20 DSST General Anthropology practice questions, with answers and video walkthroughs

Twenty practice questions for DSST General Anthropology, 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 DSST General Anthropology 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 of the four fields of anthropology studies living humans as a biological species, including human evolution, genetics, and the great apes? Physical Anthropology. Physical anthropology, also called biological anthropology, studies humans as a biological species. It covers human evolution, genetics, variation, and our primate relatives, while archaeology studies the material remains of past cultures.

2. The detailed, firsthand description of a living culture produced by an anthropologist who lives among the people being studied is called: An Ethnography. An ethnography is the written, firsthand account of a culture based on long-term fieldwork. The method of living among a people to observe daily life is called participant observation, which Bronisław Malinowski helped pioneer.

3. The idea that a culture should be understood and judged on its own terms, rather than by the standards of the observer's culture, is known as: Cultural Relativism. Cultural relativism means evaluating a culture by its own values and context instead of your own. Its opposite is ethnocentrism, judging another culture as inferior because it differs from your own.

4. Judging another culture as inferior or wrong simply because it differs from your own is called: Ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the tendency to see your own culture as the natural standard and to judge others against it. Anthropologists guard against it by practicing cultural relativism in the field.

5. Anthropology is often described as holistic. This means anthropologists: Study the Whole of Human Experience Across Time and Place. A holistic approach means looking at human life as an integrated whole, linking biology, language, the past, and culture rather than studying any one piece in isolation. That breadth is why anthropology has four fields.

Questions 6 to 10 (questions 6 to 10)

6. The famous 3.2-million-year-old partial skeleton nicknamed Lucy belongs to which species? Australopithecus Afarensis. Lucy is an Australopithecus afarensis, an early bipedal hominin from East Africa. She walked upright on two legs but still had a small, ape-sized brain, showing that walking upright came before big brains.

7. Among the human lineage, which trait appeared earliest in evolution? Walking Upright on Two Legs. Bipedalism, walking on two legs, is the oldest defining human trait. Fossils like Lucy and the Laetoli footprints show upright walking millions of years before the brain expanded to its modern size.

8. Which early member of the genus Homo is most closely associated with the first simple stone tools, found in Olduvai Gorge? Homo Habilis. Homo habilis, whose name means handy man, is linked to the earliest Oldowan stone tools. The remains and tools from Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania gave this toolmaking species its association with early technology.

9. The species Homo erectus is best known as the first hominin to: Migrate Out of Africa and Control Fire. Homo erectus was the first hominin to spread out of Africa into Asia and Europe and is widely linked to the controlled use of fire. Farming and cave art came much later, with anatomically modern humans.

10. The Neanderthals were a population of: Archaic Humans Who Lived in Ice-age Europe and Asia. Neanderthals were archaic humans adapted to cold Ice-Age Europe and western Asia. They made tools and buried their dead, overlapped with modern humans, and then disappeared, leaving a trace of their DNA in living people.

Questions 11 to 15 (questions 11 to 15)

11. The shift from hunting and gathering to farming and herding, which allowed permanent villages, is called the: Neolithic Revolution. The Neolithic Revolution was the domestication of plants and animals that let people settle in one place. Food surpluses then supported larger populations, specialized labor, and eventually cities.

12. In archaeology, the principle that lower, deeper layers of soil are generally older than the layers above them is called: Stratigraphy. Stratigraphy reads the layers of an excavation site: undisturbed deeper layers were laid down earlier, so they are older than the layers on top. It lets archaeologists put finds in relative time order.

13. Which dating method measures the decay of a specific isotope to estimate the age of once-living material such as bone, wood, or charcoal? Radiocarbon Dating. Radiocarbon dating measures the steady decay of carbon-14 in formerly living material. Because the decay rate is known, the amount remaining tells archaeologists roughly how long ago the organism died.

14. The earliest cities and states, marked by writing, social classes, and monumental architecture, first arose in: Mesopotamia and Other River Valleys. The first states emerged in fertile river valleys such as Mesopotamia, along with Egypt's Nile, the Indus, and the Yellow River. Reliable water and farmland supported the dense populations that cities require.

15. Anthropologists generally classify a small, mobile hunting-and-gathering society with no formal leaders and decisions made by consensus as a: Band. A band is the smallest and least hierarchical kind of society, typical of foragers, with leadership informal and based on consensus. Bands, tribes, chiefdoms, and states form a common scale of rising political complexity.

Questions 16 to 20 (questions 16 to 20)

16. A group of people who consider themselves related by descent from a common ancestor is called a: A Lineage. A lineage is a kin group whose members trace descent from a known common ancestor. Lineages are a basic building block of kinship systems and often organize land, marriage, and inheritance.

17. A marriage system in which one man is married to two or more women at the same time is called: Polygyny. Polygyny is one husband with multiple wives and is the most common form of polygamy worldwide. Polyandry, by contrast, is one wife with multiple husbands and is far rarer.

18. The custom by which a newly married couple is expected to live with or near the husband's family is called: Patrilocal Residence. Patrilocal residence has the couple settle with the husband's kin. Matrilocal residence places them with the wife's kin, and neolocal residence, common in the United States, sets up a new household of their own.

19. The hypothesis that the language a person speaks shapes the way that person perceives and thinks about the world is associated with: Sapir and Whorf. The idea that language shapes thought is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also called linguistic relativity. It is named for the linguists Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf.

20. The belief that natural objects, places, and living things possess a spirit or soul is called: Animism. Animism is the belief that spirits inhabit natural features, animals, and objects. The term was made famous by the early anthropologist Edward Tylor, who treated it as a basic and widespread form of religion.

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 DSST General Anthropology practice is built for: every question explained, with a free trial before you decide.