| If you’re pining for the carefree days
of freshman year, you might want to take a look at the
types of questions first-year students face on their initial
set of final exams come December. Shortly before the Class
of ’10
unleashed its first Dead Week Primal Scream, STANFORD asked
some instructors to share some typical test questions.
Psychology 1: Introduction to Psychology
James J. Gross
Upon receiving your grades at the end of the quarter, you
discover that you received an A on your Psych 1 final exam
and conclude that you are brilliant. Then, you notice that
you got a D on your physics final exam, and you conclude
that the exam was poorly written and unfair. You are demonstrating:
a. self-serving bias
b. behavioral confirmation
c. actor-observer bias
d. naive realism
Answer: a. The self-serving bias is
the common tendency to take credit and responsibility for
successes, but blame others or external factors for failures.
 |
Adam Tow/Stanford Daily |
Statistics 60: Introduction to Statistical Methods
Guenther Walther
At the first full moon of fall quarter, a group of
three seniors walks to the Main Quad to kiss freshmen.
Each senior asks five freshmen for permission to kiss.
There
is a 60 percent chance a freshman wants to be kissed, and
a 40 percent chance the freshman refuses. Assume independence
thoughout.
(a) First consider only one of
the three seniors. What are the chances that this senior
will kiss at least one freshman?
(b) What are the chances
that at least one in the group of three seniors has to
go home without having kissed anybody?
Answers: (a) 98.98 percent; (b) 3 percent.
 |
Mike Manzano |
History 106A: Global Human Geography: Asia and Africa
Martin W. Lewis
In the year 1300, African political development could
be characterized by:
a. the absence of states, empires, and other large-scale
political formations; only
in the Christian highlands of Ethiopia would one have
found complex, state-level societies.
b. a complex mixture
of state-level and stateless (i.e., organized at the
clan, village, or “tribal” levels)
societies: in general, the larger, more powerful states
and empires were located in the Sahel belt just south
of the Sahara and in the highlands of Ethiopia.
c. a
complex mixture of state-level and stateless (i.e., organized
at the clan, village, or “tribal” levels)
societies: the larger states and empires were mostly
located in the fertile coastal regions of central and
southern Africa.
d. the formation of a large Bantu Empire
in the central and southern regions, made possible by
the Bantu state’s
monopoly on iron production and its sophisticated political
organization.
Answer: b
 |
kevdog818 |
Anthropological
Sciences 15: Sex and Gender
Rebecca Bird
True or false: Unlike chimpanzees, female bonobos are
almost continuously sexually receptive, copulating even
while pregnant and nursing.
Answer: true.
Chemistry 31X: Chemical Principles
Robert M. Waymouth
A classroom contains 10 evenly spaced rows of students.
During the Chem 31X final, a student in row 1 releases laughing
gas (N2O) and a student in row 10 simultaneously releases
a lachrymator (a gas that causes tears). The students in
row 8 are the first ones to laugh and cry at the same time.
What is the molar mass of the lachrymator?
Answer: 539.25 grams/mole.
(See
the calculation)
Essay question
English 60/160: Poetry and Poetics
Nicholas Jenkins
“Where there is leisure for fiction there is no grief.” This
was Dr. Johnson’s complaint about Milton’s elegy.
Consider, using examples from two poems from two different
centuries, whether it would be equally true (or untrue) to
say of a love poem: “Where there is leisure for fiction
there is no passion.” |
