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Preparing for the Midcourse Exam

Looking Ahead

This is your first of two opportunities to share with me principles that have made it into your long-term memory. You will be amazed at the progress you have made in your understanding of psychological research, concepts, and theories as you take this test. In this sense, it is a celebration of learning!

Format and Passing Grades

The midterm covers only chapters 1 through 8 of the text. It consists of 102 multiple-choice questions, about a dozen from each chapter. Only a very few of the items on the exam are the same as the items in the Speedback lessons. There is an important reason for this distinction; the lesson questions are designed to make you think deeply, connect concepts you are learning, reread certain passages, and compare ideas. The exams, on the other hand, are aimed at testing the lesson objectives in a more straightforward manner; you may be asked to apply a principle, identify the best example of a concept, or recognize a major research finding. It would be totally unreasonable of me to expect the same kind of in-depth analysis on a closed-book final exam covering three hundred pages of text as I do on an open-book lesson covering forty pages. Nevertheless, by reviewing the Speedback assignments, you may find that various concepts are brought back to your awareness.

What to Review

Test items correspond very closely to the lesson objectives. Therefore, the best way to study comprehensively is to run through these stated objectives. Where time constraints make this impossible, a review of many major points can be gleaned from each chapter's summaries. Remember, chapters are divided into three to five modules, each module having its own summary section. Studying the key terms at the end of each chapter is yet another strategy for exam preparation. However, you will need to know these terms, concepts, and principles well enough to apply them.