Test
expectations and examples
The best way to prepare for a quiz is to write out explanations and definitions for each term, then review them before coming to class.
In all cases, you are writing for an audience, so the answers need to be clear with good sentence structure (I won’t count off for spelling). You are defining or explaining these terms to an interested person who has not heard of them before.
The key criteria are accuracy (in understanding the term), and efficiency and clarity (in communicating your understanding). You can say a great deal in a paragraph if you are efficient, and you can even say a lot in 2 or 3 sentences.
Paragraph explanations
Expecations:
These explanations should give someone a clear and precise sense of the distinguishing characteristics of the term. It is usually best to begin a paragraph explanation with a very general statement about the term to give your reader an overall sense of what you are talking about. Then move into an efficient summary of all the key ideas and how they relate to other key ideas. The paragraphs should be logically structured, with each sentence making a new point about the term.
Example of a paragraph explanation: natural law ethics
Nature law ethics is one of the major approaches in ethical theory developed by Aristotle and by medieval theologians. In this theory, all things (people, but also animals and plants) are endowed with certain natural characteristics and ends. These characteristics and ends are themselves good, and the goal of natural law ethics is to act in a way that fulfills them. How we ought to act is a function of how we are: “is” and “ought” are directly related. Similarly, on a more general level, the natural order of the world is good; it is the moral order. Going against this natural order is actually going against the good (or in Christian Theology, God). Again, the “is” and the “ought” are directly related: the good is for the individual to fit harmoniously with the natural system. This view has been criticized by pointing out that some things in nature are not “good”: HIV, tornadoes, cancer. Also David’s Hume notion of the “naturalistic fallacy” states that you can’t logically derive ought from is.
Short definitions in bioregionalism
Expectations
Answers should include all the basic features. For instance, definitions of a bioregion should include location, predominant natural communities, watersheds, topography and/or soils, and glacial history. Definitions of a natural community should include locations (in relation to bioregions and tensione zone), predominant species, soil characteristics, watersheds.
Example for bioregion: Lake Superior Taiga
The Lake Superior Taiga Bioregion is a small region located around Lake Superior, the area where the Canadian taiga biome enters Wisconsin. It is a lowland clay-soil area consisting mainly of fairly level plains, with the Bad River running through it. It is characterized primarily by spruce-fir forests.
Example for natural community: boreal forest
Located in a few places in far northern Wisconsin, primarily the Lake Superior Taiga bioregion and scattered locations in Door County, the boreal forest is part of the circumpolar spruce-fir forest and the taiga biome. It is dominated by balsam fir and white spruce, with some pines, hemlocks, and birch. Soils are largely clay in lowland areas near Lake Superior and Lake Michigan, which make for colder and snowier conditions than the rest of Wisconsin.
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