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Week 8 · Study guide

Midterm Study Guide · Weeks 1–7 (Objectives 1–5)

Introduction to Political Science · POLS 1 Fall 2026 · Prof. Halloran Fictional sample

Course: Introduction to Political Science (POLS 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Halloran
This is a student-facing review page. Read it, work the fresh practice, and follow the dated plan. Then run the paired Exam-Prep Tutorial and take the Practice Exam for active recall. (This guide points to both — it does not repeat them.) Closed to AI — this guide is a reference page, not an interactive tool; use it alongside (not instead of) the AI-assisted Exam-Prep Tutorial.

Integrity note for students. Every practice item on this page is a fresh variant — a new scenario and wording — with a vetted answer. None of these are the live midterm questions. Working them builds the skill the midterm tests, the honest way.

What the midterm covers (read this first)
Exam Midterm — cumulative, Weeks 1–7, Objectives 1–5
Format 20 items, 100 points (5 each). Mixed item types: most questions hand you a short scenario and ask you to classify, identify, or apply — plus several matching items (thinker/concept → idea, term → trait) and a true/false. AI is not permitted on the midterm.
Coverage (where the points are) Obj 1 = 3 items (the discipline & its methods) · Obj 2 = 3 items (power, authority, legitimacy & the state) · Obj 3 = 5 items (ideologies & normative theory — biggest slice) · Obj 4 = 5 items (regime types & constitutions — tied for biggest) · Obj 5 (half) = 4 items (legislatures & executives). Study Objectives 3 and 4 hardest.
Weight The midterm is 20% of your course grade.
When / where Opens in the Week 8 module (Mon Oct 19); due Sun Oct 25, 11:59 p.m.; one attempt. This guide and the exam-prep tutorial post before the window so you can prepare. There is no weekly quiz, assignment, or workshop in Week 8 — the midterm replaces them. Discussion 8 (the midterm debrief) still runs.
What to bring No calculator needed. Build the one-page concept sheet this guide helps you make (key terms, the key attributions, the misconception-cures, the exact-wording phrases).

How to use this guide. Each objective has four parts: (A) key ideas in plain language, (B) definitions / terms / thinkers, (C) predictable mistakes and their cures, (D) where to review. After all five objectives come fresh self-check questions (with answers), a dated study plan, and exam strategy.

Objective 1 — The Discipline & Its Methods (Week 1) · 3 items

(A) Key ideas, plain language

Political science studies who gets what, when, and how — systematically. "Systematic" doesn't mean lab coats; it means defining concepts precisely, stating claims so they can be checked, comparing cases as a substitute for experiments, and being honest about the line between what evidence can settle and what it can't. Three items test whether you can name the discipline's map, use its toolkit, and sort a claim by kind.

(B) Definitions, terms, procedures

  • The five subfields: political theory/philosophy (the ought questions), comparative politics (systems within countries, compared), international relations (politics between states, no world government above them), American government (the deep study of one case — ours), political methodology (the tools of inquiry — measurement, polling, design).
  • The toolkit: concept application (apply a defined concept precisely to a case), argument analysis (find the claim, the premises, the assumptions; check if the conclusion follows), evidence evaluation (what does a text/dataset show — and NOT show?), the comparative method (compare cases on defined dimensions).
  • Source-work moves (for primary texts specifically): sourcing (who wrote it, when, why), contextualization (what moment shaped it), close reading (what do the exact words say and not say), corroboration (does a second source confirm, complicate, or contradict?).
  • Empirical claim: about what is — checkable against evidence. Can be false. Normative claim: about what ought to be — supported by reasons and principles, not settled by measurement, but arguable well or badly.

(C) Predictable mistakes → cures

  • ❌ "Empirical claims are true and normative claims are just opinions." → ✅ Wrong twice. An empirical claim can be false ("the Senate has 120 members" — it has 100); a normative claim can be rigorously argued from premises, with reasons, answering objections.
  • ❌ Sorting a claim by its topic instead of its kind. → ✅ The same institution generates both kinds — "the Senate has 100 members" (empirical) vs. "the Senate ought to be proportional to population" (normative). Ask what would support this claim?, not what does it mention?
  • ❌ Confusing close reading with corroboration. → ✅ Close reading works on a single document; corroboration requires a second source to cross-check against.

(D) Where to review

Week 1 → Lecture Outline Segments 1–7, Slides (Deck 1), Workshop 1 (the Declaration, ¶2), Tutorial 1.

Objective 2 — Power, Authority, Legitimacy & the State (Week 2) · 3 items

(A) Key ideas, plain language

Three words that get used interchangeably in everyday speech mean three different things in political science, and they don't always travel together. Weber's three types explain WHY people obey. And three classic thinkers gave three different answers to the question of why anyone should obey a government at all.

(B) Definitions, terms, procedures

  • Power: the raw capacity to get someone to do something, even against their will (an armed robber has power).
  • Authority: power exercised through a widely accepted right to hold it (an elected official's authority rests on the office).
  • Legitimacy: the broader belief among the governed that a system's rules and use of power are rightful.
  • Weber's three types of legitimate authority: traditional (long-standing custom), charismatic (a leader's perceived extraordinary qualities), legal-rational (formally enacted rules, owed to the office not the person). Most modern states run mainly on legal-rational authority.
  • The state's four conventional criteria: territory, population, government, sovereignty. Internal sovereignty (no domestic actor can legally overrule it) vs. external sovereignty (other states recognize it as the final authority over its territory). State ≠ nation ≠ government.
  • The social contract, three answers:
  • Hobbes, Leviathan (1651), Ch. XIII: the state of nature is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short," a war "where every man is enemy to every man" → people should consent to a powerful, largely unchecked sovereign.
  • Locke, Second Treatise §95 (1689): natural rights exist prior to government; legitimate government rests on consent and is limited; a right to resist a tyrannical government.
  • Rousseau, The Social Contract (1762): "Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains." Legitimate authority flows from the people collectively — popular sovereignty, the general will.

(C) Predictable mistakes → cures

  • ❌ Treating power, authority, and legitimacy as synonyms. → ✅ A coup leader can have power without authority or legitimacy; a ceremonial monarch can have legitimacy with very little actual power. Three separate things.
  • ❌ Swapping Hobbes and Locke. → ✅ Hobbes feared chaos most and favored a near-absolute sovereign; Locke feared tyranny most and favored limited, consent-based government with a right to resist.
  • ❌ Thinking Rousseau just repeats Locke. → ✅ Rousseau's distinctive move is locating sovereignty in the people themselves (the general will), not in a ruler who receives consent from the people.
  • ❌ Treating the Peace of Westphalia (1648) as a precise founding date. → ✅ It's a conventional marker, with the field's own caveat that this is a simplification.

(D) Where to review

Week 2 → Lecture Outline, Slides (Deck 2), Workshop 2 (Hobbes's Leviathan Ch. XIII, corroborated with Locke §95), Tutorial 2.

Objective 3 — Ideologies & Normative Theory (Weeks 3–4) · 5 items — STUDY HARDEST

(A) Key ideas, plain language

Five items make this the biggest slice of the exam, tied with Objective 4. This is the most sensitivity-critical material in the course: every ideology gets the exact same neutral treatment — what it values, what it fears, what it argues — never a ranking, never an endorsement. Then normative theory turns from ideologies to individual philosophers' arguments about liberty, equality, and justice, stated factually.

(B) Definitions, terms, procedures

Ideologies (Week 3):
- Ideology, defined: a coherent set of ideas about how society should work and who should hold power.
- Classical liberalism: individual liberty, free markets, government limited mainly to protecting rights.
- Modern liberalism: one wing of the broader liberal tradition; closer to what "liberal" usually means in everyday U.S. political conversation.
- Conservatism: established institutions, tradition, gradual over rapid change.
- Socialism (the broad family): social or collective control over major economic resources, to reduce inequality.
- Communism (the Marxist tradition): specifically calls for abolishing private ownership of the means of production, historically via revolution.
- Social democracy: strong redistribution within a market economy, achieved through democratic means.
- Anarchism: voluntary association, abolition of coercive hierarchical authority. Fascism: a distinct ideology — never a synonym for conservatism. Nationalism: the claim that national identity should determine political organization — distinct from patriotism (simple affection for one's country, compatible with many ideologies).
- The left–right spectrum: proponents note real, testable correlations and useful shorthand; critics note it flattens at least two separable dimensions (economic and social/cultural).

Normative theory (Week 4):
- Negative liberty (Berlin): freedom from interference. Positive liberty: freedom to actually achieve something.
- Equality of opportunity (no barriers to the starting line) vs. equality of outcome (equal results).
- Mill's harm principle, On Liberty (1859), Ch. I, exact wording: "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." Does not license pure paternalism.
- Rawls: original position behind a veil of ignorance; two principles, including the difference principle — inequalities just only if they benefit the least advantaged.
- Nozick: entitlement theory — a distribution is just if it arose through just acquisition and voluntary transfer; favors a minimal state.

(C) Predictable mistakes → cures

  • ❌ Conservatism and fascism are the same because both are placed on the political right. → ✅ Distinct ideologies with different cores. Spectrum position ≠ ideological content.
  • ❌ Socialism, communism, and social democracy are interchangeable. → ✅ Socialism = the broad family; communism = abolishing private ownership of production; social democracy = redistribution via democratic means within a market economy. Three different things.
  • ❌ Mill's harm principle covers "offense," not just "harm." → ✅ The exact word is harm. Chatbots routinely add "or offense" — it is not in the original text.
  • ❌ Swapping Rawls and Nozick. → ✅ Rawls asks what a fair process behind a veil of ignorance would choose (favoring the least advantaged); Nozick asks whether the actual historical process that produced a distribution was just (favoring minimal interference once it was).
  • ❌ Assuming this course will tell you which ideology or theory is "right." → ✅ It will not — on purpose. Every position gets its strongest case; the exam tests what positions claim, never which is correct.

(D) Where to review

Week 3 → Lecture Outline, Deck 3, Workshop 3 (paired Marx & Engels / Burke excerpts), Tutorial 3. Week 4 → Lecture Outline, Deck 4, Workshop 4 (Mill's On Liberty, contrasted with Rawls), Tutorial 4.

Objective 4 — Regime Types & Constitutions (Weeks 5–6) · 5 items — STUDY HARDEST

(A) Key ideas, plain language

Five items, tied for the exam's biggest slice. This objective has two halves: how political scientists classify regimes (democracy, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, and the space between), and what constitutions actually do — including the difference between having rules on paper and those rules actually binding the people in power.

(B) Definitions, terms, procedures

Regime types (Week 5):
- Direct vs. representative democracy: mechanisms that can coexist, not rival regimes.
- Electoral democracy: genuinely contested elections. Liberal democracy: elections plus protected rights, a free press, and an independent judiciary — a higher bar.
- Authoritarianism: concentrates political power, suppresses real opposition, but largely leaves non-political life alone. Totalitarianism: authoritarian control of politics plus an attempt to remake society itself (economy, culture, family life). The difference is scope, not just severity.
- Hybrid regime: elections are real, but the playing field isn't level.
- Democratic backsliding (gradual, often nominally legal) vs. a coup (sudden, typically illegal). Huntington's "third wave" of democratization conventionally dated from 1974, starting with Portugal.
- Churchill, House of Commons, 11 Nov 1947: democracy is "the worst form of Government except all those other forms that have been tried" — introduced with "it has been said" — he was repeating an existing saying, not coining it.

Constitutions & the rule of law (Week 6):
- What constitutions do: create, empower, and LIMIT government.
- Constitution (the rulebook exists) vs. constitutionalism (the rulebook actually binds the rulers in practice).
- Written vs. unwritten: the U.S. has one foundational document; the U.K.'s constitution is built from statutes, judicial decisions, and binding convention.
- Separation of powers (divides authority horizontally, among branches) vs. federalism (divides authority vertically, between levels of government) — two different axes.
- Rule of law (government itself bound by known, general, public law; courts can rule against it) vs. rule BY law (law controls citizens, rulers are exempt).
- Madison, Federalist No. 51 (1788): "If men were angels, no government would be necessary… Ambition must be made to counteract ambition." Argument: people, including officeholders, are not angels — structure, not virtue alone, restrains power abuse.
- Magna Carta (1215), clauses 39–40: the traditional rule-of-law lineage starting point — lawful judgment, no sale/delay of justice.

(C) Predictable mistakes → cures

  • ❌ Any contested election = a full democracy. → ✅ Contested elections establish, at most, an electoral democracy. Liberal democracy requires rights, press freedom, and judicial independence on top.
  • ❌ "Totalitarian" as a generic synonym for "very repressive." → ✅ It requires an attempt to remake society itself, not just political control — a scope test, not a severity test.
  • ❌ Backsliding and a coup are the same thing. → ✅ Backsliding is gradual, often nominally legal; a coup is sudden, typically illegal.
  • ❌ A written constitution automatically means constitutionalism. → ✅ Parchment isn't practice. A country can have a lengthy written document that the government routinely ignores — a constitution without constitutionalism.
  • ❌ Separation of powers and federalism are the same division. → ✅ Separation of powers is horizontal (among branches); federalism is vertical (among levels of government).
  • ❌ Rule of law just means "lots of laws, strictly enforced." → ✅ The test is whether the law binds the rulers, not just the ruled.

(D) Where to review

Week 5 → Lecture Outline, Deck 5, Workshop 5 (Pericles' Funeral Oration, corroborated with Churchill 1947), Tutorial 5. Week 6 → Lecture Outline, Deck 6, Workshop 6 (Federalist No. 51, corroborated with Magna Carta), Tutorial 6.

Objective 5 — Legislatures & Executives (Week 7) · 4 items

(A) Key ideas, plain language

Four items cover the first half of political institutions — the machinery of legislatures and executives (judiciaries wait for Week 9 and are not on this midterm). The core skill: sort a real or hypothetical country into parliamentary, presidential, or semi-presidential — correctly, without being fooled by surface features like an office simply being named "president."

(B) Definitions, terms, procedures

  • What legislatures do: represent, legislate, oversee the executive (sometimes including removal). Unicameral vs. bicameral: a second chamber can represent a different basis (e.g., territorial units) and add a check on hasty legislation — bicameral is not automatically "more democratic."
  • Head of state (often ceremonial) vs. head of government (runs day-to-day governance). In a presidential system, one person holds both. In a parliamentary system, the roles split.
  • Parliamentary: executive drawn from and responsible to the legislature, removable by no-confidence (U.K., Germany, Japan, Canada).
  • Presidential: separately elected, fixed term, one person is both head of state and government (U.S., Mexico, Brazil).
  • Semi-presidential: an elected president with real independent power plus a prime minister accountable to parliament (France).
  • No-confidence vote (removes a government for any reason, including policy disagreement) vs. impeachment (reserved for serious wrongdoing, much higher legal bar).
  • Bagehot, The English Constitution (1867): the British system's "efficient secret" is the "nearly complete fusion" of executive and legislative powers.
  • U.S. Constitution, Articles I & II: deliberately separates Congress from the presidency — fusion vs. separation by design.
  • Linz's "perils of presidentialism": rigidity of the fixed term, dual democratic legitimacy (president and legislature both elected), "winner-take-all" stakes. Identifiability reply: voters know exactly who they're electing as chief executive.

(C) Predictable mistakes → cures

  • ❌ An office called "president" always means a presidential system. → ✅ Germany's Federal President is a largely ceremonial head of state in a parliamentary system; the Chancellor (chosen by and accountable to the Bundestag) is head of government. Same trap with Japan's Emperor and Prime Minister.
  • ❌ No-confidence and impeachment are the same procedure. → ✅ No-confidence = any reason, including policy disagreement; impeachment = serious wrongdoing, high legal bar.
  • ❌ Semi-presidential just means "a weak presidential system." → ✅ It's a genuine dual executive — both an empowered elected president AND a prime minister accountable to parliament, not a watered-down version of either pure type.
  • ❌ Bicameralism is always "more democratic." → ✅ It's a design trade-off (different representation basis, extra check) — not automatically more legitimate than a unicameral legislature.

(D) Where to review

Week 7 → Lecture Outline, Deck 7, Workshop 7 (Bagehot's The English Constitution vs. U.S. Constitution Art. I–II), Tutorial 7.

Self-check questions (fresh variants — vetted answers)

None of these are live midterm items. Cover the answers, work each one, check.

Obj 1:
1. A claim that can be checked against evidence, and could turn out to be false, is called what kind of claim? → Empirical.
2. True/False: A normative claim is "just an opinion" with no standard for good or bad reasoning. → False (normative claims are argued from premises and principles, well or badly).
3. Which subfield studies politics between states, where there's no world government? → International relations.

Obj 2:
4. An elected mayor's decisions are followed because the office itself carries formally defined power under the charter. Which of Weber's types is this? → Legal-rational authority.
5. Which thinker holds that the people retain a right to resist a tyrannical government? → Locke.
6. Which thinker locates legitimate authority in the people collectively, via the "general will"? → Rousseau.

Obj 3:
7. What is the exact word in Mill's harm principle — the only legitimate ground for restricting an unwilling adult? → Harm (not offense).
8. Which theorist's difference principle asks what a fair process behind a veil of ignorance would choose? → Rawls.
9. True/False: Conservatism and fascism are the same ideology because both are sometimes placed on the political right. → False.

Obj 4:
10. A country holds contested elections but the ruling party controls the media and courts aren't independent. What's the correct label — full liberal democracy, or something short of it? → An electoral democracy short of a liberal democracy.
11. What's the key difference between authoritarian and totalitarian regimes? → Scope — totalitarian regimes try to remake society itself, not just hold political power.
12. In Federalist No. 51, what must be made to counteract ambition? → Ambition (Madison's exact phrase).

Obj 5:
13. A country's head of state is ceremonial and its head of government is chosen by and accountable to the legislature. What system is this? → Parliamentary.
14. What removes a government for any reason, including ordinary policy disagreement? → A no-confidence vote (as opposed to impeachment, which needs serious wrongdoing).
15. Whose "efficient secret… nearly complete fusion" describes the British parliamentary system? → Bagehot (The English Constitution, 1867).

Study plan — a dated countdown

Built for the Week 8 midterm. Adjust dates to your section; the rhythm is what matters. Space beats cramming.

When Do this (≈45–60 min)
~7 days out (Week 7, after last class) Read this guide's Objectives 1–2 sections. Work the Obj 1–2 self-checks. Build your one-page concept sheet: the toolkit, empirical vs. normative, power/authority/legitimacy, Weber's three types, and the three social-contract thinkers.
~5 days out Read Objectives 3–4 carefully (10 of the 20 items — the biggest slice). Work the Obj 3–4 self-checks — name each ideology's core value and fear until it's automatic; drill Mill/Rawls/Nozick; drill electoral vs. liberal democracy and constitution vs. constitutionalism.
~3 days out Run the Exam-Prep Tutorial (N-exam-prep-tutorial-week-08) with an approved chatbot (Gemini / Claude / ChatGPT). It diagnoses your weak spots across all five objectives. Submit your share link before the exam closes.
~2 days out Take the Practice Exam (O-practice-exam-week-08) timed and closed-note. Score it; list every concept you missed.
~1 day out Re-teach only the topics you missed on the practice exam. Redo those specific self-checks. Sleep — memory consolidates overnight.
Exam day Skim your one-page concept sheet. Read each item twice. Answer the question actually asked. AI is not permitted — bring what you know.

Two paired tools — use both:
- Exam-Prep Tutorial (N-exam-prep-tutorial-week-08) — adaptive AI drill that finds your weak spots and re-teaches them; ends with a readiness summary. Best for active recall and shoring up gaps.
- Practice Exam (O-practice-exam-week-08) — full 20-item timed rehearsal. Best for pacing and a final readiness check.

How the midterm is graded + test-taking strategy

How it's graded. 100 points, 20 items, 5 points each. The midterm is 20% of your course grade. It replaces Week 8's quiz, assignment, and workshop (Discussion 8 still runs). One attempt; AI not permitted. Coverage: Obj 1 = 3 · Obj 2 = 3 · Obj 3 = 5 · Obj 4 = 5 · Obj 5 (half) = 4. Study Objectives 3 and 4 hardest.

Honest test-taking strategies for this material:
1. Translate the scenario into its concept. Underline cue words — ought/should (normative), power/authority/legitimacy, fears/values, elections/rights/press, no-confidence/impeachment — then match to the concept.
2. For empirical-vs-normative questions, ask "is or ought?" Checkable against evidence = empirical, even if the claim turns out false. A value word ("should," "ought," "just") = normative.
3. For the ideology items, ask "what does this position claim, stated fairly?" — never "which one is right." The exam never rewards picking a side.
4. For regime-type questions, check BOTH the elections AND the rights/press/judiciary. Elections alone only get you to electoral democracy — the liberal-democracy bar is higher.
5. For the institutions questions, ask "who was elected, and who can remove whom, and how?" That answers parliamentary/presidential/semi-presidential every time — don't be fooled by an office's title alone.
6. Watch the classic swaps: Hobbes ≠ Locke ≠ Rousseau; conservatism ≠ fascism; socialism ≠ communism ≠ social democracy; Rawls ≠ Nozick; authoritarian ≠ totalitarian; separation of powers ≠ federalism; a "president" title ≠ a presidential system; no-confidence ≠ impeachment.
7. On matching items, fill in the confident pairs first. Remaining pairs resolve by elimination.
8. Do the easy items first, flag the hard ones. Budget roughly 2–3 minutes per item.
9. On true/false, watch for absolute words ("always," "never," "the same as") — they're often the tell for a false statement about a distinction this course draws carefully.

Canvas placement block

canvas_object   = Page
title           = "Midterm Study Guide — Weeks 1–7 (Objectives 1–5)"
module          = "Week 8 — Midterm Review & Exam"
grading_type    = not_graded
available_from  = 2026-10-17      # posts before the Week 8 exam window opens
published       = true
provenance      = "~ Prof. Halloran's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"

Term-update note: each term's $39 update regenerates fresh practice variants from this same scope — the live midterm is never reproduced here.

The per-term $39 update (fresh assessment variants, re-paced to your next calendar) referenced above is on the roadmap — coming soon. Today's download is yours to keep, but it doesn't refresh itself.

~ Prof. Halloran's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com