Exam review

Use this thread to toss out any questions you might have or discuss topics in preparation for the review. If someone wants to post the themes/binaries from tutorial and add or invite others to add to them, that would probably make an excellent starting point.

Mock-exam: multiple-choice questions

Here's the sample multiple choice exam questions. I've pulled one question from each person that submitted them (14 people in total). Some are good examples of what you will get on the exam and some are not. The reason I've chosen 'good' questions should be obvious. But I've included the 'bad' ones as well because these questions are still instructive, since they actually look much more like good essay questions.

So print this off or simply write down your answers and bring them to tutorial - and also take note of any questions that seem too open or interpretive, and perhaps require short essay style answers.

1. Which of the following is an example of how adult assumptions about childhood can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies?
a) if adults believe children should not read fairy-tales, they will let them watch Disney films instead
b) if parents refuse to read books to their children, the children will likely find another adult to read to them
c) if adults allow children to choose their own books to read, they may choose books that they find entertaining and interesting
d) if adults believe children are innocent, they will keep them away from interesting books because of potentially dangerous content

2. According to Dyer, how does the mainstream media treat gay characters unfairly or inappropriately in films?
a) By making all gay men flamboyantly so.
b) By inserting a masculine/feminine binary into homosexual couples. (I.E: even if they're both women, one of them obviously wears the pants)
c) By primarily using gay characters in comedy and horror films.
d) All of the above.

3. According to Marx & Engels, the class which is the ruling material force of
society is at the same time its ruling:
a) social force
b) artistic force
c) intellectual force
d) dominant force

4. How can childhood researchers, according to James, listen to the authentic
voice of the child?
a) Literally - listen to them
b) Researchers can explore the nature of the voice with which children are
attributed
c) Researchers can study documents relating to childhood (diaries, children's
literature, etc) and draw conclusions about childhood from these.
d) None of the above

5. What is David Jefferess concern in his article?
a) Western children go to school rather than work, and are expected to play rather than fulfil responsibilities to the household.
b) Western notion of childhood may not have existed prior to the eighteenth century
c) The dominant concept of the child in this discourse is dependent upon notions of work, education and the romantic construction of “childhood”.
d) The child in the CRC and child rights discourse is dependent upon the dominant, yet historically recent, conception of the “child” and to suggest how dependence on this concept of the “child” perpetuates structures of domination rather than contributes to the positive social change the child rights movement advocates.

6. When looking at the analysis of Deborah Ellis’ books that we have read this term, who is seen as the strongest character in terms of dealing with social values in labour?
a) Parvana
b) Diego
c) Binti
d) Jay

7. What author states: “the category of the subject is only constitutive of all ideology insofar as all ideology has the function (which defines it) of ‘constituting’ concrete individuals as subjects.”
a) Antonio Gramsci
b) Louis Althussier
c) Karl Marx
d) Ellen Riordan

8. During the 18th century, western children was thought of as
a) little devils
b) equivalent to adults
c) totally innocent
d) as imperfect adults

9. What is the name of the organiztion that Eshan Khan was the leader of?
a) bonded labor liberation front
b) children's liberation group
c) free the children
d) stop child exploitation

10. One of the best way to deal with bias is to
a) accept it and move on
b) report it to the proper authority
c) blame it on dominant ideology
d) to treat everyone equally regardless of race, class, nationality or sexual orientation

11. When Jenkins describes Hillary Clinton's "village" mentality, there is a particular idea or state that the child embodies. What is this state?
a) The embodiment of nostalgic remorse, or of an innocence that has been violated.
b) The embodiment of a dream for the future which must be built in the present.
c) The embodiment of change, its threat and its potential.
d) The embodiment of a temporary state, an emblem for our anxieties about the passing of time.

12. What major element is heavily emphasized throughout the novel of Bifocal?
a) Class
b) Sexuality
c) Stereotypes
d) Individuality

13. What does discursive matrix mean?
a) a representation of one whole text in the same areas within it.
b) a meaning is getting made and represented in lots of different arenas.
c) discourse of ideas and representations.
d) none of the above.

14. Why did Prof. Jeffrey Canton mention that the notion of children literature is stupid?
a) Because its never authentic enough.
b) Because its adult literature created for children.
c) Because all children books are all similar.
d) Because their too young to write books.

Notes

*A reminder that the 'Voice' assignment (on the main class site), which is due on Wednesday, is 3-4 pages if you choose the email option, 6-8 pages if you choose the transcript. Double-spaced, of course. And worth double the normal value of these projects - it will be out of 6 instead of 3.

*The exam outline is posted to the class website, under the 'What's New' link.

*Presentation marks will be emailed to all of you in the latter half of next week. Remember that i'm only going to be assigning half of your total participation marks, which means that you'll still be able to affect the other half. The remaining marks will be assigned at the end of the year.

Review questions...

To remind everyone: you need to create 2 multiple-choice questions for the in-tutorial review on Wednesday and either email them to me or post them as a response to this message. (I would prefer it if you just posted them here - York email is painfully slow. But don't tell us/me which answer is correct. We'll figure that out when we take it up in tutorial.) You have until midnight on Monday (yes, after the next tutorial) to submit something, after which I'll pull it all together and repost it in mock-exam form on Tuesday (possibly as late as the afternoon) for the whole class to try and answer. (There's no specific penalty for not participating, but joining in on the review and contributing - like any discussion - is connected to the participation mark.) And then we'll discuss the answers in tutorial.

If you were in tutorial on Wednesday, then you should know which week you were assigned to cover. If you were not, then I'd suggest that you refer to May 21, 26, and June 2's articles and choose something from among those, since they have the most material to cover. If you're struggling to come up with something, definitions (supplying the definition and four possible terms) or identification (describing a place/person/thing and four options) questions are always the easiest. I won't tell you to avoid making it too easy or too hard because we all have different ideas of what's hard or easy - just try to make sure that all of the possible answers, even the wrong ones, sound at least somewhat plausible. (For example: If the correct answer is 'Louis Althusser', it would make no sense for you to include 'Magic Johnson' as an option. Try Marx, Gramsci, Jenkins, Jefferess, etc.)

So in summary:
-2 questions of your own design, drawn from your week of readings/lecture
-4 possible answers for each (with no indication of which is correct)
-emailed or posted here by midnight on Monday (although earlier is always better)