Hopefully these give you some sense of the kinds of multiple choice questions I ask (best answers in boldface).

Which of the following is an example of free riding?

1. Marketing and selling passenger vehicles that weigh over 10,000 pounds and consume five times more gasoline than the average vehicle (people who buy these are using up much more of what’s left of the world’s oil, at a faster rate);
2. A nuclear power plant that produces energy so cheaply that it’s not even worth metering (an argument could be made for free riding here–if you can figure it out, you’ve got the concept down, but 1’s a much better answer);
3. two suspects are tried for armed bank robbery, but their lawyer gets their charges reduced to shoplifting because the arresting police officer didn’t read them their rights before interrogating them (‘non-sequitur,’ has nothing to do with the question).
4. one member of your group takes control of the assignment and alienates the rest of the group members, who decide to kick her out of their morning carpool (that’s a control freak, not a free rider…);

How might conservatives and liberals differ over how to address gambling as a social problem?

First, don’t distract yourself. This isn’t a question about gambling, it’s a question about political points of view. Gambling is just the template for thinking about them.

1. Conservatives: gambling is a personal choice; liberals: the government should protect problem gamblers from predatory practices and provide treatment programs (yes, see the table for more specifics). Conservatives are more likely to let markets decide–if people get fooled or don’t understand probabilities, that’s their education deficit, not the society’s problem. Liberals would say it’s in the state’s interest to protect people, yes, sometimes even from their own misguided tendencies;
2. Conservatives: support lottery and casino revenues as important funding sources for government programs; liberals: reduce the price of lottery tickets so that the less advantaged would have an equal opportunity to win (liberals wouldn’t take further advantage of poor by trying to get them to buy more lottery tickets, would they?? Conservatives might support gambling revenues to fund programs, instead of higher income tax rates);
3. Conservatives: pass a law increasing the lottery tax to fund treatment programs; liberals: seek to shut down gambling on moral and religious grounds (conservatives wouldn’t be for increasing taxes, especially to fund gambling treatment programs–it’s an issue of ‘personal responsibility,’ not government’s province. Liberals wouldn’t shut gambling down on religious grounds, that’s more of a conservative view, but some conservatives would take a more Libertarian stance and say it’s an infringement on freedoms);
4. Conservatives: regulate casino advertising that makes gambling seem glamorous and lucrative; liberals: remove all control and regulation from the industry and let the market decide who gambles (conservatives aren’t for more government regulation, it stifles innovation and investment, liberals support regulations where they feel it’s needed to protect the public from predatory business practices).

The notion that social problems are socially constructed or defined means that

1. it takes a lot of people and different groups within a society to construct a social problem (People don’t ‘construct’ social problems. They’re socially constructed in the sense they’re a product of society, but it’s not an intentional process of ‘construction’).
2. social problems are next to impossible to address without tearing down the existing power structure (Now that would be depressing, and dangerous for those seeking social change, but many social problems get addressed without revolution).
3. everyone agrees about what problem exist and how they should be addressed (Really? Does everyone agree on anything?? Common sense should have kicked in here).
4. what we know about a social problem may be influenced by groups in society with the most access to and influence over mass media (We’ve talked a lot about this–framing. And powerful groups are in a better position to use mass media to frame problems in self-serving ways).