Final Exam Study Guide Example

 

The next example is a study guide. Students can use study guides not only as a resource to find out what is important for an exam, but they also serve as an easily accessible way to review class material.

FINAL EXAM STUDY GUIDE

Following are details concerning the three sections of the final exam, each with sample questions and varying responses with critical explanation.
I.  Quote Identification: Answer the questions that follow each passage. (80 pts)
This section will present 10-12 passages from the texts we’ve read throughout the semester and ask two questions concerning each one—a question that asks you to identify the writer, novel, and/or character being referenced, and another question asking for a more interpretive response that critically locates the passage within the novel or connects it to other ideas we discussed in class. Here follows an example:
     “Hopeless heart that thrives on paradox; that longs for the beloved and is secretly relieved when the beloved is not there. That gnaws away at the night-time hours desperate for a sign and appears at breakfast so self-composed. That longs for certainty, fidelity, compassion, and plays roulette with anything precious.
     “Gambling is not a vice, it is an expression of our humanness.”
1.  In which novel and in whose psyche do these thoughts appear?
This passage comes from Jeanette Winterson’s The Passion, and these thoughts are Villanelle’s.
2.  Describe one instance where “gambling” in this novel might be an expression of “humanness” and explain your answer.
The novel suggests that passion—desire for someone or something—is fundamental to the human experience, and that this passion demands people risk something precious to have a shot at fulfilling their passions. Villanelle and Henri’s passions—Villanelle’s for the woman and Henri’s for Villanelle—demand that they each put something on the line, Villanelle her heart and Henri his mind, and they both lose what they’ve risked. At the end of the novel, Henri’s lucid hallucinations, the heartbreak resulting from what he risked following Napoleon and then Villanelle, make him seem the most human of all.
The second answer here succeeds by addressing both the ideas of gambling and humanness referred to in the question, and discussing specific instances from the novel as support.

II.  Short Answer. (60 pts)
This section will present 6-10 terms we’ve discussed throughout the semester, asking you to define each one and then apply it to at least one text that we’ve read. An example:
3.  Present Kundera’s definition of comic and offer TWO examples from the texts that we have read so far, explaining how each corresponds to Kundera’s definition.
Kundera asserts that the “comic” in literature “brutally reveals the meaninglessness of everything.” The excerpt we read from The Trial is the most immediate example of this kind of meaninglessness; Kundera pointed out that whatever forces are at work deep in Josef K’s soul—his sexuality, his spirituality—can’t really matter when K is able to do little more than respond to the cryptic accusations made against him. Kerouac’s Ray Smith also struggles throughout The Dharma Bums with the comic quality of his own existence. His anxieties concerning the forces at work inside him—his sexuality, his alcoholism—peak several times throughout the novel, and each time he feels reassured when he realizes that all of these things are meaningless, though Smith’s understanding of this lack of meaning also seems to embrace Kundera’s definition of “tragedy,” since Smith feels a surge of grand purpose and sadness for all mankind when he is able to let go of the search for meaning.
Note how the two examples that follow the definition are both explicitly identified with examples and explanation. This response is particularly good where it even goes on to explain how the second example, from Kerouac’s novel, also partially represents the opposite of the definition we’ve been using to discuss the “comic” in literature.
III.  Essay: Choose one of the essay options listed below and respond, being sure to discuss specific characters, events, images, narrative and/or structural techniques, etc., to support the claim you make. (60 pts)

• In both The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Passion, “compassion” acts as an important component of the narrative’s “existential code.” Compare the two texts, arguing how the idea of compassion is developed in each case to reach similar and/or distinct conclusions.

In both The Unbearable Lightness of Being and The Passion, “compassion” acts as an important component of the narrative’s “existential code.” Kundera brings it up immediately in his novel as a way of introducing the tension in the relationship between Tomas and Tereza, and in Tomas as an individual character. This “emotional telepathy,” as Kundera describes it—to “feel” with another person instead of merely “suffering” with them—is often a great burden to Tomas throughout the novel, but this burden is presented as merely the price of admission in The Passion. Winterson’s novel suggests that to feel with another person is the highest state of human existence—and perhaps as a result, the most dangerous.
Despite all of his attempts to keep his life unburdened by the feelings of others—leaving his wife and son, his parents’ subsequent abandonment—Tomas is struck with the protectiveness with which he behaves toward Tereza and her feelings. He even follows Tereza back to occupied Prague after they had fled to the safety of Switzerland because he can’t bear the thought of her pain. Tereza makes sacrifices throughout their relationship as well, putting up with a great deal of Tomas’s adultery as she tries to understanding his feelings about sex and love. Ultimately, we see them together in the countryside, their clumsy human attempts to understand one another having translated into a happiness that is all the more brief because we know that soon after having achieved it they will die. But to achieve this happiness, they both had to make the sacrifices that came with feeling deeply with another person.
The idea of compassion and sacrifice operate similarly in The Passion. Throughout the novel is repeated the phrase “You play, you win, you play, you lose. You play,” which speaks to the risks all of the characters take in order to follow their passions. Villanelle risks her heart for her lover, and loses it; Henri risks his life to follow Napoleon and loses his heart, and finally loses his mind in pursuit of his love for Villanelle. Henri ultimately sacrifices everything to protect the love he feels for Villanelle, for it is inside the sanatorium where she cannot reject it. In sacrificing his mind, Henri appears to regain the heart he lost during the war.
Finally, it is the power of compassion that makes the characters in these novels change and evolve. Without the need to understand and relate to each other, without the need for love, none of these characters would take the risks that helped them define what was most important to them, and without this knowledge, people are unable to know themselves. This discovery of self and other is at the root of what Kundera called “the wisdom of the novel,” the authentic revelation whose beauty inspires us no matter what is revealed.
Note first how this student probably took some notes prior to beginning writing—there’s a structure that introduces the argument (para 1), and then discusses examples pertaining to each of the novels in separate paragraphs (2 and 3), and a joint interpretation in the final paragraph that makes a further point concerning the importance of compassion in these novels. These notes might have been fairly rudimentary, but also probably helped organize this student’s examples:
intro                                                               
compassion = weight for Tomas                    
compassion =  dangerous for Henri
para 2
Tomas à returns to Prague for Tereza
Tereza à puts up with Tomas’s adultery
countryside à compassion changed them both, made them happy
para 3
Villanelle à loses heart but gets it back
Henri à risks life and loses heart (war), then loses mind (to regain heart?)
para 4
compassion forces all of these characters to make sacrifices
sacrifices = change, character development
change = revelation, beauty?
Making some notes helps you shape your argument and make sure that you’re working with some concrete examples—plan to cite specific scenes or events from any novel you discuss in this final section.


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Midterm Exam Example

This midterm exemplifies a common structure of an in-class exam. It is broken into four sections and each section focuses on one aspect of the class. Part one emphasizes literary theory and genre issues, the second requires students to discuss important passages/quotes from the texts, the third focuses on plot and other literary devices, and the last section consists of a few short essays which reinforce important concepts from the class. This exam provides students with a chance to earn a few extra credit points for knowing some of the more obscure information discussed in class.
E238 Midterm Exam      Name: _______________________
I.  Lectures—Fill in the blank with the correct answer for these definitions based on the major lectures and literary theory terms discussed in class: (2 points each)
1.  Much of Modernism’s pessimism stems from the brutal treatment of people toward each other during the historical event of __________________.
2.  The setting for dystopian literature is usually (time and place) ________________________.
3.  ______________ is one of the founders of Postcolonialism and author of Orientalism.
4.  Freud’s label for the subconscious including all of our instinctual desires or where the irrational in our psyches resides is called the ________________.
5.  _____________________ is the geographic-based term for creating new thought or activity according to Deleuze’s theory of Minor Literature.  An example would be a mouth meant originally for eating developing speech.
6.  A ‘back to nature’-type utopia is called ________________.
7.  The inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy, especially in technologically advanced postmodern cultures is called _________________.
8.  ___________________________ is a narrative technique in which a character’s thoughts or perceptions are presented as occurring in a random form, without regard for logical sequences, syntactic structure, distinctions between various levels of reality and the like.
9.  Kafka’s works reveal qualities of Minor Literature because he shows two levels of being a(n) ____________________.
10.  ________________ is the term for culturally constructed roles of masculine and feminine.
11.  Instead of the center, Postmodernism often makes the _______________ the topic of study or focus.
12.  _________________ is the term used for the Western hemisphere and its people.
13.  ‘Utopia’ is Greek for __________________ (two possibilities, but state only one—no E.C.).
14.  In Modernism, there was a societal shift from agrarian/farming production to ___________.
15.  One aspect that separates Postmodernism from Modernism is that Postmodernism celebrates the breakdown of _____________.
Extra Credit (2 points):  Realism was a reaction to what previous intellectual movement: _____________________

II. Quote Identification—State the title, author, and a brief overall idea of the following quotations: (4 points each—1 point each for title & author, and 2 points for significance)
“And there is a dignity in people; a solitude; even between husband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect . . . for one would not part with it oneself, or take it, against his will, from one’s husband, without losing one’s independence, one’s self-respect—something, after all, priceless.”



“He is superior to us.  We are all sinners.  Why, why is anyone superior to another? Why are we all sinners?”


“And these two triangles somehow canceled each other out, made an unpleasant, irritating X on her face, like a cross.  Her face was crossed out.”



“Slaves judged other slaves like the auctioneer and his clients judged them.  Was there no end to slavery?  Was a slave condemned to serve another Master as soon as he got rid of one?  Were overseers to be replaced by new overseers?  Was this some game, some fickle punishment for sins committed in former lives?  Slavery on top of slavery?  Would he ever be free to do what he pleased as long as he didn’t interfere with another man’s rights?  Slaves held each other in bondage; a hostile stare from one slave criticizing the behavior of another slave could be just as painful as a spiked collar—a gesture as fettering as a cage.”



“And so, while the women were in the next room, leaning against the desk to catch their breath, he broke out, changing direction four times, for he was truly at a loss about what to rescue first—when he saw the picture of the woman clad in nothing but furs hanging blatantly on the otherwise empty wall.  He quickly scrambled up to it and squeezed against the glass, which held him fast, soothing his hot belly.”


III.  Plot and Characters—Answer the plot and character identification questions below.  You must get the answer correct in its entirety to get credit: (2 points each)
1.  The first name of Bakha’s sisteris _________________.
2.  Before leaving to Canada, Quickskill lives in a Northern town called __________________.
3.  Gregor Samsa’s father throws a(n) ________________ at Gregor’s back which becomes permanently embedded.
4.  _______________ is the name for the revolutionary group attempting to overthrow the Benefactor in We.
5.  Clarissa goes shopping for _______________ at the beginning of Mrs. Dalloway.
6.  The Hunger Artist is only allowed to fast for ________ days while performing for the towns.
7.  Swille’s slave in charge of domestic duties and who dances with Lincoln is _____________.
8.  ______________ befriends, tutors, and attempts to ‘grasp’ Clarissa’s daughter, Elizabeth.
9.  Charat Singh gives Bakha a(n) ______________.
10.  The narrative point of view in We is ________________________.
Extra Credit: (3 points)
In Mrs. Dalloway, the woman whose countenance and demeanor is like a military general but needs men to write her letters to the paper is __________________________.
IV.  Short Essays—Choose two of the following and answer them in a short essay (one to two paragraphs each) on the back of this sheet.  Extra paper is available at my desk if needed.  Read the prompt directions carefully: (15 points each)
1.  Instead of some concept of a total ‘freedom’ or complete human agency/autonomy, we have explored the idea of ‘ways out’ for various characters and their predicaments.  Explain the possible ‘ways out’ for one character and her/his situation in a piece we read.  Which ‘ways out’ pose problems and which are favored?
2.  Discuss the idea of humanity’s inability to communicate in one of the pieces we read.
3.  Focusing on one character in a piece we read, discuss the character’s search for identity and what makes the search problematic.
4.  Discuss ‘subjective reality’ or the idea that people are trapped in their own minds.  What does that mean and how does one of the works portray this idea?  What symbols convey this idea?
5.  Discuss how one of the pieces we read shatters a traditional binary/dichotomy instituted by society.  You may focus on a character’s role, a theme, or an author’s twist on a genre.

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Midterm Exams

Midterm Exams:


Midterm exams often come at the midpoint in the semester. As stated previously in the overview, instructors sometimes divide the class into two sections so that the course's information is not cumulative. This strategy emphasizes making the overall picture or most recent concepts most important instead of testing on characters or plot lines from the first text of the semester.