GUIDE FOR FALL 2014 COMPETENCY EXAM

Here's the book: The Dictator's Handbook (2012) by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita. ("BDM" from now on)

The Political Science faculty will be examining you for your competency in political science. This is primarily an oral examination with minor writing and online-discussion components. The writing and discussion components help you prepare for the exam; guide the faculty in their line of questioning; and provide the faculty a gauge of your effort to prepare.

Competency exam parts: 1) BDM (25 minutes), 2) area of concentration (20 minutes), 3) "potpourri" (10 minutes)

For the writing component, we ask that you devise questions that you think genuinely measure one's competency in the field:

• Part I on BDM: Construct a set of 20 questions, selecting two from each of the ten chapters that follows the "Introduction." Please develop the questions on your own. We are looking for a variety of questions to choose from when conducting your competency exam.
• Part II on area of concentration: Develop an area of concentration from your completed, 300-level or Senior Seminar work. From the DiPietro Library Academic Databases, find four new (i.e., not used in class) concentration-related sources, minimum of 1200 words, and develop a minimum of eight questions, a minimum of two on each source. The more substantial the questions, the less likely we are to develop our own for you. List each source, in proper bibliographic format, followed by its corresponding questions
• Part III Potpourri: List all the PO courses you've taken and then follow that with eight "nuts and bolts" questions, no more than two per course, on concepts, principles, facts explored in each course. For each question, provide the corresponding course number. For example, if PO206 Comparative Government is in your list, then you can list, "PO206: What is a common, statistical indicator of economic development?" (Feel free to use that one.)

Upload one MSWord document, with all three parts, by Thursday, January 22. Failure to submit this on time results in failure of the Competency Exam. We will post all of the documents as study materials for preparation from January 22 until you take the exam on Friday, February 6. Make up exams, for those who fail, will be in the last week of February.

For the discussion component, from January 22 to Feb 6, you will post and respond to questions, drawn from your collection, on the "Discussion" boards in "Collaboration."

All important dates/deadlines will be posted in the "Calendar."