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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What does Veblen say fighting does for lower-class delinquents?
(a) Veblen says that it asserts manhood.
(b) Veblen says that it culls the weak.
(c) Veblen says that it settles property disputes.
(d) Veblen says that it threatens the upper classes.

2. Under what heading does Veblen put sports and fighting and other manifestations of the predatory temperament?
(a) Unproductive aggression.
(b) Disgruntlement.
(c) Savagery.
(d) Exploitation.

3. What does Veblen say about his purposes in describing anthropomorphic cults?
(a) He says that he judges them for their detachment from Christian principles.
(b) He says that he wants to show how they are part of culture.
(c) He says that he wants to expose them as imitations of archaic religions.
(d) He says that he wants people to see them as conspicuous waste.

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

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

6. What doctrine does education contribute to, in Veblen's opinion?
(a) The doctrine of peace through prosperity.
(b) The doctrine of laissez-faire government.
(c) The doctrine of pecuniary merit.
(d) The doctrine os nonaggression.

7. In what activity do delinquents rival the leisure class?
(a) Unproductive leisure.
(b) Production.
(c) Consumption.
(d) Fighting.

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

9. What happens as the lower classes are educated and depend on the leisure class?
(a) They become more restless and aggressive.
(b) They become more likely to seize the means of production.
(c) They become more dependent on ritual.
(d) They become more resigned to their class.

10. How does Veblen describe the industrial classes' relationship with sports?
(a) As a form of warfare.
(b) As an occasional diversion.
(c) As an addiction.
(d) As a passion.

11. Selective adaptation governs what?
(a) The fashion from year to year.
(b) The display of wealth.
(c) Who works for whom.
(d) Who survives socially.

12. What does Veblen say the act of worshiping appeals to?
(a) The sense of status.
(b) The desire for order.
(c) The need to be dominated.
(d) The sense of communal devotion.

13. To what does Veblen compare the martial spirit in lower-class delinquents?
(a) Youthful impetuosity.
(b) The state of war.
(c) The college spirit in sports.
(d) Drunkenness.

14. What, in Veblen's description, does education accomplish?
(a) It forms habits and thoughts.
(b) It opens the leisure class to newly wealthy people.
(c) It lays the foundation for inventions.
(d) It drives the expansion of the leisure class.

15. What does the belief in luck accompany?
(a) Belief in immortality.
(b) Loss of faith in religion.
(c) Resistance to industrialism.
(d) Development of status.

Short Answer Questions

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

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

3. In which temperament does Veblen say that gambling originates?

4. What does Veblen say happens to the anthropomorphic cult as time goes by?

5. How does Veblen say the clothing of worshipers differs from daily clothing?

(see the answer keys)

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