Grade 7 Social Studies – Voices and Visions Practice Exam

The main idea is ethnocentrism—the belief that one’s own culture is superior to others and the tendency to judge other cultures by the standards of your own. The term that fits this belief is ethnocentric, since it describes someone who holds and expresses that attitude.

Why the other options don’t fit: the Thirteen Colonies refers to a historical group of settlements, not a belief about cultural superiority. Mercantilism is an economic theory about wealth and trade. Economy is the broad system of production and exchange in a society. None of these describe judging other cultures as better or worse.