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

Multiple Choice Questions

1. What is the term Veblen uses for the belief that a sports event can be influenced by outside factors?
(a) Hamartia.
(b) Animism.
(c) Mysticism.
(d) Hamingia.

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

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

4. Why, according to Veblen, do the leisure class's traits survive?
(a) Because the leisure class is sheltered.
(b) Because the leisure class is an open society.
(c) Because the leisure class is cosmopolitan.
(d) Because the leisure class is resistent to adaptation.

5. When, according to Veblen, does a devout or pious organization decline?
(a) When its work becomes ostentatious.
(b) When the economy contracts.
(c) When the tastes of the leisure class change.
(d) When the economy reaches its greatest efficiency.

6. What does Veblen call learning?
(a) Participation in class distinction.
(b) Delight and instruction.
(c) Sympathetic magic.
(d) Submission to eternal truth.

7. What age does Veblen say worshiping corresponds to?
(a) The industrial age.
(b) The barbarian age.
(c) The antepredatory age.
(d) The peaceful age.

8. What is education's relationship with the supernatural, according to Veblen?
(a) Education gives people knowledge for their devout observances.
(b) Education provides the agents of growth and individual development that prove the doctrine of divine grace.
(c) Education proves the correctness of church doctrine.
(d) Education allows people to live by reason instead of superstition.

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

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

11. What does Veblen mean by esoteric knowledge?
(a) Knowledge that questions the nature of God.
(b) Knowledge that is applied to industry.
(c) Knowledge that has nothing to do with industry.
(d) Knowledge that can be developed in an industrial capacity.

12. What does Veblen say was the center of modern communities during his time?
(a) Nostalgia for nature.
(b) Industrial efficiency.
(c) The guilt inherited from wars.
(d) The inherited triumphs from wars.

13. What does Veblen see as evidence of the martial spirit in the leisure class?
(a) Dueling.
(b) Competitive business practices.
(c) Monopolies.
(d) Lawsuits.

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

15. What effect does Veblen say gambling has on industrial efficiency?
(a) Its effect is unpredictable.
(b) It increases industrial efficiency.
(c) It motivates people by increasing debt.
(d) It is a hindrance.

Short Answer Questions

1. Why, according to Veblen, were women excluded from education?

2. What is it that forces the resistant social classes to adapt to new conditions?

3. What is affected by the institution of a social class?

4. How does a belief in luck have an effect on efficiency?

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

(see the answer keys)

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