Chapter 1 — Quiz

A short self-check on the chapter's core ideas. Answer before opening the solutions. Aim for 20–30 minutes. Scoring guide at the bottom.

Section 1 — Multiple Choice

Choose the single best answer.

1. The "fish doesn't know it's wet" metaphor is used to make which point? - A) Other cultures are hard to understand - B) Your own culture is the one you can see least clearly - C) Water is essential to life - D) Eastern cultures value nature

2. WEIRD stands for: - A) Wealthy, Educated, Industrial, Rational, Developed - B) Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic - C) Western, Eastern, Indian, Russian, Diverse - D) Worldly, Energetic, Innovative, Rich, Direct

3. The central claim about WEIRD populations is that they are: - A) The neutral baseline for human nature - B) Smarter than other populations - C) Statistical outliers — among the least representative of humanity - D) Only found in the United States

4. In the culture iceberg, cross-cultural "collisions" mostly happen: - A) Above the waterline, over food and dress - B) Below the waterline, over deep assumptions about respect, the self, and silence - C) Only in business settings - D) Only when people don't speak the same language

5. When the chapter says directness is "not honesty," it means: - A) Western people are dishonest - B) Indirect communication is a skilled way of telling the truth while protecting the relationship - C) You should never be direct - D) Eastern people never say what they mean

6. The Shanghai team's silence on the video call actually signaled: - A) Disengagement and laziness - B) That they didn't understand English - C) Respect — not challenging the leader or self-promoting in the group - D) Technical problems with the call

7. The chapter recommends treating a flash of "that's weird" as: - A) Proof the other culture is wrong - B) A doorbell — a signal to ask what the other system is optimizing for - C) A reason to leave - D) Evidence of your good judgment

8. "Cultural humility," as defined in the chapter, is best described as: - A) Believing your culture is inferior - B) Erasing your own culture to fit in - C) Assuming your way is a way, not the way, and that others are rational by a logic you haven't learned yet - D) Never having opinions

Section 2 — True / False

Mark each true or false, and add a phrase of justification.

9. The book argues that to navigate Eastern cultures, you should abandon your Western identity. T / F

10. Individualism — the idea that the person is the basic unit of society — is a global human universal. T / F

11. Surface culture (food, festivals) is where most painful cross-cultural misunderstandings occur. T / F

12. A Western reader's instinct that a family-involved career decision is "controlling" is itself a cultural judgment. T / F

13. "Eastern" describes a single, fairly uniform culture. T / F

Section 3 — Short Answer

Two or three sentences each.

14. Why does the book turn the lens on the reader's own culture in Chapter 1, before describing any Eastern culture?

15. Give one Western business behavior that can read as a virtue at home and a problem abroad, and explain the mismatch.

16. Restate the operating-system metaphor and explain why "your apps don't need replacing" is encouraging news.

Answer Key

Click to reveal answers and explanations **Section 1** 1. **B** — The metaphor is about the invisibility of one's *own* culture. 2. **B** — Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic. 3. **C** — The key insight is that WEIRD populations are outliers, not the baseline (Henrich et al.). 4. **B** — Deep culture, below the waterline, is where hulls strike. 5. **B** — Indirectness is reframed as a skilled, relationship-protecting form of honesty, not dishonesty. 6. **C** — Silence expressed respect (no public challenge, no self-promotion), not disengagement. 7. **B** — "That's weird" is a doorbell inviting the question *what is this optimizing for?* 8. **C** — Your way is *a* way; others are rational by an unlearned logic. **Section 2** 9. **False.** The goal is a *second* fluency, never erasing the first (adaptation, not assimilation). 10. **False.** It is a WEIRD, historically rare position; most cultures treat the group/family as basic. 11. **False.** Surface culture is the easy part; deep culture causes the collisions. 12. **True.** "Controlling" is one operating system judging another by its own standards. 13. **False.** "The East is not one thing" is one of the book's central themes. **Section 3 (model answers)** 14. Because you cannot consciously read or switch between two systems if you can't see the first one. Mistaking your own culture for neutral common sense is the most expensive cross-cultural error, so the book makes it visible first. 15. Example: publicly praising an individual. At home it motivates; in a harmony-and-face culture it can embarrass the person and disrupt the group, lowering performance. The behavior is identical; the system it lands in is different. 16. Culture is the deep "operating system" beneath behavior; your skills, intelligence, and warmth are "apps" that run fine on any system. It's encouraging because you don't need to become a different person — you only need to learn to read a second system so your existing strengths stop misfiring.

Scoring guide

  • Under 8 / 16: Reread the chapter, especially "The fish doesn't know it's wet" and "Three virtues that are really cultural choices."
  • 8–11: Solid grasp of the basics; revisit the sections behind any miss.
  • 12–14: Strong. You're ready to build on this foundation.
  • 15–16: Excellent — you've internalized the chapter's hardest idea. Carry it into Chapter 2.