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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. Why did pro-gun advocate John R. Lott create a female pseudonym?

2. What child's name does Roland G. Fryer, Jr., say would indicate alienation from the black community?

3. What does Levitt credit with the rise of distinctly black names in the twentieth century?

4. According to the authors, what would be a more reasonable educational concern than the black-white achievement gap?

5. In what year did the drop in New York violent crime begin in the 1990s?

Short Essay Questions

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

2. How does Ceausescu create an opposite ripple effect in Romania than what occurs in America at the same time?

3. How does Robert Lane's child-naming scheme work out?

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

5. What policy recommendations do the authors make regarding their theories?

6. By what rational do Levitt and Dubner reason that even a cynical person would not consider abortion a reasonable deterrent to crime?

7. What is regression analysis?

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. How is the quality of life of an aborted child different from one that is born?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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 2

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.

Essay Topic 3

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?

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