Exam Time: What's Important

Generally for exams you are responsible for all the reading and lecture material. Different types of material are likely to be tested in different ways. For example, the Kosslyn text, like most Intro Psych books, is heavy on facts, terms, and the like. This type of material can most easily, and fairly, be tested with multiple choice or other short answer questions. Generally you should master the main concepts within each chapter. Terms that are in bold are almost always fair game.

You should know the main empirical results of papers you read that are heavily oriented toward presentation of results. Generally you will not be held responsible for details of methods of empirically oriented papers. More discursive reading such as the extended selections from Pinker's books will likely be targeted primarily in terms of essay or short answer questions with a few multiple choice questions. For such reading it's not so much particular facts as larger concepts that are important.

What appears below is not meant as a definitive guide to studying, but I have tried to sort out what is important in each chapter. When I say that a section is not much emphasized that does not mean that it will not be covered or that you can safely ignore it, but only that it is not as important as the other sections.

Chapter 1: Psychology Yesterday and Today

• You need to know the major schools of psychology, past and present.
• People you should know -- Wundt, James, Darwin, Freud, Skinner, Maslow.
• Don't worry about dates.
• Have a sense of what major types of psychologists do (Table 1.2).
• Not much emphasis on ethics.
• Issues about research strategies and approaches (e.g., case studies, experiments) will likely be emphasized. This material was covered in lecture in somewhat greater detail.

Chapter 2: The Biology of Mind and Behavior

• Generally here, as in other chapters, terms that are in bold in the text are emphasized in test questions, especially multiple choice. This is a detail rich chapter, and more than most chapters in the book you will simply need to memorize definitions and functions associated with different neuro structures.
• For the neuron, you should know the basic parts of the neuron and the basic notions of neural transmission. You do not need to know the chemistry (in terms of ions) of neural transmission. You should have some familiarity with the major neurotransmitters in terms of their major functions and associated disorders (but not drugs that alter).
• You should know the major divisions of the nervous system and the functions of the major divisions of the brain (those that have distinct sections devoted to them in the text).
• Don't worry yet about material on evolution. It will be covered in the next section after the exam.

Pinker Chapters

• Be sure you have a clear understanding of what the doctrine of the blank slate is. More importantly why does Pinker reject it? Some of his arguments are directly empirical in terms of research findings. Others are more logical in the sense that he suggests the blank slate cannot possibly be true because if it were certainly obvious human capabilities would not be possible. You do not need to know every detail of his arguments, the authors of research he discusses, the names of psychologists and other social scientists he argues against. But you should have a sense of the general arguments. Also be clear about his doctrine of the Noble Savage and the Ghost in the Machine. What links does he propose between biology and culture?

Stanovich Book

• There will likely be some MC questions on this material and surely at least one or two short essay questions.
• Focus on the main ideas. Think of each chapter as presenting one (occasionally more) fallacies or problems in the ways people think about psychology. He usually then presents several variants of the basic idea; these correspond roughly to section headings although some variants cross over two or more headings.For example in chapter 4 on case studies he wants to argue that case studies rarely provide definitive evidence about causality.Here are the main "variants". You should be able to give a brief synopsis of each.
  • In the first major section he discusses when case studies are useful
  • He discusses one problem with case studies, namely placebo effects.
  • Vividness or salience effects (roughly what I called sensationalism in my lectures).
  • In later chapters he discusses issues of causality -- and you might ask how they play into this basic notion.
• I'm less concerned that you remember the exact examples he uses in each section. If you understand the material, you ought to be able to generate your own examples. And it's not a bad idea to do this as you read the material. Such active learning is always more effective than reading the material passively.
• My lectures did not track the book sequentially but I covered most (I hope all) of the ideas from that book I think are important. Thus you might want to use lectures as a guide to importance.

Other Articles

• You are responsible for assigned articles on-line and on reserve. Generally, you need to know the main points of each. What are the arguments used and what are the conclusions. You are not likely to be asked about specific methods used in these papers.
• Some of the articles introduce important terms, names of theories, and the like which are fair game.

Exam Questions

General Philosophy

No exam of reasonable length can assess even a fraction of what you have learned. Naturally you will have learned some things that are not especially important and perhaps neglected a few that are. Students who make high grades tend to have lower ratios of unimportant to important than those who do less well. But in either case there's lots to learn, and mastering the reading and lectures requires a fair amount of memory space. Since we can't ask about everything you know, we try to sample. So, for example, there may only be 5 questions on genetics material despite the fact that I could easily generate 100 or so. That means that most of you will know lots of things about the topic that don't get tested. The idea behind any sampling is that we are trying to generalize how much you know from a sample of your behavior. This is not problematic if you know everything. But on the more likely circumstance that you do not, then it is inevitable that for some of you we will happen to sample more the things you know (and you will get a higher grade than you deserve) and for others will inadvertently sample more heavily from the things you don't know. However such sampling errors are less likely than many students imagine.

Multiple Choice

Multiple choice type questions are useful primarily in assessing whether students have mastered basic terms and concepts in a course. In this course multiple choice questions will potentially cover all the readings as well as lectures. Obviously many questions will cover both in the sense that reading material will be discussed in class. But as you already know there is not as much overlap between reading and lecture in this course as there is in many other introductory courses. Therefore do not assume that lectures have necessarily highlighted the most important material in the reading. For example, parts of the brain were not discussed in lectures, but rest assured that you should know them. There are sample multiple choice test items available in MyPsychLab, so I won't provide examples here.

Short Answer Questions

For the first exam there will be some short answer questions. These are designed to get at your understanding of somewhat larger issues. They are designed to be answered in a few sentences (say 10 or so), roughly a bluebook page. You will be given some choices, perhaps answering 3 out of 4 or 5 possibilities. While unclear writing always leaves you at the mercy of the tired interpretative abilities of the grader, in these short answer questions we are more concerned with whether you can briefly discuss a particular idea or set of ideas. Good answers cover the major points requested in an efficient way. Some examples of potential questions.

1. Briefly discuss the major problems of correlational research designs and how experimental designs seek to overcome them.

2. Briefly discuss Anderson's explanation for the effects of heat on violent behavior.

3. Twin studies have been criticized as a method for studying genetic influences on behavior. Briefly discuss at least two criticisms of such a research paradigm.

Allocating Time

Keep in mind that the short answer essay and multiple choice will each count half of your grade. You will have about 70 minutes to work on the exam, so a prudent student would spend about 10 minutes on each essay question and about 30 minutes or so on the multiple choice questions.

Feedback and Complaints

You will be allowed to take the exam home with you, and as you leave you will also be given a copy of the answer key for the multiple choice questions. We keep your Scranton answer sheets. Thus you can get fairly quick feedback on how well you did on the multiple choice half of the exam. The short answer essays will be returned as soon as we have graded them and recorded your grades, at least within a week of the exam.

While we work hard to write and use clear questions, inevitably there are some unclarities. In fairness it must be said that often times when students find a question confusing the unclarity has more to do with the student's inadequate understanding than with the question per se. But that is not always the case. If you think that a multiple choice question is unclear or that there are potentially two correct (or no correct) answers, please let us know as soon as possible. You have to have a reasoned argument for this, e.g., discrepancies between the way the question is worded and the text, the correct answer found on one page of the text and a potentially different correct answer on another, lecture said one thing and the text another, etc. We prefer that you contact us via e-mail although we'd be happy to have you stop by during office hours as well. If you can make a case that a particular question is unclear, then we will change your grade and usually the grades of all other students in the class who have the same answer. You can discuss such issues with either Prof. Schneider or the TAs, Madeline Campbell and Sarah Everett

If you think that your essays have been incorrectly graded you may also see the TAs (who will be grading them) about this. If a conversation with the TA is unsatisfactory from your point of view, you may take up the problem with Prof. Schneider. But please see either Madeline or Sarah about this issues first.

Study Strategies

There is no right way to study, but there are several wrong ways. Making good grades in college is often a matter of using time effectively. Reading one of the Kosslyn chapters while carrying on a conversation a friend or listening to distracting music is not an effective use of time. Studying is usually hard work, and it isn't always great fun. So use whatever time you devote to studying as efficiently as you can.

Generally active reading is always the best strategy. Ask yourself what the author is trying to say; summarize chapters or sections in your head or on paper. Argue with the material. Think up examples that you think illustrate the main points.

Some of the material just has to be memorized. Often when you consider terms in their broader context definitions can more easily be recalled. If a term is part of a pair or triad (e.g., monozygotic and dizygotic twins, experimental and correlational research) it helps to know the important differences which may help you remember each independently.

Do not wait until the last minute to begin your study. Sometimes that works, but mostly it's ineffective. We know that trying to learn material all at once (what is called massed practice) is less effective than spreading it out. Moreover, as the semester wears on there will be more courses and activities competing for your time and you may be too tired or anxious to benefit from your study the night before the exam. Ideally you should be doing the reading before each class, and that gives you opportunities to ask questions and clear up ambiguities before it is too late.

Some things simply have to learned by yourself, but many students find that group study works well especially for more general and abstract kinds of understanding. You may want to try a study group to see if it helps.

What Did I Do Wrong?

Obviously for many of you this will be your first or one of your first college exams, and some of you, it's safe to predict, will do less well than you had hoped. In most such cases people need to adjust their study habits, another way of saying you need to study more or more efficiently. But you may also need to learn how to read more effectively, how to integrate lecture and reading material, etc. The best time to talk to us about this is as soon after the exam as possible. Waiting until a week before the next exam doesn't give you much opportunity to make whatever adjustments you need to make. There are lots of ways you can get help. Prof. Schneider is happy to see you during office hours or to schedule appointments at other times. The TAs (Sarah Everett and Madeline Campbell) are also quite happy to chat with you about any difficulties you are having. Stacey Turner runs recitation sections every week, and would happy to discuss your problems (which are surely shared by other students) in those sections or in individual sessions.

If you simply didn't study enough and know that is your problem, there is probably little need for external guidance. But we have tried to provide multiple opportunities for you to get the help you need if the problems run deeper. Figuring out that you have a problem and need help with it is not a sign of relative stupidity or immaturity. Not seeking available help is, however, if not exactly stupid or immature, at least unwise. Let us know.

 

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