Botany Website: How to Study

This course does appear to be different for
many students, and so I feel an obligation to give some guidance as to
how to study for the course.  There are various sections
here.  The first part is a section that advises you on strategies
for studying in general, and for the sorts of multiple choice questions
I ask.  The next provides you with the main points of each lecture
in telegraphic brevity.  I do not take the space to lay out the
detailed content of each lecture per se, but rather I label the main
points and topics, so that you know where to aim to get up on the
content.  There is a section that lists the locations of the sorts
of places on which you might be tested by the map questions.  In
the last section I indicate the sorts of things I expect you to know on
time line questions.  This is pretty good advice, so take the time
to be guided by it.  Good luck. A.  How to study for the
exams In past years some students have become worried about how to
study for my exams, having not done as well as they had hoped. 
This section is to calm your nerves as much as anything else, but there
may be some useful study tips here.  Actually, you have some good
guidelines right here on how best to deal with this course.  There
is also more information in the question package.  However, a few
pointers as to how to use these guides might help. The common complaint
is that I talk of large issues and then test you on details. 
Well, that is not exactly what happens, so let me explain.  I do
deal with large issues, that is true, but the questions only look picky
if you don't get the large issues. So the solution is not to assume the
questions are at heart picky and then try to memorize your way through
the course and memorize as you study; I promise you that won't
work.  The thing to notice is that I am always developing an
argument of some sort.  I think that is how I get into your long
term memory.  In multiple choice questions, there is not the
option to have you lay out the whole argument, so I have to test for
something else as a surrogate.  I test in a way that gives you two
choices: 1) know the particular answer (that's the hard way); 2) since
you might not know the answer by just being able to recall it, I try
hard to give you enough information so you can work out the answer, by
knowing the argument from which the answer is taken.
  If you are in panic mode, when the time is short, or you really
care about the grade, it is sometimes hard to remember to work it
out.  The mistake is to say to yourself "I don't know this
detail," and take a guess.  True, the particular answer may be a
fact, but I do not really expect you to carry those facts in your
head.  However, I do expect you to be able to reconstruct the
argument, so that you can intelligently eliminate some options, and
work out the right answer from those left.
  For example, consider the argument that surrounds Lucy, the 4
million year old Australopithecine.  We had a model of human
origins that said upright walking freed the hands, which in turn
released a mind-eye-tool feedback (a bunch of feedback questions right
there).  This would have provided pressure for further upright
walking, so that the evolving humans could use the advantage they had
in the hand-brain connection.  The logical consequence would be
that the brain should get large as soon as there is upright walking,
but Lucy had a small brain, despite upright walking.  So something
else must be constraining the hand-brain feedback.  Recently, we
worked out that the limiting factor was cooling the brain.  Humans
have a porous cranium that lets cool blood from the outer surface get
to the brain to cool it.  The need to cool comes from the brain
being more or less spherical, so that an increase in size changes the
surface to volume ratio, to reduce the relative size of the cooling
outer surface.  Therefore, the cooling capacity of the limited
surface must be increased with the specially porous cranium.  
Now, what sort of questions would I ask here?  Sometimes I will
require the understanding of one argument in the context of another
that was presented at some other time.  For example, you would
need to understand surface to volume ratio, and how size affects
it.  That way you can answer a question that locks Lucy with a
surface/volume ratio question.  Also you would need to understand
how evolution works (those that survive to reproduce get their
characters into the next generation).  That way you can handle a
question that looks at the relative survivorship of evolving
humans.  For example, it is not that pressure to make the brain
larger in Lucy was absent, for a larger brain giving dexterity would
certainly be advantageous.  It is that those that got larger
brains under that pressure, without the cooling capacity, died from
heat stroke in a larger proportion that more than nullified any
advantage of being smart.  Notice that the changes are random, and
good combinations of changes survive; nothing is trying to make the
brain larger.   If you do not know the argument about Lucy, then
there is a big rag bag of facts that I could ask.  Worse than
that, I can put in options that sound plausible by using buzz
words.  But if you do know the argument about Lucy, then you can
see that the buzz word options make no sense.  If you do know the
argument, then you can work out which facts answer the question. 
OK, so you don't remember that the critical evidence was the apparent
functioning of the knee joint (it was set at an angle like humans, not
straight like an ape) but you can still work it out from the options I
give you.  I take a lot of care in writing the questions so that
you really can work it out, and so the plausible options are really
stupid if you know the argument.  If you don't understand the
arguments, then the right answer looks like some picky fact that is
indistinguishable from the buzz word options that are wrong or
senseless.  But that is how I can tell who understood the
arguments and who did not, so I really am testing for the big
ideas.  Mostly my questions look picky because I want them to look
that way to folks who do not understand the arguments.  If you
know the arguments, then you can enjoy watching the carefully phrased
options disguise the right answer; but you get the right answer,
because you have the arguments to work it out. So what for you to
do?  Get on top of the arguments.  How do you do that? 
In the syllabus I suggest what are the main arguments that you need to
understand.  Of course, I don't have space below to lay out the
full argument, but I do tell you what is the point of the lectures
individually.  Also, this course is very carefully designed so
that the readings and labs reinforce the lectures.  If you have
kept up on readings, come into lecture having read the five lines below
that tell you what will be the point of the lecture, and you link all
that to the labs, then it should all click.  When the lecture, lab
and readings all coincide, then that is very likely material for the
test.  When you read the reader, and an article appears to say
something different from lecture, try to reconcile it, or identify that
the argument I gave in class was a bit too pat (for pedagogic clarity)
and note the situation is more complicated.  The books are to be
read right through, and offer main arguments that again are winners for
multiple choice questions as well as for essays.  In reader
questions, do go for the main point of the articles, not the factual
details.  Everyone do the readings and go to lab.  If folks
are blowing off the lab early in the course, we give the class a wake
up call by asking something that you had to be there to know.
  I do make a mass of old questions available to you.  The
way to use them is not so much to go through and answer them; I mean,
you can to reassure yourself, but that is not the point.  The
smart way to use the old exam package is to identify how the questions
are not picky, even if at first they look that way.  If the
question looks picky, it is because you are not using the large
arguments, perhaps because you did not get them in lecture. 
Therefore a good study strategy is to get together with friends and
work out how the underlying argument fits.  Take questions in the
package and talk with your friends about what else I could have asked
about that section of the course.  A good strategy for map
questions is to have copies of those maps and mark down all the places
and what happened there.  This syllabus tells you explicitly 90%
of what I expect you to know on the maps.  Sometimes the map
questions are also testing something else beyond what is where. 
There are more of the big arguments in the map questions than at first
appears.  For example, if you know climate then you know the soil,
so long as you understand the processes of soil building.  I pick
the options to test that understanding, not to test if you memorized in
particular the soil type at each of the letters. As a reassuring note,
sometimes it takes a couple of exams to get the hang of my style of
probing.  Some folks just nail that final to the wall when the
penny drops, and land the A they deserve.  And remember, where you
do best counts most.  That is why the exams are so hard; I am
interested in how good you are when you've got it, not how you were all
at sea in the beginning. B.  A Multiple Choice Study Guide I first
wrote these lecture summaries after looking at the results of an exam
where I discovered that questions on some of the important take-home
messages from the lectures were being missed even by the stronger
students.  The hard part of teaching this course is not to get you
to work hard at it, because Wisconsin students are a cut above most
state assisted universities, and anyway I have a knack of getting
students to work diligently.  The hard part is getting you to work
hard at the right things.  In a sense, if you work on the wrong
things, it is my fault not yours.  So we do everything we can to
help focus your efforts.  The following is designed to help you,
as you review your notes, to identify the central points as opposed to
incidental details for each lecture and lab.  Of course I will
feel free to test you on more than the points laid out here, but at
least you will start your review of course material with an appropriate
focus.  In the list below I try to use the names of the lectures
as they appear in the syllabus.  However, some of the larger
points, like homology and analogy, will apply across several lectures.
There are no study sessions, because they encourage you to work on the
wrong things.  You will do better if you keep up all the
time.  It is not so much work if you do that, but it seems an
impossible amount of work if you try and cram at the last minute. 
So the trick is to identify what are the important points as they come
up.  Come into lecture a minute early and read the four or so
lines below that describe the main points of the lecture that
day.  Then after the lecture, see if you can answer the sample
question below, which belongs to the that day's lecture.  If you
have only a few notes and cannot get the answer, then you might need to
focus at a deeper level of detail.  If you have pages of detailed
notes and cannot get the answer, then you might need to deal with the
lecture at a level of greater generality; too many details can distract
you from understanding the point at hand.  This course in an
exercise in finding the right level of analysis as you develop thinking
and problem-solving skills.  It is not an exercise in working
hard, but there is some work involved.  One final note.  The
master file of old exam questions is a really good study tool. 
Form a study group; you will learn from smarter friends, and from
teaching not so smart friends.  In the package are essay questions
that would be really good for getting the discussion group going. 
The lectures are fun, often downright exciting (many people tell me
that, anyway).  Discussing the surprising ideas I present will not
only help you fill in the details or identify the main points, but may
well get you into the habit of enjoying ideas for their own sake (the
only real reason for going to college in the first place).  More
than anything else, questions below are to get you into the habit of
being self-conscious about learning from lecture.  C.  What
to Expect on Time Line Questions We do not expect you to remember dates
closely, but we do expect you to have a feel for time sequences. 
These are like the map questions, but in time instead of space. 
There is a series of questions that have a set of 10 dates, with you
choosing the closest date to the issue raised.  Note that the
options for the answers given below tend to be round numbers,
indicating that we do not expect you to remember the year
exactly.  There is a time line chart in the reader for many of the
civilizations, and from there you should be able to answer most of the
civilization time line questions.  Those options are: 8000BC,
6000BC, 5000BC, 4000BC, 3000BC, 2000BC, 1000BC, 1 AD, 1000 AD, 1500
AD.  The questions could include times of beginning or end of:
agricultural origins, irrigation, walled cities, money, writing, the
alphabet, Danubian slash & burn, Sumerians, Minoan, Mycenaean,
Hellenic Greeks, Alexander, Phoenicians, Hittites, Egypt, Romans,
Carthaginians, Byzantium, Abbasid Caliphate, Mayas, Aztecs, Incas,
Anasazi (Chacoan Indians). In the same spirit of you knowing general
time frames, there are options for evolution of life up to our
species.  The options there are: 4 billion, 1 billion, and in
millions of years ago 300, 100, 50, 25, 12, 5, 2, and a quarter of a
million.  These questions could include origins of: our planet,
life, land plants, flowering plants, insects, diversification of mammal
orders (primates, Carnivora), dogs, cats, hyenas, Nimravidae (extinct
cat like form), Simians (monkeys), apes, Australopithecines (Lucy), our
genus Homo, our species Homo sapiens, Neanderthals.  Some times of
extinctions would also be fair game, like the extinction of the
dinosaurs (60 million or so years ago).
  The point of these questions is often not the time per se, but
rather that you need to know a time in order to understand an
idea.  For example, the point of the dates for the origins of the
various carnivore groups is not the time.  The carnivore date
questions let you show that you know that cats and dogs are not only
specific groups in themselves, but are also examples of two main
hunting strategies.  Hyenas look and hunt like dogs, but are in
fact more closely related to cats.  Cats and dogs separate 55
million years ago, but hyenas separate from cats only 30 million years
ago.   The recently (5 million years ago) extinct Nimravidae are
very cat like, but separate from true cats only shortly after the dog
half of the Carnivora split in the first major division within that
order.  The split of dogs from cats is actually quite close to the
split of the Carnivora from the ancestral mammals, about the same time
as the Primates (our order) split away.  Scientists are like that:
there are too many facts to know them all, but the important facts
underpin the important ideas.  Scientists carry the important
facts with them, like the rough dates that show the surprise that
hyenas are much more closely related to cats than to dogs.  The
origins of Primates, dogs and Nimravs are all closest to the same date
option of 50 million years ago.  After the dinosaurs died out, the
mammals very quickly produced almost all the modern mammal orders.
   So do not learn every fact and date, especially to the
year, but rather identify which dates are important because they carry
a central idea. Finally there is intellectual history and American
history.  The options there are all AD: 1660, 1700, 1760, 1800,
1820, 1860, 1900, 1920, 1945, 1970.  The questions here could
include the closest date to:  the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin's
Origin of Species, Malthus' essay on population, Lamarck's theory of
evolution, Wegener's theory of continental drift, the acceptance of
plate tectonics, battle of the Little Bighorn (Custer's last stand),
defeat of the Navajos by Kit Carson, the Massacre of Wounded Knee, the
Ghost Dance, white settlement of Wisconsin, Wisconsin land surveyors,
the Black Hawk Wars in Minnesota and Wisconsin, death of Sitting Bull
and Crazy Horse, the completion of the transcontinental railroad. 
Sometimes the right answer will be more or less in between the options
(eg. 1876 for the Little Bighorn), in which case the question will ask
for the date immediately before or after rather than closest
date.  Note that in all of these date questions, memorizing the
date is not the point.   Rather we want you to have enough
knowledge so you can get a rough sequence right. Not included in the
above sets of options, but still fair game with a different set of
dates would be the dates of Saxons and Normans invading Britain, the
Black Death, the tragedy of the commons, the Acts of Enclosure, and the
Irish Potato Famine.  The recent histories of Europe and America
fit into the course by virtue of the ecological and land ethic issues
they raise.

Last Updated: 9/05/07 Site Information
	How to study for this course

	This course does appear to be different for many students, and so I feel an obligation to give some guidance as to how to study for the course. There are various sections here. The first part is a section that advises you on strategies for studying in general, and for the sorts of multiple choice questions I ask. The next provides you with the main points of each lecture in telegraphic brevity. I do not take the space to lay out the detailed content of each lecture per se, but rather I label the main points and topics, so that you know where to aim to get up on the content. There is a section that lists the locations of the sorts of places on which you might be tested by the map questions. In the last section I indicate the sorts of things I expect you to know on time line questions. This is pretty good advice, so take the time to be guided by it. Good luck. A. How to study for the exams In past years some students have become worried about how to study for my exams, having not done as well as they had hoped. This section is to calm your nerves as much as anything else, but there may be some useful study tips here. Actually, you have some good guidelines right here on how best to deal with this course. There is also more information in the question package. However, a few pointers as to how to use these guides might help. The common complaint is that I talk of large issues and then test you on details. Well, that is not exactly what happens, so let me explain. I do deal with large issues, that is true, but the questions only look picky if you don't get the large issues. So the solution is not to assume the questions are at heart picky and then try to memorize your way through the course and memorize as you study; I promise you that won't work. The thing to notice is that I am always developing an argument of some sort. I think that is how I get into your long term memory. In multiple choice questions, there is not the option to have you lay out the whole argument, so I have to test for something else as a surrogate. I test in a way that gives you two choices: 1) know the particular answer (that's the hard way); 2) since you might not know the answer by just being able to recall it, I try hard to give you enough information so you can work out the answer, by knowing the argument from which the answer is taken. If you are in panic mode, when the time is short, or you really care about the grade, it is sometimes hard to remember to work it out. The mistake is to say to yourself "I don't know this detail," and take a guess. True, the particular answer may be a fact, but I do not really expect you to carry those facts in your head. However, I do expect you to be able to reconstruct the argument, so that you can intelligently eliminate some options, and work out the right answer from those left. For example, consider the argument that surrounds Lucy, the 4 million year old Australopithecine. We had a model of human origins that said upright walking freed the hands, which in turn released a mind-eye-tool feedback (a bunch of feedback questions right there). This would have provided pressure for further upright walking, so that the evolving humans could use the advantage they had in the hand-brain connection. The logical consequence would be that the brain should get large as soon as there is upright walking, but Lucy had a small brain, despite upright walking. So something else must be constraining the hand-brain feedback. Recently, we worked out that the limiting factor was cooling the brain. Humans have a porous cranium that lets cool blood from the outer surface get to the brain to cool it. The need to cool comes from the brain being more or less spherical, so that an increase in size changes the surface to volume ratio, to reduce the relative size of the cooling outer surface. Therefore, the cooling capacity of the limited surface must be increased with the specially porous cranium. Now, what sort of questions would I ask here? Sometimes I will require the understanding of one argument in the context of another that was presented at some other time. For example, you would need to understand surface to volume ratio, and how size affects it. That way you can answer a question that locks Lucy with a surface/volume ratio question. Also you would need to understand how evolution works (those that survive to reproduce get their characters into the next generation). That way you can handle a question that looks at the relative survivorship of evolving humans. For example, it is not that pressure to make the brain larger in Lucy was absent, for a larger brain giving dexterity would certainly be advantageous. It is that those that got larger brains under that pressure, without the cooling capacity, died from heat stroke in a larger proportion that more than nullified any advantage of being smart. Notice that the changes are random, and good combinations of changes survive; nothing is trying to make the brain larger. If you do not know the argument about Lucy, then there is a big rag bag of facts that I could ask. Worse than that, I can put in options that sound plausible by using buzz words. But if you do know the argument about Lucy, then you can see that the buzz word options make no sense. If you do know the argument, then you can work out which facts answer the question. OK, so you don't remember that the critical evidence was the apparent functioning of the knee joint (it was set at an angle like humans, not straight like an ape) but you can still work it out from the options I give you. I take a lot of care in writing the questions so that you really can work it out, and so the plausible options are really stupid if you know the argument. If you don't understand the arguments, then the right answer looks like some picky fact that is indistinguishable from the buzz word options that are wrong or senseless. But that is how I can tell who understood the arguments and who did not, so I really am testing for the big ideas. Mostly my questions look picky because I want them to look that way to folks who do not understand the arguments. If you know the arguments, then you can enjoy watching the carefully phrased options disguise the right answer; but you get the right answer, because you have the arguments to work it out. So what for you to do? Get on top of the arguments. How do you do that? In the syllabus I suggest what are the main arguments that you need to understand. Of course, I don't have space below to lay out the full argument, but I do tell you what is the point of the lectures individually. Also, this course is very carefully designed so that the readings and labs reinforce the lectures. If you have kept up on readings, come into lecture having read the five lines below that tell you what will be the point of the lecture, and you link all that to the labs, then it should all click. When the lecture, lab and readings all coincide, then that is very likely material for the test. When you read the reader, and an article appears to say something different from lecture, try to reconcile it, or identify that the argument I gave in class was a bit too pat (for pedagogic clarity) and note the situation is more complicated. The books are to be read right through, and offer main arguments that again are winners for multiple choice questions as well as for essays. In reader questions, do go for the main point of the articles, not the factual details. Everyone do the readings and go to lab. If folks are blowing off the lab early in the course, we give the class a wake up call by asking something that you had to be there to know. I do make a mass of old questions available to you. The way to use them is not so much to go through and answer them; I mean, you can to reassure yourself, but that is not the point. The smart way to use the old exam package is to identify how the questions are not picky, even if at first they look that way. If the question looks picky, it is because you are not using the large arguments, perhaps because you did not get them in lecture. Therefore a good study strategy is to get together with friends and work out how the underlying argument fits. Take questions in the package and talk with your friends about what else I could have asked about that section of the course. A good strategy for map questions is to have copies of those maps and mark down all the places and what happened there. This syllabus tells you explicitly 90% of what I expect you to know on the maps. Sometimes the map questions are also testing something else beyond what is where. There are more of the big arguments in the map questions than at first appears. For example, if you know climate then you know the soil, so long as you understand the processes of soil building. I pick the options to test that understanding, not to test if you memorized in particular the soil type at each of the letters. As a reassuring note, sometimes it takes a couple of exams to get the hang of my style of probing. Some folks just nail that final to the wall when the penny drops, and land the A they deserve. And remember, where you do best counts most. That is why the exams are so hard; I am interested in how good you are when you've got it, not how you were all at sea in the beginning. B. A Multiple Choice Study Guide I first wrote these lecture summaries after looking at the results of an exam where I discovered that questions on some of the important take-home messages from the lectures were being missed even by the stronger students. The hard part of teaching this course is not to get you to work hard at it, because Wisconsin students are a cut above most state assisted universities, and anyway I have a knack of getting students to work diligently. The hard part is getting you to work hard at the right things. In a sense, if you work on the wrong things, it is my fault not yours. So we do everything we can to help focus your efforts. The following is designed to help you, as you review your notes, to identify the central points as opposed to incidental details for each lecture and lab. Of course I will feel free to test you on more than the points laid out here, but at least you will start your review of course material with an appropriate focus. In the list below I try to use the names of the lectures as they appear in the syllabus. However, some of the larger points, like homology and analogy, will apply across several lectures. There are no study sessions, because they encourage you to work on the wrong things. You will do better if you keep up all the time. It is not so much work if you do that, but it seems an impossible amount of work if you try and cram at the last minute. So the trick is to identify what are the important points as they come up. Come into lecture a minute early and read the four or so lines below that describe the main points of the lecture that day. Then after the lecture, see if you can answer the sample question below, which belongs to the that day's lecture. If you have only a few notes and cannot get the answer, then you might need to focus at a deeper level of detail. If you have pages of detailed notes and cannot get the answer, then you might need to deal with the lecture at a level of greater generality; too many details can distract you from understanding the point at hand. This course in an exercise in finding the right level of analysis as you develop thinking and problem-solving skills. It is not an exercise in working hard, but there is some work involved. One final note. The master file of old exam questions is a really good study tool. Form a study group; you will learn from smarter friends, and from teaching not so smart friends. In the package are essay questions that would be really good for getting the discussion group going. The lectures are fun, often downright exciting (many people tell me that, anyway). Discussing the surprising ideas I present will not only help you fill in the details or identify the main points, but may well get you into the habit of enjoying ideas for their own sake (the only real reason for going to college in the first place). More than anything else, questions below are to get you into the habit of being self-conscious about learning from lecture. C. What to Expect on Time Line Questions We do not expect you to remember dates closely, but we do expect you to have a feel for time sequences. These are like the map questions, but in time instead of space. There is a series of questions that have a set of 10 dates, with you choosing the closest date to the issue raised. Note that the options for the answers given below tend to be round numbers, indicating that we do not expect you to remember the year exactly. There is a time line chart in the reader for many of the civilizations, and from there you should be able to answer most of the civilization time line questions. Those options are: 8000BC, 6000BC, 5000BC, 4000BC, 3000BC, 2000BC, 1000BC, 1 AD, 1000 AD, 1500 AD. The questions could include times of beginning or end of: agricultural origins, irrigation, walled cities, money, writing, the alphabet, Danubian slash & burn, Sumerians, Minoan, Mycenaean, Hellenic Greeks, Alexander, Phoenicians, Hittites, Egypt, Romans, Carthaginians, Byzantium, Abbasid Caliphate, Mayas, Aztecs, Incas, Anasazi (Chacoan Indians). In the same spirit of you knowing general time frames, there are options for evolution of life up to our species. The options there are: 4 billion, 1 billion, and in millions of years ago 300, 100, 50, 25, 12, 5, 2, and a quarter of a million. These questions could include origins of: our planet, life, land plants, flowering plants, insects, diversification of mammal orders (primates, Carnivora), dogs, cats, hyenas, Nimravidae (extinct cat like form), Simians (monkeys), apes, Australopithecines (Lucy), our genus Homo, our species Homo sapiens, Neanderthals. Some times of extinctions would also be fair game, like the extinction of the dinosaurs (60 million or so years ago). The point of these questions is often not the time per se, but rather that you need to know a time in order to understand an idea. For example, the point of the dates for the origins of the various carnivore groups is not the time. The carnivore date questions let you show that you know that cats and dogs are not only specific groups in themselves, but are also examples of two main hunting strategies. Hyenas look and hunt like dogs, but are in fact more closely related to cats. Cats and dogs separate 55 million years ago, but hyenas separate from cats only 30 million years ago. The recently (5 million years ago) extinct Nimravidae are very cat like, but separate from true cats only shortly after the dog half of the Carnivora split in the first major division within that order. The split of dogs from cats is actually quite close to the split of the Carnivora from the ancestral mammals, about the same time as the Primates (our order) split away. Scientists are like that: there are too many facts to know them all, but the important facts underpin the important ideas. Scientists carry the important facts with them, like the rough dates that show the surprise that hyenas are much more closely related to cats than to dogs. The origins of Primates, dogs and Nimravs are all closest to the same date option of 50 million years ago. After the dinosaurs died out, the mammals very quickly produced almost all the modern mammal orders. So do not learn every fact and date, especially to the year, but rather identify which dates are important because they carry a central idea. Finally there is intellectual history and American history. The options there are all AD: 1660, 1700, 1760, 1800, 1820, 1860, 1900, 1920, 1945, 1970. The questions here could include the closest date to: the voyage of the Beagle, Darwin's Origin of Species, Malthus' essay on population, Lamarck's theory of evolution, Wegener's theory of continental drift, the acceptance of plate tectonics, battle of the Little Bighorn (Custer's last stand), defeat of the Navajos by Kit Carson, the Massacre of Wounded Knee, the Ghost Dance, white settlement of Wisconsin, Wisconsin land surveyors, the Black Hawk Wars in Minnesota and Wisconsin, death of Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, the completion of the transcontinental railroad. Sometimes the right answer will be more or less in between the options (eg. 1876 for the Little Bighorn), in which case the question will ask for the date immediately before or after rather than closest date. Note that in all of these date questions, memorizing the date is not the point. Rather we want you to have enough knowledge so you can get a rough sequence right. Not included in the above sets of options, but still fair game with a different set of dates would be the dates of Saxons and Normans invading Britain, the Black Death, the tragedy of the commons, the Acts of Enclosure, and the Irish Potato Famine. The recent histories of Europe and America fit into the course by virtue of the ecological and land ethic issues they raise.

How to study for this course