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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. How does Veblen say people can move from the industrial class to the leisure class?
(a) Pecuniary employments.
(b) Marriage.
(c) Conspicuous waste.
(d) One cannot move into the leisure class.

2. To what agency does Veblen attribute industrial man's faith in luck?
(a) The unseen hand.
(b) Spirits of a place.
(c) God.
(d) The spirit of the times.

3. According to Veblen, what effect does education have on the leisure class?
(a) It teaches the values of the leisure class and hands them down.
(b) It preserves the values of the leisure class from the its own apostasy.
(c) It teaches the leisure class the middle class values it will need to survive.
(d) It opens the leisure class to the new rich in each generation.

4. What promotes the predatory aptitudes and predatory animus?
(a) Industrial labor.
(b) Ownership.
(c) Pecuniary employments.
(d) Craftsmanship.

5. How does Veblen describe charitable organizations?
(a) As fundamentally economic.
(b) As semireligious.
(c) A somewhat militaristic.
(d) As grounded in competition for status.

6. How does a belief in luck have an effect on efficiency?
(a) It fills people with idle hopes.
(b) It shifts people's attention to nonmaterial forces.
(c) It is a deviation from matter-of-fact sequences.
(d) It consumes time in speculation.

7. What does Veblen say happens to the anthropomorphic cult as time goes by?
(a) It disintegrates.
(b) It becomes rigid.
(c) It evolves into democracy.
(d) It loses adherents.

8. What does Veblen say is the reason for gambling?
(a) Longing for riches.
(b) Failure to be convinced of the value of labor.
(c) A belief in luck.
(d) Distrust in the economic system.

9. Under what conditions is there a quasi-peaceful stage in Western culture, according to Veblen?
(a) When money becomes the measure of social status.
(b) When technology makes life easier.
(c) When status is the dominant feature of life.
(d) When the draft is ended.

10. What form does Veblen say the pressure to change takes?
(a) Emergencies.
(b) Crises.
(c) Pecuniary exigencies.
(d) The threat of war.

11. Where does Veblen say the leisure class lived during his time?
(a) Beyond the industrial community.
(b) Within the industrial community.
(c) Near the industrial community.
(d) Above the industrial community.

12. How does Veblen describe anthropomorphic cults?
(a) As predatory cultures.
(b) As antepredatory cultures.
(c) As distractions for industrial classes.
(d) As external features of devout observances.

13. According to Veblen, there is a natural selection among what?
(a) Production techniques.
(b) Forms of consumption.
(c) Forms of wastefulness.
(d) Ethnic types.

14. Why do existing institutions foster the propagation of a particular type of person?
(a) Because he will bring his family into the institution.
(b) Because he fosters the development of social cohesion.
(c) Because he fosters the institution.
(d) Because he propagates within his family.

15. What does Veblen cite as an example of gambling in organizations designed for devout observances?
(a) Dating nights.
(b) Church raffles.
(c) Donations to charities.
(d) Bingo.

Short Answer Questions

1. What is it that Veblen says survives as society changes?

2. How does Veblen describe the industrial classes' relationship with sports?

3. What does Veblen see as evidence of the martial spirit in the leisure class?

4. To which group does the selection process seem to apply least?

5. Which holiday does Veblen cite as an example of holidays being vicarious leisure?

(see the answer keys)

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