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Final Exam Tips

Please send any questions about this page to Colin Phillips (colin@umd.edu). Please don't contact Lisa Pearl, as she's out of town.

Scope of the Test

The final exam will cover material covered in the class lectures, readings and homework assignments since the beginning of the semester. The final is cumulative. Below is a list of some of the most important topics and concepts covered. You can use this as a check-list to see if you are prepared for the test. Note: this list is not exhaustive, but it does cover most of the key areas.

The final is worth 20% of the course grade. The test can be completed in 2 hours. There will be no make-up tests.

Format

The format of the exam will be similar to the midterm. Examples of the kinds of questions that may be asked include:

  • multiple-choice or true-false questions
  • questions requiring brief written explanations or diagrams
  • essay questions - these will form a significant part of the test

Remember that we can only give you credit for answering the questions that we ask. So answer the question that is asked, and not some other question. Good efforts and near misses can also receive credit. But answers to phantom questions cannot!

There are 110 points available on the test. You will get 100% if you score 100 points. Therefore, it is possible to miss 10 points and still get a perfect score.

Resources

Some Useful Study Activities

To succeed in this, as in many other areas, you don't need to just work hard and feel that you have suffered and therefore must benefit. Rather you must study intelligently: if you use a small amount of time effectively you can benefit much more than if you study for a long while ineffectively. In order to learn effectively, you must study actively. Some ways of doing this...

  • Before reviewing your notes (or after a quick 2-minute scan), try to create for yourself on a sheet of paper a table or diagram of the main points and concepts in that area. Ask yourself what the best evidence for these points is.
  • Using the list of topics below, scribble down for yourself what you already know about these topics. As you write down one thing, does this start to bring other things to mind? If you can remember a little about some topic, but are not sure about a particular aspect of this, write down questions for yourself to look up, before going to the notes or readings.
  • Imagine that you have to explain about the learning of syntax (or number, or whatever) to another student who has missed a number of classes due to sickness ... how would you go about explaining this area? What examples would you use to support your points?
  • Using the Trees Program, practice creating trees, and then recreating them for yourself without looking at what you drew using the program. You can use the program as your own personal study-tutor.
  • Imagine that you are constructing this test yourself (and that you are not intent on evilly creating trick questions): ask yourself what kinds of questions you would ask. Could you answer these questions?
  • Take advantage of the on-line lecture notes

Notice that these activities do not emphasize rote memorization of points. Nor will the test. Throughout the course, we have developed a relatively small number of arguments about specific properties of language, and have examined a variety of evidence for this. It is important to understand how the evidence fits with the arguments that were developed.

Remember also, that the instructor and TA can help, too: send email or arrange an appointment.

Some Not Particularly Useful Study Activities

  • Reading your notes or the readings straight through from beginning to end, passively. Just because this is unpleasant, it does not mean that it is good for you! This is the activity which requires the least imagination, and which probably yields the least benefit. If you find yourself doing this - stop it, and try something more active.
  • Anything else which will lead you to be sitting staring blankly at writing as your eyes droop uncontrollably. If your studying is getting like this, then you're wasting your time!
  • Blindly committing lists of facts to memory. This is not medical school!
  • Using up packs of highlighters marking up notes or readings. This is almost as passive as the other things listed above.

A Note on the Assigned Readings

The primary reference for the midterm is the class notes (on-line).

The assigned chapters and articles discuss a variety of topics related to issues that have been discussed in class. In doing so, they provide many illustrative examples. -- You are not expected to commit the readings to memory, but you are expected to have read and understood the assigned readings enough to draw on arguments that they develop in answering questions. I will NOT ask about issues in the readings that were not mentioned in class.

Check-list of Topics (see also the list in Midterm Notes)

Sentence Structure

  • Basic sentence structures
  • Recursion
  • Why 'making sense' is different from being a well-formed sentence
  • Do-so test
  • C-command, negative polarity items
  • Ambiguity - there will be a question on structural ambiguity

    Readings: Class notes, Phillips (2003: encyclopedia chapter on Syntax), on-line notes on do-so test; practice questions on ambiguity and truth value judgment

Principles & Parameters in Learning

Neo-Whorfian Topics

  • Theory of Mind in adults, infants, and primates
  • Number cognition in adults (western and other cultures), infants, and primates
  • Recursion in humans and other species
  • Encoding complex spatial relations in (re-)orientation tasks.
  • Overall conclusions about language and thought

    Readings: Class notes, slides from student presentations