POL 351: International Security 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 high premium on time. You have to be more than just familiar with the material.  You will need to thoroughly understand it. Of course, you will not have enough time to commit everything you know about a topic to paper.  Concentrate on the most important aspects (with some specific examples that illustrate your point) and how they relate to each other.  Doing all of this successfully 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 provides a check against completely omitting any one part of the answer. 

 

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. RELEVANT MATERIAL

This final covers all readings and class discussions 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.  Use your syllabus as a guide here:

 

Melian Debate                                      Hegemony                                Cases of War                           Art of War                          Espionage and Intelligence

Realism & Power                                 Cyber-Terror                            Cuban Missile Crisis                 Ballistic Missile Defense      Arms Control & Proliferation Case Studies

Balance of Power                                 Collective Security                    Security Dilemma                      Nuclear Strategy                 Deterrence

Iraq & the Kurds                                  Complex Terrorism                   Biological Terrorism                 UN Peacekeeping               Lessons of Mogadishu

 

 

IV. REVIEW ASSIGNMENT

In preparation for our next class, you must submit two specific questions and the respective short answer from each of the following broad categories by midnight before our last class meeting.  Think about how the topics above fit into these categories as you compose your questions and answers.  Email these to me at: mgunter@rollins.edu. This will count towards your last quiz grade.  Of course it will also encourage you to start thinking about preparing for the final next week.  The categories to address include:

 

1. Theories of War/Defining Security

2. Nuclear Strategy/Proliferation

3. Biological & Chemical WMD

4. Gulf War

5. Terrorism