MH Cheat Sheet 2026

The 30 highest-yield MH facts, distilled from real exam questions. Print it, save it as a PDF, or study it here — free, no sign-up.

1. The 'is-ought' problem, articulated by David Hume, argues that: → Moral claims cannot be logically derived from factual statements alone
2. The 'out of Africa' hypothesis in paleoanthropology holds that: → Modern Homo sapiens originated in Africa and spread globally
3. Which argument for the existence of God concludes that God must exist because existence is a perfection? → The ontological argument
4. Edward Said's 'Orientalism' (1978) argues that Western scholarship on the 'Orient' primarily functions to: → Construct and justify Western power over non-Western peoples
5. What is the key distinction between langue and parole in Saussure's linguistics? → Langue is the abstract system of a language; parole is actual speech use by individuals
6. Which concept describes the practice of marrying outside one's own defined social group? → Exogamy
7. Differences are socioeconomic and cultural constructs, therefore equality and similarity are required (possible either within or without capitalism). → Liberal and socialist feminism (define)
8. What shared characteristics did the Epicureans and the Stoics have? → Both schools were looking for a way to avoid pain.
9. The concept of 'theodicy' in religious studies refers to the attempt to reconcile: → The existence of evil with the existence of an all-good, all-powerful God
10. Which of the following steps is included in the scientific process of investigation? → All of the above
11. Which philosopher introduced the concept of the 'lifeworld' (Lebenswelt) to describe the pre-theoretical, lived background of everyday experience? → Edmund Husserl
12. Golden: knowledge Silver: bravery Brass: moderation → Plato's 3 types of souls
13. The 'culture of poverty' thesis, associated with Oscar Lewis, has been criticized primarily because: → It blamed the poor for structural economic inequalities
14. In Lévi-Strauss's structuralist approach, myths from different cultures are analyzed to reveal: → Universal underlying binary oppositions in human thought
15. Which branch of linguistics studies how social factors such as age, gender, and class influence language variation? → Sociolinguistics
16. The arguer wants the premises to make the conclusion extremely likely or likely. → Inductive
17. Which phonological process refers to a sound becoming more like a neighboring sound? → Assimilation
18. In syntax, what does 'constituency' refer to? → Groupings of words that function as single units within a sentence structure
19. The morality theory relates to → Ethics
20. In contemporary debates about ethnographic authority, the 'Writing Culture' volume (1986) edited by Clifford and Marcus argued that: → Ethnographic texts are rhetorical constructs that reflect the author's power position
21. Which American author is best known for pioneering the 'stream of consciousness' technique in works like 'The Sound and the Fury'? → William Faulkner
22. Law and construction → 2 Things romans were good at
23. Which theoretical framework analyzes how museums construct meaning and exercise power over the objects they display? → New Museology
24. Semiotics is a term that was first used by → Charles sanders pierce
25. What is the primary concern of 'narratology' as a branch of literary theory? → The structure and function of narrative
26. Across the twelve tables → Roman law was codified where
27. In literary theory, what is the 'death of the author' as proposed by Roland Barthes? → The argument that the author's intentions are irrelevant to a text's meaning
28. What is the central claim of Thomas Nagel's influential paper 'What Is It Like to Be a Bat?' → Objective physical science cannot fully capture the subjective character of experience
29. Which literary period in American literature is most associated with the post-Civil War realism movement? → The Gilded Age
30. Who else besides William Faulkner uses the stream-of-consciousness writing style? → James Joyce