Photo: Justin Lubin / NBC.

At the end of each unit, there will be a unit exam.

These exams are not cumulative, focusing primarily on new material covered since the previous unit exam. However, keep in mind that some important concepts will remain relevant throughout the whole course.

Each unit exam is due on the Monday after that unit ends, at 11:59PM (midnight), Buffalo (Eastern Standard) Time. A unit exam will be made available 12 hours before it is due, so on that Monday at 12:00PM (noon), Buffalo (Eastern Standard) Time. You will then have the full 12 hours in which find a time to take that exam.

However, keep in mind that you also have an automatic, additional 24-hour grace period for finding a time to take a unit exam. That means there is no penalty if you complete the unit exam by that Tuesday at 11:59PM (midnight), Buffalo (Eastern Standard) Time.

1. Here’s What I Want You to Do
2. Here’s Why I Want You to Do It
3. Here’s How to Do It
4. Here’s How You’ll Earn Philosophy Experience Points
5. Using Philosopher’s Stones
6. Collaboration & Academic Integrity

Photo: Ron Batzdorff / NBC.

Here’s What I Want You to Do

Each unit exam will be posted on UB Learns. These unit exams consist of a Commitment to Academic Integrity Pledge and 50 multiple-choice problems. Each problem will appear one at a time, though you can backtrack to change your response to an earlier problem. Once you begin a unit exam, you have 50 minutes to finish it. If you stop, you cannot restart. (1 minute per multiple-choice problem is standard for college-level quizzes. Most students finish in about 35 minutes and use the rest of the time to double-check their answers.)

If you have any technical difficulties with a unit exam, let me know immediately! I will gladly go into UB Learns and try to fix things for you.

Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.

Here’s Why I Want You to Do It

The purpose of these unit exams is to provide you with the opportunity to demonstrate your progress towards the first 3 learning outcomes for this course:

1. Identify and employ common terminology for philosophical approaches to ethics,
2. Explain and summarize important arguments within philosophical texts, and
3. Apply important ethical concepts and theories to various hypothetical and real-world situations.

This means that exams will have problems that involve definitions, summarizing important points, and applying the course material. All that will assess your understanding of the material presented in the Panopto videos and in the posted readings.

Photo: Justin Lubin / NBC.

Here’s How to Do It

Continue to follow my advice for the weekly quizzes by taking notes and fleshing out your responses to the reading questions. I also suggest that you consult the learning outcomes for each individual module, since I like to create exam problems based on these.

Like the quizzes, all unit exams are open note, open book, and open video—so developing your course notes remains a great way to prepare yourself for success!

Just like with the quizzes, well-crafted and organized notes should make the exams relatively straightforward. You will immediately know the solutions to exam problems, or, at least, know where to quickly find those solutions. I do want these unit exam problems to challenge you, but I never intend to trick you or demand the impossible!

Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.

Here’s How You’ll Earn Philosophy Experience Points

Unless I say otherwise, each unit exam will be worth a total of 1,000 philosophy experience points. Each problem on a unit exam is scored in the following way:

• Each correct response earns 20 points,
• Each incorrect response earns 0 points, and
• Each response of “I don't know” earns 4 points.

Like with the quizzes, I award points in this way to discourage random guessing on the unit exams. It also highlights problems that I may need to reassess.

If you miss, skip, or otherwise do not take a unit exam, then you will earn 0 points on that exam. However, see the Reverse Time power below, which will allow you use 6 philosopher’s stones to retake an exam that you may have missed!

Finally, if you think there is a problem with an exam problem, let me know! In fact, if I correct a mistake you identify, I’ll give you 0.20 (i.e., one fifth) of a philosopher’s stone. Boo-ya!

Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.

Using Philosopher’s Stones

You may exchange 1 philosopher’s stone for the Time Stop philosophical power:

Time Stop (E)

You may also exchange 6 philosopher’s stones for the Reverse Time philosophical power:

Reverse Time

Photo: Colleen Hayes / NBC.

Collaboration & Academic Integrity

Since the unit exams are meant to assess your progress through the course units and the extent to which you are achieving the learning outcomes, I expect you to do all exams on your own without assistance. Naturally, I also expect that you are not helping others with their exams either. If anyone does ask you for help, just send them to me. I’ll gladly assist them. In short, all unit exams are closed to collaboration.

Please remember that exams are not group assignments. Let me know if you are struggling and I’ll gladly help!

Furthermore, please do not try to find solutions to the exams online. Also please do not attempt to use an automated text generator or other form of artificial intelligence (AI) to find solutions. (Honestly, you will likely not have have enough time to find solutions in those ways anyhow.) With all the unit exams being open book, open note, and open video, you really should already have everything you need to do well on them.