Application of Skills Directions: Apply the Knowledge You Have Gained from Chapter 5

question 16

Multiple Choice

Application of Skills
Directions: Apply the knowledge you have gained from Chapter 5 to select the best answer to the questions about the following reading passage.
¹ What is the Memorial Day parade like in your town? Who participates? What feelings do people have as they watch the parade? Throughout the world, significant social occasions are marked by parades. To sociologists and other keen observers, most parades are an occasion to observe people displaying many of the attributes of their societies that they value and enjoy.
² Although the parades on Memorial Day commemorate military sacrifice and service to the nation, these parades have many additional meanings for a sociologically observant spectator. In many communities, for example, despite the underlying sadness of the occasion, a spirit of pride and joyfulness is evident in the marchers and the crowds. For instance, children and teenagers may decorate their bicycles and ride alongside the marching bands and floats. School bands and organizations are often part of the contingent, as are many of the community's prominent citizens and elected offices. So much of the way a parade is organized as a purposeful display of what we value and how our society is changing. That a woman's marching band takes a prominent role in a parade in Washington, D.C., for example, tells us that gender equality and the role of women in the military is being emphasized by the parade's organizers. Decisions as to which groups and individuals will lead the parade tell us a good deal about who has power or recognition in the community.
³Parades may have religious significance, as when a town in Mexico or Central America gathers to parade its local saints through the joyful streets outside the church. The parade of worshippers who stream through the holy Muslim shrines of Mecca or Medina in Saudi Arabia attracts Muslims from throughout the world and presents a dazzling display of styles of dress and pious devotion.
⁴Parades may combine religious themes with celebrations of the people of the society themselves as well. For example, as we see in the annual Mardi Gras parade in New Orleans. There, an insightful observer can watch how people from different social backgrounds interact in the parade.
⁵Parades may also be revealing to a sociological observer who notes what groups are missing or underrepresented in the passing contingents and in the watching crowds of spectators. Young people from poor families and men and women of racial and ethnic minority status are likely to fight and die in wars in foreign lands. But are they adequately represented in the Memorial Day events? Are they represented among the parade's leaders? Where do they figure in the parade? Their presence or absence, and the places of honor they may be accorded, can tell us a good deal about the equity of sacrifice and recognition in the town or city.
 -Kornblum, Sociology in a Changing World , pp. 2-3
At the close of the passage, why does the author ask questions about people not represented in the parade?

• A) The author is reminding the reader of the thesis.
• B) The author is leaving the reader with a final idea to consider.
• C) The author wants to offer a solution to the problem.
• D) The author is summarizing the middle part.

Grasp the principle of marginal cost (MC) and marginal revenue (MR) equality for profit maximization.

Define economic, normal, and accounting profits and their significance to business decisions.

Appreciate the role of technology and resource prices in shaping industry cost structures and market dynamics.

Understand the historical significance and contributions of key movements, events, and individuals in the Progressive era.

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Definitions:

Pollution

The contamination of the natural environment by harmful substances or energies, often resulting from human activities.

Efficient

The condition in which resources are allocated in a way that maximizes the net benefit to society or achieves an optimal outcome where no one can be made better off without making someone else worse off.

Beneficiaries

Individuals or groups that receive benefits or advantages from something, especially from a trust, insurance policy, or will.

Socially Optimal

A situation in which resources are allocated in the most efficient way from the society's point of view, maximizing total welfare.