View a FREE sample

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

Short Answer Questions

1. How many nonprofit organizations were there per 1,000 inhabitants in Vermont?

2. Who said, "It is a medium of entertainment that permits millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time, and yet remain lonesome."

3. In Figure 59, what percent of Americans spent their evenings watching TV?

4. In 1959, how many American homes had television?

5. Who was the first American Nobel Laureate for literature?

Short Essay Questions

1. Materially, how did the standard of living improve in the United States during the 50 years after the Civil War?

2. What did Putnam believe that leaders and activists must seek to do to rebuild social capital?

3. Why did John Stuart Mill laud the effects of participatory democracy on character?

4. Why did Putnam believe that there was an increase in nostalgia in the late twentieth century?

5. What characteristics did criminologist Robert J. Sampson see in communities that had increased crime and violence?

6. Why did circumstantial evidence suggest that big government caused civic disengagement?

7. What did teachers report in areas where civic engagement in community affairs in general was high?

8. What was different about American males in their sixties and seventies at the end of the twentieth century than their grandsons?

9. What did Putnam see as a trend in newspaper readership?

10. How might social capital serve as a physiological triggering mechanism?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Seniors volunteered in greater numbers in the 1990s than in the 1970s. Discuss why more seniors were volunteering in the 1990s than at any other time.

Essay Topic 2

Some generations were introduced to television as adults, and some generations grew up with television. Discuss television viewing and how viewing television is different among different generations.

Essay Topic 3

Putnam looked at official membership as a barometer of community involvement. Discuss how official membership could be a measurement of community involvement and what membership showed about civic involvement.

(see the answer keys)

This section contains 699 words (approx. 3 pages at 300 words per page) View a FREE sample