 Hi, I'm Salvatore Pogonis and today's lecture is an introduction or explanation of the Sociology 2000 midterm exam. Our exam will be held online via the Blackboard system on Monday, April 23rd, during the nominal class period of Mondays from 2.05 to 3.55 pm. Now this is actually why our class has a time slot despite the fact that it's online and all the lectures are on YouTube. The reason is that I wanted to make sure you didn't have conflicting classes during this time slot that I use for the exam. Now the exam can be taken any time during that two-hour time slot but you'll actually only have one hour for the exam. I suggest you start the exam sometime close to two o'clock, start it at 2.05, 2.10, just to make sure that nothing goes wrong and you don't run out of time for the exam. But in theory if you start the exam at three o'clock you should still have one hour but I do have to warn you that you have only until four o'clock to finish the exam and at that point the exam disappears and you're no longer able to write into it. So make sure you start 2.05, 2.10, no later than 2.30. I want to warn you absolutely upfront if you start this exam late as late as 3.05 or 3.10 you won't get your full hour for the exam because no matter when you start the exam absolutely must be over by four o'clock. Once you do start the exam you'll have exactly one hour from the time you start to finish the exam. So if you start at 2.05 your exam will automatically close at 3.05. If you start at 2.06 your exam will start automatically end at 3.06. I hope there's no way I can be clearer than that. To be absolutely sure that you get your full hour for the exam start a few minutes after 2 o'clock and everything will be fine. Please don't push your luck starting later than 2.30. Most well prepared students will be able to answer the multiple choice questions very quickly within half an hour leaving at least half an hour for you to focus on the essay and the theory for the exam is that you'll spend half an hour on the multiple choice and half an hour on the essay but those are not separately timed. So if you're able to rush through the multiple choice in 15 minutes if you're super well prepared then you'll have a lot more time to work on the essay. On the other hand if you haven't prepared and you really don't know your material and you agonize over each question well then you'll end up with less time for the essay. I want to stress at exactly 2 p.m. at Monday 23 April the exam link will appear on the class backboard site. If you're there early I mean if you happen to log in at 1.59 p.m. the link might not be active but if you don't see it active at 2 p.m. just refresh your blackboard you know log back in and it should appear for you anytime after 2 p.m. and please I want to stress do start as close as possible to 2 p.m. You can click on the link you'll see down here exactly what it should look like it should say midterm exam take on April 23rd except it won't have the closed marker it'll have an open marker that you can click on it. Once you click through to that link it will take you to the exam once you click on the exam itself you'll see a page that looks something like this begin midterm exam which has a time limit of one hour and of course when you press begin that's when your time will start for your 60 minutes only once you press this orange button that says begin will your time actually start counting everything in the watch and read sections of our weekly material is fair game and examinal examinable on the exam now obviously I'll only be drawing questions from those videos and readings that are explicitly assigned in some places I've asked you to go out and find your own article now please don't be pedantic and ask me are are people going to examine that articles they found themselves obviously I would have no way to know what article you found yourself so I can't examine you on it look but anything that I've specifically asked you to watch or to read is examinable now the quite the videos that I've set for you that I've given you PowerPoint slides for that I've you know given you all of this detail with you know key terms highlighted in yellow that's obviously where I'll be focusing my questions but I will also ask questions about the ancillary material about the other videos I ask you to watch when it comes to the lecture videos where you have PowerPoint slides I tend to ask you very specific questions about the specific terms that I've highlighted but when it comes to more general you know videos I just asked you to watch for general knowledge I'll ask you more generic questions about you know what was the video about or you know what is the basic message of the video I'll try to ask questions that anyone who's genuinely sat down and watched the video should remember and it should click in your head and you should actually be able to answer the question at least answer it based on one of four multiple choice options appropriate study for this exam now what I'd like you to do order to prepare for this exam is watch the video when it was assigned I'm not asking you to go back and rewatch all the videos if you actually watch them in the week it was assigned I think you should read the articles when they're assigned so anything in the read section you should have read it during the week it was assigned but then before the exam I would recommend you review all of the lecture PowerPoint slides before you actually take the exam and that should refresh your memory for those things those specific questions that you know you might have forgotten the specifics but if you see them again on the PowerPoint slide it should rejig your memory and you should be able to answer the question the exam consists of 50 multiple choice questions and one essay question each multiple choice question will have four answers only one of which is correct and I want to stress only one of which is correct I ask very straightforward multiple choice questions there are no tricky questions there are no almost answers there's no you know answer a b a and or b a b and b a or b a plus b nothing like that all you'll get are simple questions that have a question four possible answers one of those answers is clearly correct and four of three of those answers are completely wrong there are no if and buts almost one right answer three wrong answers if you can recognize the right answer you win okay answer every question is best you can guess if you have to because there's no penalty for guessing a wrong answer is a wrong answer and you can't skip a question you have to answer every question the essay question will be an integrative question giving you the opportunity to showcase knowledge you've gained throughout the semester so it'll focus on integrating your knowledge of all the things we've studied development sexual abuse refugee issues international data sources i'll give a hint i'll most likely ask a question about how gender intersects with refugee flows as something that will give you the opportunity to discuss you know peripheral versus core states you know high income versus low income countries gender topics power and gender relationships intersectionality you know where you can get data about gender and development you know all of these things will come together in a single question okay you'll be expected to focus on knowledge gained in class note that that is highlighted in bold and yellow text i'm even underlining it here with my mouse this is not an essay question about how smart are you how much did you know before you came to class you know how much have you read outside class what other classes have you taken this essay question is not about any of that this essay question is about the things we've actually studied in our class which means that if you are a brilliant essayist but you know nothing about our class you're likely to fail the essay question on the other hand if you know a lot about our class but you're not such a great writer you'll probably still do well i hope on the essay the exam can only be taken in a linear order now i know everybody likes putting questions aside coming back to them etc the exam has been designed i'm sorry to be in a linear order and that's just the technology and the way it works and i promise that's best for you anyway you know there's a premium on speed in this exam if you had to go back and you double check questions it would just slow you down too much the way it's going to work is a question will pop up on your screen you answer it next question pops up you answered and once you've answered a question like just move right on you know that's the end of it and move forward to the next one you know there are no mechanisms for going back for saving questions for later nothing like that you answer each question in the order it's received questions will be offered to you in a random order and answers will be offered to you in a random order so don't try to do any tricks like you know tell someone else the pattern of answers is a b a b b because the pattern will be different on their tests than it was on your test look just in good faith see the question answer as best you can life moves on and you move on to the next question try to answer the multiple choice questions as quickly as possible to save maximum time for the essay question this exam is designed to reward those who've done their studying and if you've done your studying multiple choice questions should be easy if you haven't studied and you try to look up answers to the multiple choice questions you'll quickly run out of time to do the essay question okay grades will only be marked after i've uh grades will only be distributed after i've marked both the multiple choice in the essay questions so um i'll get back to you with grades once the essay is graded okay this is an open book exam but i strongly encourage you to study for it to treat it as a closed book exam look it's only open book because our technology does not allow me to lock down your computer system or your phone you know to prevent you from getting information from other sources i have no choice but to give an open book exam that said if you treat it like an open book exam where you know you don't study in advance you just assume you can find the answers you are not going to have time to finish this exam you're not going to have time to write your essay you've got to study for this exam in advance you have to know the questions uh before they come up not look up the answers after you've seen them you are expected to take this exam under examination room conditions that means even though it's open book it's not open person you can't ask other people for help you're not allowed to work together on the exam and this is something that i just have to ask you to be faithful about you know universities have honor codes and i have to ask you on your honor not to work with other people on the exam now if some of you think you know that's not fair somehow that you know some people might cheat i'm just going to remind you that papers are done the same way when you write a paper for any class at university of sydney it's on an honor system that you won't work with other people on your paper that you won't ask them to write your paper for you you simply sign on your honor that this is your own work well it's exactly the same with this exam you are on your honor to provide your own work for this exam not somebody else's work you can consult any non-human materials you want if you want to use your phone use google have a set of dictionaries next to you you have all your slides printed out and sitting in a pile go right ahead but i'm telling you right now it's not going to help you you simply don't have time to look up the answers to put this in context you are going to have to answer a multiple choice question on average every 30 seconds i know that says minutes cross that out that's supposed to say seconds i'll fix it in the slides after the recording is finished you have to answer a question every 30 seconds there is no way you can do that while looking up the answers okay in order to do well in this exam you should treat it as a closed book exam you should study in advance go into the exam knowing the material and answer each question quickly as it comes up the exam will be graded on the rubric given in the unit of study outline which converts raw number correct into the recorded exam mark now i get a lot of complaints about the rubric that's why it's right there in the unit of study outline so that by registering for this class you've already agreed to it now what this rubric means is that look if you miss seven questions on a 50 question test that's an 86 score you know that seven questions wrong 14 percent off is 86 percent now i know that the university of sydney in some theoretical sense 86 percent is worth high distinction it's an amazing score but i'm here to tell you that in the real world getting 86 percent right on a multiple choice test is a b it's a credit it's all right i mean it's not terrible but you know it's not going to get you any amazing accolades out in the world so what i've done is i've asked straightforward questions of the same type i would ask if i were teaching in the us or asia or europe and i've created a rubric that maps those scores onto an australian scoring system the australian scoring system is really designed for essays it was not designed with multiple choice questions in mind now i know some of you take multiple choice tests in other classes where they just grade you on the straight score 86 percent is a high distinction but those other classes have to give you super difficult questions and super tricky questions to try to trick people into getting enough wrong answers to bring their scores down to reasonable levels now i'm not asking you any tricky questions and i'm not asking you super picky questions i'm just asking you normal straightforward questions and applying a rubric to the scores instead i guarantee you that from a testing science perspective that is far the superior way to do things and from a learning perspective it's far superior i don't want to grade you on your ability to out trick a trick question i want to grade you on your knowledge and to do that i have to apply a marking rubric in an australian context where 85 percent is considered high distinction you know super distinction okay the essay question will be rated subjectively on standard essay qualities what i'll be looking for is a well-informed essay in which you use knowledge gained in class to answer the question posed in a well-structured and well-written essay the final exam mark will simply be half the multiple choice score and half the essay score put them together average them together and you get final exam mark okay in principle in theory you're expected to take the exam on a university of sydney computer any university of sydney computer lab now i know many of you are unlikely to do that and you're likely to take the exam at home i can't stop you from doing that what i can say is that you're expected to take the exam on a university computer what that means is i cannot give special consideration for non-university misadventures i mean if you take the exam while caring for a child at home on the assumption the child will stay asleep and the child wakes up and you know needs to be cared for you know i'm sorry i mean you're supposed to be in a university computer lab if your pet destroys something while you're taking example won't stop barking you know i'm sorry you know neighbors stop by there's noise in your neighborhood you know your equipment fails what if your electricity goes out in your house you know again i can't be responsible for that i can only be responsible if there's a misadventure that can be documented as occurring in a university computer lab so if you're taking the exam and in your university computer lab the ceiling falls in and everyone has to be evacuated well you know i'll give you a special a special consideration and we'll work out something to give you an alternative exam but if that happens you know we'll have a documentation of it through a sydney it services make sure you reserve yourself a space in a computer lab uh you know in a quiet lab where you can work on hindered um you know i strongly recommend you just go to campus reserve a lab spot and work on the exam on a university computer okay i absolutely severely recommend against trying to take the exam on your phone i can't stop you from doing that but i really want to stress i cannot and will not give special consideration if something goes wrong and you're not in a university computer lab i simply can't do it okay the sort of thing you would expect the sort of very straightforward questions you know that that i would ask on this exam are things straight from the slides for example the fact that no part of the world can be studied in isolation due to the possibility of cultural diffusion is related to and i'll leave you to figure which one of those it is it's only one of those only one of those has been talked about in our class and the other three have never been mentioned in our class okay similarly the first european country that announced its open door policy for syrian refugees in september 2015 was and again if you've listened to the refugee lectures which heavily focused on refugee flows sparked by the chancellor of one particular country who invited in refugees from syria causing a mass flow of refugees from syria to europe this should be a really obvious answer okay key takeaways first the midterm exam will be held online starting at 2 p.m on monday 23 april look start anytime between 2 and 230 but i strongly recommend that you start the exam no later than 230 p.m no matter when you start you'll have exactly 60 minutes one hour to complete the exam second the multiple choice questions on the exam test recognition memory so it's more important to know the answers than to have good test taking skills if you've studied if you've watched all the material if you've read all the material you know you should recognize the right answer from among a field of wrong answers what you won't be able to do is reason to the correct answer based on logic or your general knowledge okay and finally the essay question will give you the opportunity to integrate knowledge gained over the entire first half of the semester it won't focus on a specific aspect of the first part of the semester it will ask you to integrate knowledge gained throughout the entire semester so far thanks for listening and good luck on the exam