Ch 2: Reading 1: Communities and Online Groups

Which statement best expresses the main idea of the passage?

• a. There are several ways to judge whether online groups really are communities.

• b. Strengthening the sense of community in online groups is challenging

• c. The benefits of belonging to online communities outweigh the disadvantages.

• d. The fate of real-life communities in the digital age is yet to be seen.

Which of the following can be most strongly inferred from Paragraph 2 about the views of Durkheim, Zimmerman, and Bender?

• a. They believed that some groups are not communities.

• b. They believe that some groups were too large or small to be real communities.

• c. They thought it was impossible to define a community.

• d. They thought the family was the ideal unit of community.

The word STALWARTS in Paragraph 2 is closest in meaning to

• a. essential contents

• b. loyal users

• c. nearby sites

• d. official monitors

According to Paragraph 3, which of the following pairs gives an example of people who truly own something in common?

• a. contributors and Wikipedia

• b. frequent users and MySpace

• c. subscribers and Runescape

• d. villagers and their library

Which statement most accurately expresses the essential information in the sentence from the passage? Incorrect choices change the meaning in important ways or leave our essential information.

“Not that every member of a community interacts directly with everyone else, but overlapping or intersecting circles of acquaintances operate within the group, creating both direct and indirect connections.”

• a. Even if some members of a community never meet, they are connected indirectly through shared acquaintances.

• b. If you follow the chains of connections, you will see that everyone in a community knows everyone else.

• c. Indirect contacts within a community are at least as strong as most direct contacts.

• d. People who have difficulty socializing may connect to the community through the few people whom they trust.

The phrase “this area” in Paragraph 5 refers to

• a. floundering relationships

• b. interaction among group members

• c. members possessing things in common

• d. slights and rejection

Why does the author mention a MySpace policy in Paragraph 5?

• a. to demonstrate that online contact can lead to real-life danger

• b. to illustrate that the identity of a website user is hard to determine

• c. to point out that most websites operate responsibly

• d. to show how MySpace is different from other networking sites.

To meet the third criterion for community mentioned in the passage, a group cannot

• a. be in constant danger of losing all its members

• b. be so young that all of its original members are still in it

• c. draw its identity entirely from its members

• d. have a membership exclusively of one race, religion, or gender

Which of the following best expresses the author’s attitude toward whether websites meet the third criterion?

• a. Some meet the criterion, whereas others do not meet it

• b. They do not meet the criterion

• c. They meet the criterion

• d. We don’t yet know whether they would meet the criterion

Online groups are most like communities in that

• a. the group's existence does not depend on its members

• b. their members interact extensively

• c. their members own certain things in common

• d. they can take in an unlimited number of new members