My history final is going to *suck*

[LynzM]

At least we get the questions in advance. 22 IDs to know (a paragraph each - time, place, describe, significance) of which 10 will be on the exam and we have to answer 6, plus essays: two will be on the exam and we have to write one. Without further ado:

1.) Discuss the role of religion in society from the 16th through the 20th centuries.

2.) Propaganda is a modern term but the art of persuasion is ancient. Discuss the use of propaganda to way(sic) public opinion from 16th-20th centuries. Be sure to link to(sic) argument being made to its historical period.

3.) Discuss how acts of violence and genocide are justified in different historical periods from 16th-20th centuries. Be sure to discuss how these justifications reflect their historical moments.

4.) Social history studies the experiences of the "regular" people. Choose 4 historical events and discuss how these events affected the public. Be sure to be comprehensive in your answer.

Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh. Could those questions be any broader?? At least I've got 9 more days to prep (ha!)... I have to decide which of those essays I'm not going to prep. Which one would you pick to skip over?

*sigh*

[Beware the Beast Man]

1. I'd pass on #4, because there are so few histories that

detail the lives of common people. That's just me, though.

These sound like some cool questions, though.

[LynzM]

2. She's given us some ok sources for that one, though...

She's very big on having us read stuff that was written at the time... maybe not so much written *by* the common people, but court transcripts, things like that. We'll see, I have to go through all the sources and see what works well for each question. It's going to be a long endeavor. And then I have to memorize three essay's worth of source material. :scared: </whine>

[Beware the Beast Man]

5. The good thing about essay exams,

Is that you can BS your way through a couple points, and still get a good grade even if you don't remember anything.

I think you'll do just fine. :)

[LynzM]

6. LOL, thanks BTBM!

I've discovered that she is way more about giving details from sources than writing a comprehensive, original-idea-with-thoughts essay, so as long as I remember the source details and stuff some BS in between, it'll be alright! Thanks, dude. :)

[eyesroll]

3. I'd pass on 1, because that's absolutely huge.

Everything else seems manageable -- #4 has the limit of 4 historical events; you could probably use that same guideline to prep 2 and 3 (choose 4-5 examples). But one could write for days on the role of religion in society -- hell, writing about the role of religion in contemporary Wisconsin could fill volumes; a 500-year period would be nearly impossible to condense into an hour essay.

[LynzM]

4. Yes, and no....

We're limited to the sources she's given us over the course of the semester. So it's a huge question, but narrowed to the documents we already have. I agree, though. Without that, that's an impossible question, worthy of a whole library worth of answers!

[Beware the Beast Man]

7. In hindsight, I agree.

There were enormous changes in religious thought in that five-century span. One essay on just a portion of the Protestant Reformation would be big.

[DS1]

8. You know what the questions are in advance and it's going to suck?

IDs are simple as hell, just find the first 6 you know and hammer them out. Then rifle through the questions and do the ones you can write the quickest, do them in the order of how well you know them to prevent spending the entire exam chewing your pencil on your weakest areas.

[LynzM]

9. Thanks for the sympathy, dude :P

Yes, I know it could suck way worse if those were the questions and we didn't get any advance warning. Like I said before, it's mostly going to be memorizing quotes from the sources. Soooo fun.

It's not that I can't do it; I just wanted to whine ;)

[DS1]

10. Ah

My last history class was intersession, 4 hrs straight a night, 5 nights a week - basically one week of class per day. We hauled so much ass that there wasn't even time to forget what we covered :-)

[Wapsie B]

11. You mean it's not going to blow? ;-)

Series, I can't believe someone as intelligent as you doesn't have this stuff down cold. I bet you do. Just visualize acing it.

[LynzM]

21. LOL, thanks man

The universe abhors a vacuum, right? ;) I know I can do it, I just don't want to! LOL

[bigwillq]

12. Good luck!

:hi:

[LynzM]

20. Thanks, bigwill!!

Hey, Briarius was saying last night that we should hang out sometime, and let you borrow our digicam so you can have a new pic to post ;) :hi:

[bigwillq]

22. I would like that.

I would love to hang out with you guys and if I get a new pic out of it, even better! :hi:

[LynzM]

24. Cool!

Sometime after this final, we'll have to plan on that! PM me and let me know where in CT you are, maybe we can start figuring sometime/place out! :)

[meegbear]

13. Try finding examples and linking them with the questions ...

For example, the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots, French Protestants, originally believed to have been instigated by Catherine de Medici, the mother of Charles IX in 1572.

1. The Catholic Church was the main religion of France and it dominated all aspects of people's lives. Here's an example of how the chucrh was able to use it's people for their benefit.

2. Anti-Protestant sentiment was high; outpouring of popular envy and resentment, mixed with religious zeal was used to the Crown's advantage to ensure France remained Catholic.

3. Catholics believed them to be heretics and got what they deserved.

4. It brought social unrest and many people felt good saving France from the Protestant menace.

I got the basic info from Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Bartholomew's_Day_Massacre

Use that as a model and you should be able to handle any of the questions they pick.

[LynzM]

19. Heya Meegbear!

Thanks for the suggestions, dude! We're limited to the sources from class, so that helps some with the scope of it all. I probably should have put that in my OP! Still, I appreciate the ideas, and I definitely use Wiki to get a better feel for some of the IDs. :hi:

[Jim__]

14. Is this world history?

I'm asking because if it is, that makes those questions even bigger.

I keep hearing that American education today is just a cake-walk - judging by those questions, it doesn't look like it. What school is this?

Good luck.

[LynzM]

18. Nope, it's Western History 1500-Present

This is the intro/survey required as a General Education class, at UConn.

[sir_captain]

15. Wow, you have one lazy professor

I was a history major in college, and thought I had to sit through some bad exams, but this one is really special. It takes an extreme lack of caring to write such a bad exam.

What kind of class is this anyway? An intro survey?

I think the fourth question is actually the easiest, in some ways. There is no such thing as an historical event that does not have some sort of effect on a general populace. You could literally pick 4 watershed moments (vietnam, american civil war, the crusades, etc, etc) and write about them for days on end. Particularly since as far as I can tell, your professor didn't bother to ask an actual question about them.

[LynzM]

17. Actually, I don't think she's terrible

It's an intro survey of Western history from 1500-Present. Lots of material to cover... The essays are limited to sources that we covered in class that were assigned, so she basically wants to see if we can use historical documents and secondary sources to back up writing those questions... still, I can't say I'm terribly excited about it :)

[Squeech]

16. Actually

since you're constrained by the original sources, you should strategize in terms of which of the original sources stick most firmly in your mind.

I'd like to know what original sources you were given relevant to questions 1 and 2-- could be very interesting stuff. (Transcripts of the Scopes trial? Newspaper editorials about manifest destiny? Handbills about how Halley's Comet was a sign of the end times?)

Anyway, I bet you're gonna ace this exam, you critical thinker you!

[LynzM]

23. Thanks, Squeech!

That said, there are a bunch of texts for the class:

1.) M. Shelley's Frankenstein

2.) Discovering the Western Past (Special 5th Edition), Wiesner-Ruff-Wheeler, custom edition, available only at the UConn Coop (has an extra chapter, I think, vs. the regular edition?)

3.) Las Casas's The Devastation of the Indies

4.) Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds

5.) A packet of "selected readings" that she had made up which includes:

-Richard van Dulmen, "Rituals of Execution in Early Modern Germany", from Theatre of Horror: Crime and Punishment in Early Modern Germany, 1990

-Christopher R. Friedrich, "Poverty and Marginality in the Early Modern City", from The Early Modern City, 1450-1750, 1995

-Dominique Godineau, "Political Culture and Female Sociability in the French Revolution", from The Women of Paris and the French Revolution, 1998

-Anna K. Clark, "The Struggle for the Breeches: Plebian Marriage", from The Struggle for the Breeches: Gender and the Making of the British Working Class, 1995

-Norman M. Naimark, "Ethnic Cleansing in the Wars of Yugoslav Succession", from Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in twentieth-Centry Europe, 2001

-Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 18th century

She *is* counting on the students to do a LOT of reading. If you add that all up, it's pretty easily 700 assigned pages, I'd guess. Plus a video that we watched in class about how the U.S. newspapers covered the atrocities of WWII (or didn't, much, rather).

Your sources sound better and more fun than the ones I've got to work with! :)

[BreweryYardRat]

25. Mine sucks worse than yours.

Early Medieval History.

9 essay questions to pick from, I have to do 3.

And I don't get the luxury of being able to prep for individual questions, because there's a pool of 37 potential questions that my prof will select the 9 actually on the exam from.

Additionally, my professor is an asshat who takes major points off for any ambiguity whatsoever in the answers.

Oh, and just to make things better: 30% of my grade. The midterm, also 30% of the grade, was the only other test, and exactly identical in format.

[LynzM]

27. Ouch.

You definitely win. Mine's 30% as well, but at least I get the questions. Good luck to you. :hug:

[Lisa]

26. it's great that you're looking over the questions, so far in advance!

I teach college classes, and routinely get panicked e-mails from people the day before the exam, claiming they forgot to pick up the handout, or didn't realize there was so much to cover. One student tried to convince me that it was "unethical" to hand out exam questions in advance (even if I wrote them, and everybody else was getting them at the same time).

Good luck! Since it's partly her choice, the more questions you prep for, the higher the chance that you'll get one you'll be able to ace ... I'm backing you up on choosing 3 of them. I would probably ditch the first one, since it doesn't have any pre-1400s basis (but that's just my own interest) -- also, it doesn't seem to be as specific as the others. At least 2, 3, and 4 give you some more hints about what sorts of things she's looking for -- the particular events aren't named, but they would probably be easier to pick out than general "role of religion" stuff (unless she made a point of giving definite examples right there in class).

I guess this is the time when the lecture notes and readings may help point you in the direction the prof's expecting (I trust that she has emphasized some areas in particular ... she would have to, because there isn't enough time in the term to cover all those questions in a comprehensive AND detailed way).

Don't worry -- I suspect you're going to do well, since the very fact you've noticed they're pretty broad and are going to need some prep is actually a good sign -- people who didn't know the material might be overconfident and jot down single-sentence answers to essay questions, as one guy did in my class last week.

p.s. Oh, and it helps to keep it short. I had to cope with some pretty broad questions in my doctoral comps, and I'm glad I didn't ramble on too long ... just working out a really basic skeleton, structured around memorable examples (which one of the earlier posters hinted at ... focusing on stuff you like and are somewhat interested in can make things easier to lay out).

[LynzM]

28. Single-sentence answers to essay questions??

Are you kidding? Wow. No way. For the last exam, I wrote the essays out (2 out of 3 that time, a little easier) and then made outlines from my essays, and memorized those. She's looking for 4 sources for each essay, from the material she assigned for class, so that does cut it down some. Thanks for the encouragement, though. Nice to hear that I'm beating the curve just by looking at the questions! :rofl:

p.s. - Sorry for all the crap you've got to grade, though! :hug:

[Lisa]

29. Unfortunately, yes ...

... he'd jotted down a couple of sentences, or a few point-form bullets, for each one, taking up barely half of each page. Easy to mark, but the grade ... ouch! (I felt sorry for him and gave him some part marks, but I just didn't have much to work with. So I guess the trick is to keep things short, but not TOO short!) I'm wondering whether he was feeling unwell, or whether it was his last exam and he just didn't care, or what. The woman across the hall from me swears that one of her students arrived stoned for an exam (that's the west coast for you!), though I don't know if that was the situation this time.

Glad to hear that your prof has given you some sources (and guidelines) -- that way you won't drive yourself nuts trying to memorize 20 documents. Sounds to me like you're well on track! From what I've seen, both as a student and instructor, people who are well-prepared for the midterm tend to do as well as (or even better than) they did the first time, if they carry on with the same techniques. Partly because they've gotten used to the expected style in the class, and partly because their ability to retain the material has improved with practice. (One hears about profs who deliberately make the final a lot harder, but I suspect that yours will tend to keep the same grading pattern as for the midterm ... I've worked for profs who gave harsh, borderline unfair exams, and they are generally a lot vaguer and don't give anywhere near that amount of guidance in terms of sources.)



p.s. if you don't mind, I'd like to suggest your exam preparation hints to my next class -- I've noticed that even when I give out all the questions in advance (the ones I'd be selecting from, at any rate), people often come up and tell me that they have no idea of how to get ready for them. Your way sounds broad and effective enough to be good for everything I'd throw at them (actually, mine tend to be a bit shorter, but same principle ...)

[LynzM]

30. Wow, sure, go ahead!

I'm very flattered that you'd want to suggest my ideas! They are quite a bit of work and time-consuming, but for me, it really helps the flow of the thoughts and the specific references I want to make in the essay 'stick' in my head. She's very big on specific details from the readings being worked into our essays.

I don't know if you guys use blue books for exam writing, but the last exam, I wrote about 6.5 blue book pages for the essay. So she's ok with the length, if your writing is good. I did much better on that one than the first exam (82 on the first exam, 97 on the second, once I figured out what she was looking for!)

[beyurslf]

31. Please tell me the TA not the Prof wrote "way" for "weigh"

At least then it is a master's level and not a PhD who is the idiot!

[LynzM]

32. LOL, it's supposed to be 'sway'

A more forgiveable typo, as opposed to what you said, which was what I first thought. No TA for this class, just the prof, who's actually in the process of getting her Ph.D.

[Bucky]

37. Does PhD stand for...

Phucking Dumbass?

[NNadir]

33. This is probably cheating but I'll write the answers out for you.

#1: Since the 16th century lots of people believed all kinds of stuff about, like, God and things like that. Sometimes people got really mad about it and some of them had wars and stuff. They still do.

#2. Propaganda is like, you know, when like some guy on TV says stuff that I don't agree with and makes me mad. I'll bet there were some guys in the sixteenth century who like, saw stuff, not of TV of course, who felt the same way. If on the other hand, some guy on TV says something I agree with, that's, like, news. But otherwise it isn't. Then it's propagda. Duh!

#3. Like, if you read my answer to number one, and like, you kind of really read behind the lines, like some guys kill other guys and even babies and women because like they're different. If the different people are all different in the same way, and like they're all kind of like from the same country, it's called genocide. People do this, you know, kinda like they think they're sort of better than every one else and like their shit don't stink. People like this are really, really, really mean and as we all know, mean people suck.

#4. Um like the gas prices went higher and I had to drive a smaller car, and even walk sometimes. Another time my favorite TV show was cancelled, like in the middle of a season. Then one time there was like, this frost in Brazil, and it got really, expensive to buy coffee, and a lot of people were cranky. Then like, there was this time when this country where we get our oil did some bad stuff, and so we went and killed a whole bunch of guys that were, like doing it, and then some of those guys got really mad and blew up the pipelines with our gas in it, and so my dad had to put it on the credit card.

All this really sucked and I was like, really mad about it, but like I couldn't do too much about it, because like, I had to study for this test.

I hope my answers make your task easier.

[LynzM]

34. LMFAO over here....

I'm so tempted to email that to my prof after I get my final grade :rofl: Thanks for the laugh, dude!!

[Bucky]

35. "Way" = Weigh, but it should be "shape" not "weigh". What an idiot

I don't think the prof cares about #1 or #4, based on the wording. The question is, do you want to write on the topic s/he cares about deeply or one which s/he is a bit indifferent to and thus in which you may offer some surprising insights.

[LynzM]

36. Actually, it should be 'sway'....

Although I thought the same thing, at first. At least the typo is (more) forgiveable.

Hadn't thought about it the way you mention... actually, I'm surprised there isn't an essay question about something from the female perspective or the roles of women or whatnot; there have been on the past two exams.

[rockymountaindem]

38. I was asked to post this

In an answer to the question "can it be broader?" the answer is yes. Here's what's coming my way on Tuesday.

"Four major themes contribute to an understanding of the international system since 1945:
-The quest for strategic stability
-The emergance of a global economy
-The promise of human security
-The making of revolution

Your assignment is to write an essay in which you *assess* the relationship between each of these themes and the strength or weakness of system stability from the end of the Second World War to the inception of the war in Iraq in 2003."

This is for a third year undergrad course which has basically covered all that over a whole year. However, the prof seems to be in his own little world and nobody knows what he wants. My friend and I got together to study today, and after we came up with what we thought were some pretty detailed responses, I said, "it's not good enough, we don't address any of his BS 'themes'". So eventually I came up with "ebb and flow" or some kind of "cycle". I don't know what the hell that means, but I figured out how to apply the phrases to my answers and hopefully it will please the markers.

I am expected to write on this for three hours. From seven to ten at night. That's not going to be fun, my friend. I would really like to have something as straightforward as yours.

Oh, and quit whining ;)

[LynzM]

39. LOL, thanks dude!

I'm sorry that your exam is going to suck so much, and that you've got so little guidance to go on in terms of what to write about. :hug: I wish you the best of luck with it, and I hope the markers cut everyone a little slack for such an impossible question.

[rockymountaindem]

40. I don't see any slack forthcoming

But thanks for the :hug: Right back at ya

I told my friend today, "we can't win". He said, "define win". "Get over an 80%" (an A- at our school), I replied. He agreed we were hopeless in that regard. Getting a 73% sounds pretty good. That would allow me to keep my B in that class. Probably my lowest core mark of the year :(