20 CLEP Introductory Sociology practice questions, with answers and video walkthroughs

Twenty practice questions for CLEP Introductory Sociology, in the real exam's style. Score 16 of 20 here and you are in passing range. Miss more than four, and the pattern of your misses points straight at the topic to review next. Every question below is explained on video, including why the wrong answers trap most test-takers.

What students preparing for this exam tell us is that steady practice in the exam's format, with an explanation for every miss, is what moves a score. Use these the same way: answer, check, and read why the wrong choices are tempting. For the full plan around them, see the CLEP Introductory Sociology pillar guide.

Watch the full video walkthrough above, then test yourself on the twenty questions below. Each one is explained on the video, including why the wrong answers trap most test-takers.

Questions 1 to 5 (questions 1 to 5)

1. Which thinker coined the term "sociology" and argued that society could be studied with the same scientific methods used in the natural sciences? Auguste Comte. Auguste Comte named the new discipline sociology and championed positivism, the idea that society can be studied scientifically through observation. Marx, Weber, and Spencer were major thinkers too, but Comte gave the field its name.

2. A sociologist who studies how the family, the economy, and religion each work together to keep society stable is using which theoretical perspective? Structural Functionalism. Structural functionalism views society as a system of interlocking parts, each serving a function that keeps the whole stable. Studying how institutions work together to maintain order is the hallmark of the functionalist view.

3. The conflict perspective in sociology is most closely associated with the ideas of: Karl Marx. The conflict perspective grows out of Karl Marx's focus on the struggle between social classes over scarce resources and power. Comte and Parsons lean functionalist, and Mead is the founder of symbolic interactionism.

4. A researcher poses as a regular member of a group and observes its members over many months without telling them she is studying them. This research method is called: Participant Observation. Participant observation means joining a group and taking part in its activities while observing it firsthand. Surveys use questionnaires, experiments manipulate variables, and secondary analysis reuses data others collected.

5. In an experiment, the factor the researcher deliberately changes to see its effect is the: Independent Variable. The independent variable is the cause the researcher manipulates, and the dependent variable is the effect that is measured. If you change study hours to see how test scores respond, study hours are the independent variable.

Questions 6 to 10 (questions 6 to 10)

6. Norms that a society considers morally significant, such as prohibitions against stealing, are called: Mores. Mores are norms with strong moral weight, and violating them brings serious disapproval. Folkways are everyday customs whose violation is merely rude, while sanctions are the rewards and punishments that enforce any norm.

7. The process by which people learn the values, norms, and behaviors of their culture is known as: Socialization. Socialization is the lifelong process of learning a culture's expectations through family, school, peers, and media. Assimilation and acculturation describe contact between cultures, not the basic way a person learns to be a member of society.

8. Judging another culture by the standards of one's own, and seeing one's own culture as superior, is called: Ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is using your own culture as the yardstick and viewing other ways of life as inferior. Its opposite, cultural relativism, asks you to understand a culture on its own terms.

9. According to Charles Horton Cooley, the "looking-glass self" describes how a person's self-image is shaped by: How They Imagine Others See Them. Cooley's looking-glass self says we develop a sense of who we are by imagining how others perceive and judge us, and then reacting to that imagined view. The self is built socially, through reflection in others, not from biology or class alone.

10. George Herbert Mead used the term "the generalized other" to refer to: A Person's Awareness of Society's Overall Expectations. Mead's generalized other is the internalized sense of the attitudes and expectations of society as a whole. Taking the role of the generalized other lets a person see themselves from the standpoint of the larger community.

Questions 11 to 15 (questions 11 to 15)

11. A society in which a person's social position is fixed at birth and movement between strata is essentially impossible is organized as a: Caste System. A caste system assigns status at birth and forbids movement between ranks, often reinforced by custom or religion. A class system, by contrast, allows at least some social mobility based on achievement.

12. A doctor's son who becomes a sociology professor, ending up in a different social class than his father, is an example of: Vertical Mobility. Vertical mobility is movement up or down between social classes across positions of unequal rank. Horizontal mobility would be a move between jobs of roughly the same status, with no change in class standing.

13. The recognized social position a person occupies, such as "teacher" or "daughter," is called a: Status. In sociology a status is the position itself, while a role is the set of behaviors expected of someone in that position. A teacher holds the status of teacher and performs the role that goes with it.

14. A status that a person is assigned at birth or takes on involuntarily, such as race or age, is best described as a(n): Ascribed Status. An ascribed status is given involuntarily, independent of effort or choice, such as the age or sex one is born into. An achieved status, like becoming a lawyer, is earned through one's own actions.

15. The conflicting demands placed on a person by the several different roles attached to a single status, such as a manager who must befriend and discipline the same employees, is called: Role Strain. Role strain is the tension produced by competing demands WITHIN one status. It differs from role conflict, which is tension BETWEEN two separate statuses a person holds at the same time.

Questions 16 to 20 (questions 16 to 20)

16. Emile Durkheim used the term "anomie" to describe: A Breakdown of Social Norms and Regulation. Durkheim's anomie is a condition of normlessness, where the shared rules guiding behavior weaken or break down, often during rapid social change. He linked rising anomie to social problems including higher rates of suicide.

17. Robert Merton's strain theory explains deviance as the result of: A Gap Between Cultural Goals and the Legitimate Means to Reach Them. Merton's strain theory holds that deviance arises when society pushes everyone toward goals like wealth but denies some groups legitimate means to achieve them. That gap pressures people into deviant routes such as crime.

18. Labeling theory argues that whether an act is deviant depends mainly on: How Others React to and Label the Act. Labeling theory says no act is inherently deviant; deviance comes from the social reaction that tags a person and the act as deviant. Once attached, that label can reshape how a person sees themselves and how others treat them.

19. The sociological term for the spread of cultural traits, such as technology or customs, from one society to another is: Cultural Diffusion. Cultural diffusion is the borrowing and spread of cultural elements from one group to another, like a food or technology crossing borders. Cultural lag, by contrast, is the delay between a material change and the catch-up of beliefs and customs.

20. According to Max Weber, the defining feature of a bureaucracy is its: System of Explicit Rules and a Clear Hierarchy of Offices. Weber described bureaucracy as an ideal type built on written rules, a clear chain of command, a division of labor, and impersonal treatment of cases. Those features make it efficient but also impersonal, the iron cage Weber warned about.

What to do with your score

The point of twenty questions is not the twenty, it is the pattern. Mark which topic each miss came from, then spend your next session on that topic alone. None of it requires starting over, only tightening the spots that cost you points.

A single twenty-question set is a snapshot, not a study plan. To pass with margin you need volume: enough questions, in the exam's format, with explanations that turn a wrong answer into a correction. That is what Flying Prep's CLEP Introductory Sociology practice is built for: every question explained, with a free trial before you decide.