Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 44 to 50. There are many different types of places to eat. One important question is who uses different places and how often they go. As sociologists, we are initially very interested in the social and cultural characteristics of people who behave differently. Such characteristics indicate the financial, social, practical and cultural forces ...

Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions from 44 to 50.

There are many different types of places to eat. One important question is who uses different places and how often they go. As sociologists, we are initially very interested in the social and cultural characteristics of people who behave differently. Such characteristics indicate the financial, social, practical and cultural forces systematically distributed across the population, which constrain or encourage people to engage in particular ways of eating out.

We asked respondents how often they ate out under different circumstances. Excluding holidays and eating at the workplace, on average the respondents to the survey ate a main meal out on commercial premises about once every three weeks. Twenty-one percent ate out at least once a week, a further forty- four per cent at least monthly and only seven per cent claimed never to eat out. Mean frequency of eating at someone else's home was about the same, but a much larger proportion (twenty percent) never did so. Twenty per cent of respondents claimed never to eat in the home of other family members, and about one- third never at the home of friends.

Very regular eating out with either kin or friends was not very prevalent, but being a guest at a main meal in someone else's home is part of the life experience of a large majority of the population. There is a strong positive association between being a guest of friends, guest of family and commercial eating out. Opportunities to eat out are cumulative, particularly eating out commercially and with friends.

To be seen in the right places and in attractive company, or at least to let others know that we are familiar with the most exciting or rewarding of experiences, is part of a process of display and performance which contributes to reputation. Early sociologists examining consumption were particularly interested in the claiming and attributing of status through exhibitions of a prestigious style of life. They were particularly concerned with the ways in which individuals established reputations for refinement, superiority and distinction.

Consumption patterns reflected social standing, and particularly class position. Eating out is a potential means for such display through the use and avoidance of different venues.

What interests sociologists about the topic of eating out?