Exam 1 Study Guide

Literature and the Environment, Spring 2024, O'Donnell

last updated: February 26, 2024

Exam date: Monday, March 4, 2024

This exam counts for 25% of the final grade.

Exam Guidelines and Format

The exam will present you with a choice of 10 identification prompts--significant quotes, terms or phrases, proper nouns--which will in turn be drawn from the 17 prompts listed below.

Out of the 10 prompts on the exam, you will then, in turn, choose 8. For each of those 8, you will write a "mini essay" -- that is, three or four clear, complete, self-explanatory sentences -- in which you identify 1) the context or definition; 2) the author(s) and text(s) with which prompt is associated; 3) an important issue associated with the prompt.

Please note that, while you may write practice responses ahead of time, I will require you to compose your prompts on the spot, during the exam, rather than copying pre-composed responses directly from your notes. Each response must be in the form of complete sentences.

17 Prompts

1. Gilded Age

2. Progressive Era

3. Checkov's gun

4. Horace Albright

5. "'They ain't one thing can kill a man like you . . .'"

6. 350.org

7. "'If fight or flight is the choice, it's way easier to fly'."

8. "Global Exchange"

9. "Above the lake of the world, flanked by white mountains, they flew out to a new earth."

10. "'It's the same damned company, Tina, the Advancement of Sound Science. Look it up, why don't you. They went off the Philip Morris payroll and into the Exxon pocket'."

11. Old River Control Auxiliary Structure

12. The sixth extinction

13. "What do you call natural selection after The End of Nature?"

14. CRISPR

15. Stockholm species

16. Carolina Parakeet

17. Anthropocene