Take this Exam: A-Level Sociology: beliefs in society | Zestly

Question 1

In an invented town, a Sunday headcount at every place of worship comes to roughly one person in ten, while a survey of the same town asking what people do privately finds that most say they pray or keep some observance at home. A local paper prints the headcount as proof that religion in the town has died. Why do the two figures together settle less than that headline claims?

Accepted Answer

Because the two measure different things: a headcount records public, organised participation, while belief held privately leaves no attendance record at all, so a fall in the first is consistent both with belief declining and with belief continuing outside the institutions.

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Because the second figure proves the town is becoming more religious, since more people pray than attend.

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Because people always misreport religion when asked, so the second figure can simply be discarded.

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Because the headcount proves the town has secularised, and what people do at home is habit rather than belief.

Question 2

Statistics show that women are more likely than men to participate in religious activities in the 'Haven' community. Sociologists suggest several reasons for this, including differences in socialisation, the nature of paid and unpaid work, and attitudes towards risk. Which statement best reflects the sociological approach to this gendered pattern?

Accepted Answer

The pattern is explained by a range of social factors, such as women's roles in socialisation and their different experiences of risk and employment.

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The pattern is clearly biological, as women are naturally more inclined to be religious than men.

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The pattern is entirely due to women having more free time than men to attend services.

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The pattern is a result of men being discouraged from participating by religious leaders.

Question 3

In one city, a community that arrived within the last two generations attends its places of worship far more often than the population it settled among. A councillor says this shows the community is more devout by nature. What does the case actually support?

Accepted Answer

That participation here is doing work beyond worship: a congregation is also where a language is kept up, where newcomers are pointed towards work and housing, and where an identity under pressure is held together — which is a claim about a situation rather than about anybody's nature.

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That the wider population has given up belief altogether, since it attends less often.

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That participation will necessarily remain at this level in the generations that follow, since religious identity does not change.

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That this community is by its nature more devout than the population it settled among.

Question 4

A group of scientists once held that a specific particle existed, but after a series of experiments failed to detect it, they publicly abandoned the claim. What does this reveal about science as a belief system in the eyes of sociologists?

Answer

Science is a closed belief system because it requires scientists to have faith in their peers.

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Science is not a belief system at all because it deals only with objective facts.

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Science is a closed belief system because it is controlled by a small group of experts.

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Science is an open belief system because its knowledge claims are subject to testing and can be falsified.

Question 5

A political group publishes a pamphlet arguing that the current distribution of wealth is 'natural' and 'inevitable', despite evidence that it is the result of specific historical policies that benefit the wealthy. Why do sociologists describe this as an ideology?

Answer

Because the pamphlet is written by people who are mistaken about the facts.

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Because the ideas serve to justify the interests of a powerful group by presenting their position as the only possible reality.

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Because the ideas are religious in nature and therefore cannot be proven.

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Because the pamphlet is clearly lying to the public.

Question 6

A movement forms in a region where work, media and family life have all changed more in twenty years than in the previous hundred. It insists on a single authoritative text read as literally true, draws a sharp line between those inside the movement and everyone else, and rejects the suggestion that its teaching might be adapted to the times. Sociologists would call this pattern fundamentalism. What does that term pick out?

Answer

Any strongly held religious conviction, since anyone who takes a scripture seriously is a fundamentalist.

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A survival of an older form of religion that modern life has simply not yet reached.

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A type of response to rapid change — certainty and firm boundaries asserted against it — which appears within many different traditions and is identified by that shape rather than by which faith the movement belongs to.

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A feature of one particular religion, which is why the word is used of that faith and not of others.