 988 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample