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(1) Exam #1 date. See your syllabus course schedule, as will be either Thursday 9/18 or Friday 9/19 during regular class time. Be on time or you may not be able to take the exam, and besides, some of you will need every class minute for the exam. Especially for freshmen, if you do not understand the pitfalls preventing some from doing well on exams and how to avoid them ... then read my article and the editorial by Dr. Allan Saxe "Why do some students succeed and others fail to achieve desired class grades, and academic goals & objectives?" (2) Exam #1 Format. It will be 50 multiple choice questions. You will need a couple of # 2 pencils and several copies of scan form 882E (in case of mistakes-erasures not permitted) that you can buy on campus. In "General Announcement # 6" general announcements (click it) you will see many of the instructions that will be on your copy of the exam, and in # 6(d) is a PDF copy of the narrow green scan form with a-e answer options to show what you need to purchase and bring to class. Do not forget to bring these to the exam or you cannot take the exam and will earn a zero. (a) Class lecture exam coverage: * Until I return, Peter Sagal, host of NPR's "Wait, Wait ... Don't Tell Me," will be giving my first 4 lectures by you watching each of his following 4 PBS videos on line, each of which is 53 minutes long. Important points of each WILL BE on exam # 1. The four episodes include... (1) A More Perfect Union, (2) It's a Free Country, (3) Created Equal, (4) Built to Last, and they each can be viewed at http://video.pbs.org/program/constitution-usa-peter-sagal/ Peter Sagal breathes new life into the traditional civics lesson, by travelling across the country on a Harley Davidson to find out where the U.S. Constitution lives, how it works and how it doesn't ... how it unites us as a nation and how it has nearly torn us apart. Sagal introduces some major constitutional debates today and talks with ordinary Americans and leading constitutional experts about what the Constitution actually says and what it means, the dramatic historical events and crises that have defined it, and why all this matters. You can purchase it at PBShttp://www.shoppbs.org/product/index.jsp?productId=20427076&cp=&sr=1&kw=constitution+usa&origkw=Constitution+USA&parentPage=search#Detailsand give as a gift, which I have done because it is that important. * When I return you are responsible for my lectures over my Power Point slides - points I specifically discuss in classes before exam # 1 that will comprise perhaps half of the exam. Organize my class lecture notes into a brief key word bullet outline, study hard, and master detail. Lectures will be based on my comments about the following Power Point slides (click on following hyperlinks): US Constitution introduction, Articles 4 thru 7, Bill of Rights Summary. Remember, these are brief outlines of my lectures and you are responsible for taking class notes, as questions will come from my discussion comments that give meaning to those points. During lectures I will discuss some background information you do not need for the exam, which means the other issues I discuss are fair game for the exam. This is a major incentive to come to class, pay attention, and take good class notes. If you do not take notes, how can you remember my comments 3-4 weeks later for an exam? See "General announcement # 2" general announcements (click it) for instructions how to use my PowerPoint slides in class. (b) Text reading review questions. About 20 or more questions will come from text reading review assignments - for this exam these Logic Kernell chapter Word reviews: 1 (Logic), 2 (constitution), and 11 (voting, elections & campaigns - answer only questions 1-19.) - these review questions are your only text reading responsibility for exam 1. When I provide chapter reading review questions like this, know these are actual questions from which I will randomly select some for the reading portion of the exam. I will not ask anything else from the chapter other than the reading review questions provided. This eliminates mystery & surprise regarding exam contents. Especially for you freshmen, this is harder than it looks, and will take a number of hours to look up the answers in the text. Study them carefully and you will have no problem with the reading questions portion of the exam. Since I have given you the actual reading questions, I will not give you the answers before the exam, so do the best you can; this is a learning exercise. When you buddy up to study with others, do not trust the answers of others. Validate it with your own eyes or suffer the consequences if your buddy is wrong. If you find a bad question, email me your class time with the chapter & question problem with your page reference, and I'll check it out, but will not give the answer. I will be careful not to choose any that are inaccurate or confusing. There is no excuse for you to miss one of these questions if you study. If it was me, I would look up the correct answer and when confident, I would delete all the wrong answers so I am just reinforcing the question and the correct answer when I study. My last tip is to manage-study both class lectures and reading reviews daily so not overwhelmed by cramming right before an exam - which does not work, as some will discover. (c) Website essay portions. 7-10 questions will come from my website essay reading assignment. To find this information, go to General Announcement # 3general announcements (click it) and follow those instructions carefully about the hyperlink there titled "why studying the U.S. Constitution, as well as national and state and local politics, is so important to each citizen." You are only responsible on exam #1 for the specific items mentioned in its instructions. Another key word bullet outline assignment - then study your outline. (d) General Announcement # 5 general announcements (click it) provides specific study ideas for my exams. (e) Those with permission to test in ARC see my requirements in "General Announcement # 7" general announcements (click it).