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

Multiple Choice Questions

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

2. What does Veblen mean by exoteric knowledge?
(a) Knowledge of social status and tradition.
(b) Knowledge of the industrial process.
(c) Knowledge of skeletons and underlying structures.
(d) Knowledge of geology and planetary physics.

3. In which temperament does Veblen say that gambling originates?
(a) The leisure sentiment.
(b) The predatory sentiment.
(c) The agricultural sentiment.
(d) The barbarian sentiment.

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

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

6. 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 propagates within his family.
(d) Because he fosters the institution.

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

8. Whose traits does Veblen say the leisure class propagates?
(a) Its children's.
(b) The traits it generates out of itself.
(c) Earlier cultures'.
(d) The Romans'.

9. How does Veblen say the clothing of worshipers differs from daily clothing?
(a) It is more devout.
(b) It is more ornate and expensive.
(c) It is less comfortable.
(d) It is simpler.

10. 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.

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

12. What two classes does Veblen distinguish between?
(a) Aesthetic and industrial classes.
(b) Acquisition and production classes.
(c) Production and distribution classes.
(d) Consumption and waste classes.

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

14. 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 expose them as imitations of archaic religions.
(c) He says that he wants to show how they are part of culture.
(d) He says that he wants people to see them as conspicuous waste.

15. According to Veblen, how do men's attitudes change as they acquire more and more pecuniary interest in their work?
(a) They take more pride in it.
(b) They begin to give more to charity.
(c) They become more ashamed of it.
(d) They begin to spend more time with their families.

Short Answer Questions

1. What, in Veblen's description, does education accomplish?

2. What is the state of the institution with regard to the present moment?

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

4. Where does Veblen say the leisure class lived during his time?

5. Which organization does Veblen cite as an example of an organization whose existence is related to devout observance?

(see the answer keys)

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