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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What does Veblen mean by exoteric knowledge?

2. What does Veblen cite as an example of gambling in organizations designed for devout observances?

3. Under what heading does Veblen put sports and fighting and other manifestations of the predatory temperament?

4. Whose traits does Veblen say the leisure class propagates?

5. To what does Veblen say that education is similar?

Short Essay Questions

1. How does Veblen's book reveal Darwin's influence?

2. How does education form the leisure class?

3. How does the workman manifest his animistic view about luck?

4. How do the leisure classes change over time?

5. Which classes duel? Which classes fight?

6. How are industries ranked?

7. How are leisure-class women like members of the clergy?

8. How does Veblen describe the difference between esoteric and exoteric knowledge?

9. What are the effects of devout observances?

10. How do sports demonstrate belief in luck, or semireligious sentiment?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Are status symbols necessary? If social status is a fact of life for middle-class (leisure-class) people in industrial society, are status symbols necessities, or are they luxuries? Is Veblen being puritanical to see them as luxuries when pragmatically they are requirements for participation in culture?

Essay Topic 2

How are women of the leisure class different from men? How are their roles and responsibilities different? How are they the same? Do women express traits of other classes besides the leisure class? If so, what are those traits.

Essay Topic 3

Is Veblen critical of the leisure class, or is his work simply descriptive of their habits? Use the text and any social, biographical, or cultural research to define Veblen's feelings about the leisure class.

(see the answer keys)

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