Environmental
Politics and Activism
Final Exam
Your final exam is cumulative, although it is
also weighted towards material since the midterm. The set-up will be much like the midterm –
but longer. There will likely be two
long essay questions, approximately ten identification questions, and a handful
of short answer questions. As with the
midterm please keep in mind:
I. GENERAL RULES OF THUMB
A. Time
Essay tests such as this one put a premium on
time. You will not be able to commit all
the details about a topic to paper.
Concentrate instead on how the key concepts relate to one another – and
how specific examples support the various points you make. Doing this successfully, of course, requires
that you BUDGET YOUR TIME.
B. Organization
Even though you are pressed for time you still
need to be organized in your writing. I
suggest you take a minute or two to outline your answer before you even begin
writing it. This also has the added
benefit of providing a personal check against omitting portions of a
multi-faceted question, something that is easy to do when you are under strict
time constraints such as those for this exam.
C. Writing Style
Remember that you will be graded on your ability
to express your ideas clearly as well as on the content of your ideas. This is, after all, a politics course where
communication (or lack thereof) is essential to determining the outcome. Subject content is emphasized first and
foremost in evaluating your answers, but the clarity of your writing determines
how successfully you get that message across.
In simple terms, this means you need to write legibly, use proper
grammar, and avoid awkward sentence structure.
II. SPECIFIC QUESTION TYPES
A. Identification (IDs/Short Essay)
There will be about ten identification questions
that are best treated as mini-essays. A
complete answer here will be approximately six to ten sentences in
length. You must include a definition,
historical origin or reason for existence, examples, and relevant theoretical
analysis. In many cases it is also
helpful to refer to competing perspectives.
B. Essay
There will be two or three long essays on the
final. A complete answer should contain:
1) an introduction with
your thesis
2) body w/approximately
three to four main points (it may be helpful to approach these as IDs)
3) conclusion which
summarizes thesis and supporting points and offers suggestions,
solutions
C. Short Answer
There will be a handful of short answer
questions that ask you to identify a major theory, point out the weaknesses in
an argument, or simply identify a key contributor to international politics.
III. COURSE MATERIAL
This midterm covers all lectures, readings, and
class discussions (including current events reports) since the beginning of the
semester. As you prepare, think about
both the intricacies of the concepts themselves and the larger picture of how
they relate to one another.
IV. REVIEW ASSGINMENT
In preparation for our next class, you must
submit two specific questions and the appropriate short answer from each of the
following broad categories by
1. Public vs. Private space
2. Scientific Uncertainty
3. Short vs. Long term interests
4. Risk assessment (Costs and Benefits)
5. Technology