Free MCAT-style practice, 10A
MCAT Social Class, Mobility and Poverty Practice Questions
Nine free MCAT-style practice questions on stratification, SES, social mobility, meritocracy, absolute and relative poverty, social capital and social reproduction, with full explanations.
Quick concept primer
Stratification is the ranking of people into layers with unequal access to resources. Socioeconomic status combines income, education and occupation (and often wealth). Theories disagree about why stratification exists: the Davis-Moore thesis, a functionalist view, holds that unequal rewards attract talent to important roles, while conflict theorists such as Marx see inequality as the result of ownership and power. Social mobility can be vertical or horizontal, intergenerational (compared with parents) or intragenerational (within one career), and structural when changes in the economy move many people at once.
Poverty can be absolute, a fixed standard of basic needs, or relative, defined against typical income, often 50 or 60 percent of the median. Social capital is the value of relationships: bonding ties link similar people, bridging ties link different groups. Bourdieu argued that cultural capital, such as familiarity with institutions and valued tastes, helps families pass advantage to children, a process called social reproduction; Lareau's comparison of concerted cultivation and natural growth is a well-known example. Critics of meritocracy point to advantages tied to birth that shape who succeeds.
Traps: a correlation between SES and health does not settle which causes which, and a relative poverty line moves when median income moves.
9 practice questions
Question 1
A woman whose father worked on a factory assembly line becomes a corporate lawyer. Which type of social mobility does this best illustrate?
- Intragenerational horizontal mobility
- Intergenerational vertical mobility
- Structural horizontal mobility
- Exchange intragenerational mobility
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. Intergenerational vertical mobility
The comparison is between a parent and a child, so the mobility is intergenerational, and the move from manual labor to a high-prestige profession is a change in rank, so it is vertical (upward). Horizontal mobility keeps a similar rank, and intragenerational mobility tracks one person across their own career.
Question 2
A historical study of one country reports the share of jobs by sector.
| Sector | Share of jobs, 1960 | Share of jobs, 2000 |
|---|---|---|
| Agriculture | 30 percent | 5 percent |
| Manufacturing | 35 percent | 20 percent |
| Professional and service | 35 percent | 75 percent |
The researchers find that many children of farmers moved into office work. The mobility created by this shift in the occupational structure is best called:
- exchange mobility.
- horizontal mobility.
- structural mobility.
- intragenerational downward mobility.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. structural mobility.
Professional and service jobs rose by 40 percentage points (from 35 to 75 percent), while farming fell by 25 points. When changes in the economy open new positions and close old ones, many people move at once; this is structural mobility. Exchange mobility occurs when people trade places within an unchanged structure.
Question 3
In a country, median household income is 60,000 dollars. A researcher examines five households.
| Household | Annual income (dollars) |
|---|---|
| H1 | 32,000 |
| H2 | 38,000 |
| H3 | 35,500 |
| H4 | 41,000 |
| H5 | 22,000 |
Using a relative poverty line set at 60 percent of median income, how many of these households are in relative poverty?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. 3
60 percent of 60,000 is 36,000 dollars. H1 (32,000), H3 (35,500) and H5 (22,000) fall below it, so three households qualify, while H2 and H4 are above it. Using a 50 percent line (30,000) would count only H5, which is the trap in choice A.
Question 4
A government defines poverty as lacking the income needed to buy a fixed basket of food, housing and clothing, adjusted each year only for inflation. This approach measures:
- relative poverty.
- absolute poverty.
- social reproduction.
- the culture of poverty.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: B. absolute poverty.
Absolute poverty is defined against a fixed standard of basic needs that does not change when typical incomes rise. Relative poverty is defined against the income of others, such as a share of the median. Social reproduction is the transmission of advantage across generations, and the culture of poverty is a contested explanation of poverty, not a measure.
Question 5
A study of recent immigrants finds that those who joined a citywide professional association with members from many backgrounds found jobs in their field faster than those whose contacts were mostly relatives from their hometown. The association members benefited most from which resource?
- Bonding social capital
- Cultural capital
- Bridging social capital
- Symbolic capital
Show answer and explanation
Answer: C. Bridging social capital
Bridging social capital comes from ties that cross group boundaries and connect people to new information and opportunities. Ties among relatives from the same hometown are bonding social capital, which provides support but often repeats information already known. Cultural capital refers to knowledge, skills and tastes, not to relationships.
Question 6
In a hypothetical ethnographic study, middle-class parents enroll their children in many organized activities and coach them to ask questions of doctors and teachers, while working-class parents allow more unstructured play and defer to professionals. The researcher argues that these differences help pass class position from parents to children. This argument most directly describes:
- social reproduction through cultural capital.
- meritocracy.
- structural mobility.
- absolute poverty.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. social reproduction through cultural capital.
The study mirrors Lareau's contrast between concerted cultivation and natural growth. Skills such as confident negotiation with institutions are cultural capital that schools and employers reward, so class advantage is reproduced across generations. Meritocracy would attribute outcomes to talent and effort alone, and structural mobility concerns changes in the economy.
Question 7
Each of the following is a common critique of the claim that a society is a meritocracy EXCEPT:
- legacy admissions give some applicants an advantage based on family ties.
- wealthy families can pay for tutoring, test preparation and unpaid internships.
- school funding tied to local property taxes gives some students more resources.
- rewards are distributed according to talent and effort, so positions reflect ability.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. rewards are distributed according to talent and effort, so positions reflect ability.
Choice D restates the meritocratic claim itself rather than criticizing it. Legacy preferences, paid advantages and unequal school funding are all critiques, because each lets family background, not only talent and effort, shape outcomes. Michael Young, who coined the term, used it in a satire warning about such a system.
Question 8
A hypothetical health survey reports diabetes rates by household income quintile.
| Income quintile | Diabetes cases per 1,000 adults |
|---|---|
| Lowest | 120 |
| Second | 96 |
| Third | 80 |
| Fourth | 66 |
| Highest | 50 |
Which conclusion is best supported?
- Health improves stepwise across the income range, and the lowest quintile's rate is 2.4 times the highest's, though the data alone cannot establish causation.
- Only the poorest quintile differs; the other quintiles have essentially equal rates.
- The data prove that low income causes diabetes.
- The lowest quintile's rate is 70 percent higher than the highest quintile's.
Show answer and explanation
Answer: A. Health improves stepwise across the income range, and the lowest quintile's rate is 2.4 times the highest's, though the data alone cannot establish causation.
Rates fall at every step up the income ladder, the pattern called the SES health gradient, and 120 divided by 50 is 2.4. A survey cannot separate social causation (low SES harms health) from health selection (illness lowers income). 70 cases per 1,000 is the absolute difference, which is 140 percent higher, not 70 percent.
Question 9
A sociologist argues that surgeons earn far more than cashiers because societies must offer large rewards to persuade talented people to undergo long training for the most important and demanding positions. Which perspective does this argument represent?
- Marxist conflict theory
- Symbolic interactionism
- Social reproduction theory
- The Davis-Moore thesis
Show answer and explanation
Answer: D. The Davis-Moore thesis
The Davis-Moore thesis is the functionalist explanation of stratification: unequal rewards are a mechanism that fills functionally important roles with qualified people. Marxist conflict theory instead explains inequality through ownership and exploitation, and social reproduction theory stresses how advantage is inherited. Symbolic interactionism studies meaning in interaction, not rewards for roles.