Free Microeconomics MCQs with Answers

1,742 Microeconomics MCQs from Economics, each with the correct answer and a written explanation of why it is correct. Free and unlimited, with no account needed.

Individual consumers, firms and markets are examined through demand and supply, elasticity, consumer choice, production, costs, revenue and the determination of prices and output. The topic also covers market structures such as perfect competition, monopoly and oligopoly, plus market failure, externalities and the distinction between microeconomic decisions and economy-wide outcomes.

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1,742 questions · page 17 of 88

  • A. sociology
  • B. psychology
  • C. anthropology
  • D. history

Explanation: Anthropology compares human cultures and societies, including preliterate societies for which written historical records may be limited.

Correct answer: anthropology
  • A. scientific observation
  • B. systematic collection of data
  • C. making data public
  • D. selecting data to prove a point

Explanation: Scientific inquiry requires unbiased data collection and reporting. Selecting only data that supports a preferred conclusion is…

Correct answer: selecting data to prove a point
  • A. impartiality
  • B. doubting
  • C. repetition
  • D. precision

Explanation: Skepticism means withholding acceptance until evidence supports a claim, so it involves doubting or questioning.

Correct answer: doubting
  • A. the most common method of social investigation
  • B. based on controlling a variable and observing the results
  • C. not used in the study of humans
  • D. valid only if performed on white mice

Explanation: An experiment deliberately controls or changes one variable and observes its effect, often while holding other conditions constant.

Correct answer: based on controlling a variable and observing the results
  • A. case study
  • B. cross sectional sample
  • C. longitudinal sample
  • D. experiment

Explanation: A case study examines one person, organization, or small group in depth, making it suitable for intensive investigation.

Correct answer: case study
  • A. controlled inquiry
  • B. relationships among variables
  • C. consideration of independent and dependent variables
  • D. all of the above

Explanation: Scientific research uses controlled inquiry to examine relationships among variables, including how independent variables affect dependent…

Correct answer: all of the above
  • A. scientific law
  • B. set of concepts and generalization
  • C. speculation about truth and beauty
  • D. hunch regarding reality

Explanation: A theory organizes related concepts and generalizations into a systematic explanation of observed phenomena.

Correct answer: set of concepts and generalization
  • A. psychology
  • B. geology
  • C. sociology
  • D. none of the above

Explanation: Sociology studies human social groups, institutions, and patterns of group behavior.

Correct answer: sociology
  • A. government
  • B. state
  • C. power
  • D. all of the above

Explanation: Political science examines government and the state, as well as how power is acquired and exercised within them.

Correct answer: all of the above
  • A. genetics
  • B. geography
  • C. chemistry
  • D. physiology

Explanation: Geography studies people, places, and their interaction with the natural environment.

Correct answer: geography
  • A. primitive people only
  • B. prehistoric people only
  • C. modern peoples only
  • D. none of the above

Explanation: Anthropology studies human beings and cultures across both past and present societies, not only primitive, prehistoric, or modern peoples.

Correct answer: none of the above
  • A. scholars emphasized the supernatural
  • B. scholars denied the possibility of a scientific study of humans
  • C. a number of scholars believed human social life could be studied scientifically
  • D. none of the above

Explanation: The Enlightenment promoted reason and empirical inquiry, encouraging scholars to treat human social life as something that could be…

Correct answer: a number of scholars believed human social life could be studied scientifically
  • A. firm
  • B. household
  • C. market
  • D. product

Explanation: A firm combines land, labour, capital and entrepreneurship to produce goods or services, deciding how resources should be used.

Correct answer: firm
  • A. the content and flow of goods and services to take place without any fixed plan
  • B. buyers and sellers not needing to know how the market works in order to act in it
  • C. the economy to function so that all participants derive some satisfaction
  • D. all of the above

Explanation: The market mechanism coordinates production and exchange through prices rather than one central plan, and participants can act without…

Correct answer: all of the above
  • A. the most important feature of stratification
  • B. restricted to a small elite in traditional societies
  • C. widely distributed and diffused in industrial societies
  • D. all of the above

Explanation: Power is a major basis of social stratification, tends to be concentrated among elites in traditional societies, and is more widely…

Correct answer: all of the above
  • A. wealth
  • B. property
  • C. social influence
  • D. color

Explanation: Martin Luther King Jr. gained status mainly through social influence as a civil-rights leader, not through wealth, property, or racial…

Correct answer: social influence
  • A. property was the only determinant of class
  • B. class was based on exploitation of the masses
  • C. class is closely related to life chances
  • D. societies should have at least three classes

Explanation: Weber linked class position to life chances, meaning a person's opportunities to obtain income, education, employment, and other…

Correct answer: class is closely related to life chances
  • A. private ownership of the means of production perpetuates class divisions
  • B. talented people will always rise to the top
  • C. religion helps fight social inequality
  • D. the bourgeoisie will eventually triumph

Explanation: Marx argued that private ownership of the means of production divides society into classes such as the bourgeoisie and proletariat.

Correct answer: private ownership of the means of production perpetuates class divisions
  • A. nature demands the existence of social classes
  • B. there is a limited number of skilled talented people thus they should be rewarded
  • C. resources are plentiful so there is enough for all
  • D. people were not meant to work

Explanation: Structural functionalism, especially the Davis-Moore view, holds that societies have a limited supply of highly skilled or talented…

Correct answer: there is a limited number of skilled talented people thus they should be rewarded
  • A. resources belong to all the people
  • B. only the strongest persons should control the resources of a society
  • C. the weak shall inherit the earth
  • D. natural selection was a hoax

Explanation: Social Darwinists applied the idea of survival of the fittest to society and argued that the strongest or most capable should dominate…

Correct answer: only the strongest persons should control the resources of a society