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Examinations

...and projects and marks

Urban Studies 200 / Geography 250

Mid-term Examination

The mid-term examination will be held in-class on the date specified in the course outline. The exam will consist of about twenty or twenty-five multiple-choice questions drawn from the material we've covered up to that point in the semester. The questions will be based solely on the written lecture notes I provide to you. To prepare, read through the written notes, and review the personal notes you've taken in class.

I try to make the mid-term fair, efficient, and relatively easy. This allows you to put a good mark on the scoreboard early on, and to learn about the kinds of questions I ask. But if you do well on the mid-term, don't make the mistake of thinking that you're set, and you can just sit back and coast with no further effort. The skills tested by a multiple-choice question are rather different from those evaluated in a written project or essay question.

Written Projects

Written projects are evaluated for rigor, creativity, and originality; for more details on evaluations of research and content, organization and logic, and style and presentation, see this. You are also expected to follow the general guidelines in preparing written projects. Each of the project options includes a detailed background paper, which provides guidance and recommendations for how to approach a particular urban issue. If you can't find anything that interests you among the project options I've outlined, then you can consider striking out on your own to design your own project. For ideas, look through various parts of the textbook; glance through my research page; or read through some of my random, disorganized brainstorming ideas. I'm happy to chat about alternative project ideas if you stop by my office -- for my office hours, see the syllabus and the teaching page. But, please, no emails asking for detailed guidance or assurance that if you do a certain thing, you'll get a good grade. You can't have it both ways. If you want detailed guidelines and recommendations, then choose one of the project options for which there is a written background paper and other resources. If you want the freedom to strike out on your own, then you'll have to take responsibility for defining the question, choosing a method, and undertaking a creative and rigorous analysis.

Final Examination

Our final examination is scheduled for Thursday, December 8, at 3:30 PM, in Chem B250.

The exam will include no more than thirty-five multiple-choice questions, and a selection of several essay questions. You will be expected to answer all of the multiple-choice questions, and to write an essay in response to one of the essay questions. The multiple-choice questions focus primarily, but not exclusively, on material discussed in the lectures after the mid-term examination. The essay choices are drawn from material covered through the entire course. You should prepare for the multiple-choice section of the exam by reading through the written lecture notes carefully. Prepare for the essay question by choosing one topic and studying it in depth: go beyond the written lecture notes, consulting relevant sections of the textbook and the suggested, supplemental readings. Don't try to memorize stuff for the essay question: to write a truly excellent essay, you need to analyze, synthesize, and critically evaluate the concepts, questions, and debates we've studied. For a good essay, the specific facts you remember are much less important than how you put them all together.

The topics for the essay choices are listed below. Note that these are topics: the actual wording of each question will be different from what you see here. Also note that a few of the topics cover material addressed in more than a single lecture. When you're in the exam, resist the temptation to just spill out everything you remember about a particular topic. Spend some time reading the question carefully, and re-reading it to make sure you know what is being asked. Then spend some time thinking and preparing an outline for an essay that will directly respond to the question. Organize what you know about a particular topic into a logical, coherent essay that answers the specific question presented in the examination.

Essay Topics for the Final Examination

1. Disciplinary perspectives on urban issues; social science debates and urban studies.

2. The origins of cities.

3. Contemporary urbanization and global city-systems.

4. Community.

5. Race, ethnicity, and identity in the city.

6. Immigration and the metropolis.

7. City political machines and community power.

There will be no multiple-choice questions on material presented in guest lectures or films shown in class. To be sure, if you've taken good notes during the guest lectures, then you should study this material and consider integrating it into the essay question you choose to answer. But none of the required multiple choice questions will be based on the guest lectures.

Final Grades

...will be posted as soon as possible after the completion of the final examination. The worksheet itemizing things will be here. Please note that the Calendar specifies: "Faculties, departments, and schools reserve the right to scale grades in order to maintain equity among sections and conformity to university, faculty, department or school norms. Students should therefore note that an unofficial grade given by an instructor might be changed by the faculty, department, or school. Grades are not official until they appear on a student's academic record." I hope this doesn't happen, but please note that if it does, it's completely out of my hands.

Papers that have been revised and resubmitted at the final examination will be available at the Geographic Information Centre, in Room 112 of the Geography Building. Recall the marking policy specified in the course syllabus: if you waited until the end of the course to submit a project, it will be assigned a grade with no penalty. But these submissions will not received detailed comments or recommendations, and will not be returned. Recommendations and advice are reserved for those submissions received at the in-term deadlines specified in the syllabus.

General Grading Philosophy

I strive for fairness and rigour in marking, but I am also reasonably easy-going as you find your voice and learn the landscape of urban studies. Usually, a majority of students earn marks somewhere in the "good" or "excellent" ranges on the University's A and B scales. I can't always guarantee, however, that you'll get the grade you want. Think carefully before complaining about marks after the fact: my distributions are usually at the generous outer limit of the formal guidelines specified by departmental regulations. This means that every increase in the volume of emails regarding grade negotiations increases the incentive to just use the default setting -- to follow the regulation-specified distributions rigidly, with no further thoughts or worries.

In areas of settled, established knowledge, failing grades provide efficient screening mechanisms: let's face it, some of us just aren't cut out for certain lines of work, and if we can't do the engineering calculations right, the bridge will fall down and people will die. In the humanities and social sciences, however, failing grades sometimes measure aspects of the process as well as the student outcome. Even so, there's only so much I can do to help. Usually, there's one, two or three final marks assigned in the "poor" or "D" range. This usually happens in the case of students who don't submit one or both of the independent projects. Teaching, learning, and scholarship are about enlightened, informed, conversation -- which can't happen if someone is completely silent, or walks away. Also, there are usually a few students who encounter some sort of impossible circumstance at the end of the course, and skip the exam, refuse to turn in one or more of the required projects, or both. For these cases I submit "DNW" codes. If you find yourself in an impossible circumstance at the end of the semester, you should speak to someone in your Faculty Advising office; they have the authority to code in a standing deferred (SD) code on the faculty service center; I do not have that authority.