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This test consists of 15 multiple choice questions and 5 short answer questions.

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How do people affect each other's decisions where to sit in theater?
(a) Theatres fill randomly.
(b) Early arrivals sit in back, then the rest fill from the rear.
(c) Theatres fill from the back-middle to the front and then to the back.
(d) Theatres fill from the middle to the sides and back.

2. What does Schelling say the farmer needs to know?
(a) How much milk his cows are giving.
(b) Who will buy his milk.
(c) Who will take his milk to market.
(d) How much it will cost the driver to take his milk to market.

3. Which example does Schelling say complicates the prospect of arriving at a definitive proposition?
(a) A college with an unequal distribution of male and female students.
(b) A commodity whose price is volatile.
(c) A population spread out over a wide geographical area.
(d) A business with a number of different product lines.

4. What does Schelling say individual behaviors have in economic analysis?
(a) Randomness.
(b) Statistical predictability.
(c) Statistical insignificance.
(d) Mathematical equality.

5. What does Schelling say provides clear evidence of black versus white areas in American cities?
(a) First-hand observation.
(b) Maps.
(c) History books.
(d) Demography.

6. What does Schelling use his lecture to an audience of 800 people to illustrate?
(a) Spatial distribution.
(b) Group dynamics.
(c) Economic theories of entertainment.
(d) Randomness.

7. How does Schelling describe discrimination?
(a) As an absolute preference.
(b) As a two-fold distinction.
(c) As the opposite of the free market.
(d) As a court of opinion and rumor.

8. How does Schelling describe the system of skiers going up a lift and coming down the trails?
(a) As a static system.
(b) As a transformative system.
(c) As an open system.
(d) As a closed system.

9. What does Schelling say about the frequency of pairs?
(a) Pairs are rare in nature but common in society.
(b) Many phenomena occur in pairs.
(c) Pairs are a human construct.
(d) Pairs are common if your criteria are simple.

10. What does Schelling say about discrimination?
(a) It is not necessarily malicious.
(b) It is generally accepted.
(c) It is a paradox.
(d) It is always offensive.

11. What example does Schelling use to show discrimination in an atypical light?
(a) Taking a friend of another race to dinner.
(b) Shopping in a store that has fresh produce.
(c) Buying a foreign car because it has good gas mileage.
(d) Driving home the long way to avoid the highway.

12. What does Schelling say social conventions mediate between?
(a) Violence and the threat of punishment.
(b) Individual interest and collective purpose.
(c) Order and chaos.
(d) Desire and restraint.

13. What does Schelling say is an atomic pile is an example of?
(a) A lemon model.
(b) A half-life model.
(c) A critical-mass model.
(d) A paradoxical process.

14. How does the heating system parallel human behavior in Schelling's example?
(a) A rising variable alternatively over and under performs.
(b) A voice distributes its energy into the environment around it.
(c) A trait becomes more and more intense until it expresses itself in heat.
(d) A vessel carries whatever hot or cold air or water runs through it.

15. How does Schelling describe a critical-mass behavior?
(a) Something that can only take place if there is a large audience to watch it.
(b) Something that becomes self-sustaining once a certain number of people start to do it.
(c) Something that has to be restarted after a certain interval.
(d) Something that cannot be stopped once it begins.

Short Answer Questions

1. What example from nature does Schelling contrapose to human decisions?

2. What part of a heating system does Schelling use as a metaphor for human behavior?

3. What does Schelling say was seeking equilibrium as America's space industry interacted with the Russians'?

4. When does Schelling say social behavior can be considered a critical mass?

5. What does Schelling compare to the process of tracking the circulation of money in an economy?

(see the answer keys)

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