Final Examination Handout

Place:   Hellems 177

Time:  4:30 p.m. ­ – 7:00 p.m., Wednesday, December 16th.
 
 

1.  The final examination will be a two and one-half hour, essay-type examination.

2.  The examination will be a closed book examination.

3.  You will be asked to answer three questions.

4.  The examination will be divided into three sections.  The first section will cover topics III, IV, and V - Sexual Morality, Homosexuality, and Pornography.  The second section will cover topics VI and VII - Suicide and Euthanasia.  The final section will then cover topics VIII, IX, and X - the Moral Status of Animals, Human Cloning, and Abortion.

5.  You must answer one question from each section.

6.  There will be no questions on topics I or II.

7.  There will be no questions on the initial material that dealt with various techniques of critical thinking.

8.  There will be questions on all of the other topics.

9.  The examination will contain at least 12 questions.

10.  The questions will focus mainly upon issues, rather than upon detailed knowledge of specific articles.  You should, however, have a good grasp of articles that were discussed in class.

11.  The examination questions will be very similar in style to the essay topics.

12.  All of the questions on the examination will be chosen from the list of possible questions found in the document Final Examination - List of Possible Questions.  For more details on that matter, please take a very close look at that document.
 
 

     In answering the examination questions, the crucial things to keep in mind are those that were stressed in connection with your essays, namely:

(1)  Try to ensure that your answers have a good, clear, logical structure.  (A concise introductory paragraph that provides the reader with an overview of the organization of your answer, along with a division of your answer into separate sections with informative headings, will usually be very helpful in this regard.)

(2)  Try to offer good reasons for thinking that the basic claims that you are advancing are true, and also for thinking that crucial claims that you are rejecting are false.

(3)  Another crucial feature is a consideration of the most important objection (or objections) that might be advanced both against any argument that you're advancing, and also against any controversial claim that you're advancing - where a claim is controversial if a thoughtful and informed person might very well disagree with it.  (It is especially important to consider objections to any controversial claims involved in the arguments that you offer in support of your own views.)
 
 

     What is a good way to prepare for the final examination?  I would suggest doing things in the following order:

(1)  It's important to see the big picture, and to have an overview of the fundamental issues and the different positions that one might take concerning the moral issues that arise in a given area.  So before you review the material for a particular section of the course, I would suggest that you read through the "Overview" material on this web site.

(2)  Next, you should review your lecture notes.  (For the topics of euthanasia and abortion, my lecture notes are on the web.)

(3) Finally, look over articles, or parts of articles, that you found especially helpful.
 
 

     Since the University does not supply students with blue books for examinations, please remember to bring along a blue book.