Which of the following statements is false?

• A. Race is determined by heredity.
• B. Ethnicity is determined by environment.
• C. Race and ethnicity are the same characteristic.
• D. The "one-drop rule" determines a person's ethnicity.

Answer: (B)

Ethnicity is rooted in cultural heritage, shared practices, language, ancestry, and how people identify themselves. It isn’t determined by environment alone; people’s cultural ties come from a combination of lineage and personal and social identification, though the way ethnicity is practiced can be shaped by the surroundings one lives in. So the claim that ethnicity is determined by environment is false because environment influences expression, not the core meaning or origin of ethnicity itself. The one-drop rule concerns racial classification and does not determine ethnicity, and in many contexts race is treated as something tied to heredity, which is why that framing aligns with the test’s perspective.