Oxford University Press | Online Resource Centre

Choose your answer by clicking the radio button next to your choice and then press 'Submit' to get your score.

Question 1

What is ideology?

a) A type of belief-system favoured by extremists.

b) A science devoted to the discovery of unquestionable truths.

c) A set of ideas which typically provides a description of things as they are, portrays an ideal political order, and suggests how that ideal could be attained.

d) The characteristic outlook of people who are not clever enough to understand the work of political philosophers.

Question 2

Why have liberalism and socialism been powerful ideologies since the late eighteenth century?

a) In different ways they embodied the ideals of the Enlightenment.

b) They appealed to social groups which had been fostered by the industrial revolution.

c) Both were expounded in a series of classic writings by great thinkers.

d) All of the above.

Question 3

Liberal ideology...

a) was invented in the eighteenth century to serve the interests of the British Liberal Party.

b) developed as a hostile response to the emergence of industrial capitalism.

c) is a compromise between socialism and conservatism.

d) Is a long-established creed which focuses on individual freedom.

Question 4

Classical liberalism began to be questioned in the late nineteenth century mainly because...

a) the British Liberal Party was in steep decline.

b) the industrial revolution had generated widespread poverty and social problems.

c) political thinkers were anxious to strike a compromise with socialism.

d) in practice it had led to excessive state intervention.

Question 5

Why do Liberals favour the free market economy?

a) They feel that individuals are rational enough to be left to pursue their own economic interests.

b) Most of them are closely connected to big business.

c) They think that poverty is a good way of ensuring social control.

d) They regard human existence as taking place in a 'state of nature', in which cut-throat competition is perfectly justified.

Question 6

Karl Marx disagreed with many socialist thinkers because...

a) they did not approve of totalitarian government.

b) they were a bit squeamish about the use of violence to secure political change.

c) their ideas were not based on 'scientific' methods.

d) they were not affiliated to a trade union.

Question 7

Why did 'evolutionary' socialism develop?

a) Some of Marx's predictions about social developments had not been verified in practice

b) Socialists grew more nervous about the prospect of violent revolution

c) Universal suffrage had removed all the grievances of the working class

d) The Soviet Union had utterly discredited Marx's ideas

Question 8

The socialist view of human nature assumes that...

a) human beings are easily led.

b) human beings are naturally competitive.

c) human beings are driven by envy.

d) human character is radically affected by circumstances.

Question 9

Characteristically, conservatives are...

a) opposed to 'rationalism'.

b) supportive of the tried and trusted in preference to the experimental.

c) believers in 'organic' society.

d) all of the above.

Question 10

Why is it difficult to conceive of nationalism as an ideology like liberalism or socialism?

a) Its advocates are driven by emotion rather than reason.

b) It does not prescribe any specific form of government.

c) It creates tensions within and between established states.

d) It is irrelevant in an increasingly 'globalized' international context.

Oxford University Press, Online Resource Centre, Chapter 5.

Chapter 5

Instructions