Week 16 — Study Guide · The Final Exam

Course: MUS 156 Music Theory I · Kenosis College
Instructor: Professor Hemsworth
Unit: Learning Unit 16 of 16 (Week 16) · Final: the Week 16 exam session — a 120-minute block
Covers: everything — Week 1–Week 15, weighted to the harmony arc · Weight: 16% of the course grade (120 points)
Released: end of week 14 — there is no study week, so the runway is built in

This guide tells you exactly what the exam is, how it's weighted, what "ready" looks like
per unit, and how to spend 120 minutes. It pairs with two working tools: the prep
tutorial (your AI drill coach) and the practice final (50 questions, zero overlap
with the real form, unlimited attempts). This page is the map; those are the reps.

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The exam, in numbers

• 60 questions · 2 points each · 120 points · 16% of the course grade.
• 120 minutes — the Week 16 exam session, in our regular room. The exam is
  written for the full block: two minutes per question, deliberately. You have time to
  think.
• Proctored, closed to AI, closed to notes. Pencils and provided scratch paper only.
• Item types: mostly multiple choice, with some true/false, matching, and select-all.
  Everything auto-grades from a fixed key; matching items score per correct pair.
• Every question is answerable from text alone — no staff-reading under pressure, no
  keyboard portion. The exam tests whether you can name, spell, and reason; that's the
  course's spine, and it's the whole test.

The blueprint — where the 60 questions come from

The table below is the real allocation, question by question, next to the practice
final's. The proportions are the study plan.

Unit	On the final	On the practice final
Week 1 The map	3	1
Week 2 Pulse and page	2	1
Week 3 Dividing the beat	2	2
Week 4 Major	2	2
Week 5 Minor, three ways	2	2
Week 6 Intervals I	2	1
Week 7 Intervals II	2	1
Foundations subtotal	15	10
Week 9 Triads	6	5
Week 10 Seventh chords	7	6
Week 11 Roman numerals & function	7	6
Week 12 Cadences & phrases	6	5
Week 13 Two independent voices	7	6
Week 14 Melody & NCTs	6	6
Week 15 Charts, keys, real world	6	6
Back-half subtotal	45	40
Total	60 (120 pts)	50 (0 pts, unlimited)

Three quarters of the exam is units 9–15. Study in that proportion — but don't skip the
Foundations row: those fifteen questions are the fastest points in the room if the
address system, the counting syllables, and the two interval rulers are still automatic.

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"Can you…" — the readiness checklists

Read each line out loud and answer honestly. Anything that gets a "mostly" goes on your
drill list for the prep tutorial. No answers here — these are abilities, not questions.

Week 1 The map. Can you give any key its full scientific address, remembering the octave
number changes only at C? · Explain why two enharmonic spellings share a sound but not a
name? · Name the two white-key half steps without picturing the keyboard?

Week 2 Pulse and page. Can you do dot-and-tie arithmetic in any note's own currency? ·
Classify 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 2/2 and say what the bottom number names? · Count a subdivided bar
in 1 e & a?

Week 3 Dividing the beat. Can you sort any signature into simple vs. compound by asking
what the beat divides into? · Count 6/8 and 9/8 in 1 la li? · Say which note value
carries the beat in 12/8?

Week 4 Major. Can you spell all fifteen major scales from W W H W W W H, every letter
once? · Recite both accidental orders? · Walk the circle of fifths in either direction
from any key?

Week 5 Minor, three ways. Can you find any key's relative and parallel minor? · Spell all
three minor forms and say where the raises live on the page? · Tell a subtonic from a
leading tone by measuring the gap to tonic?

Week 6 Intervals I. Can you name any interval with both rulers — letters for size, half
steps for quality — in that order? · Spell an interval below a note, not just above? ·
Invert anything with the sum-to-nine rule?

Week 7 Intervals II. Can you name a compound interval by subtracting seven? · Spell the
tritone both ways and say which is which? · Run the consonance sort, including the perfect
fourth's asterisk?

Week 9 Triads. Can you spell all four qualities on any root? · Re-stack a scrambled
voicing into thirds before naming it? · Name the bass member and produce the right figure —
6 or 6/4?

Week 10 Seventh chords. Can you spell all five seventh qualities on any root, keeping the
letters honest? · Say why the seventh chord on ^7 in major is viiø7 and never vii°7? ·
Read and write 7, 6/5, 4/3, 4/2 — slashes only?

Week 11 Roman numerals & function. Can you assign the numeral, with correct case, to any
diatonic chord in major or minor? · Explain why minor's V is major and where its
accidental lives? · Sort any numeral into tonic, predominant, or dominant and run the
cycle?

Week 12 Cadences & phrases. Can you tell PAC from IAC by conditions, not vibes? · Spot
HC, deceptive, and plagal landings from the chords alone? · Label an antecedent-consequent
pair as a period?

Week 13 Two independent voices. Can you name the four motion types between two dyads? ·
Distinguish parallel fifths from a direct fifth in one sentence each? · Say what the
leading tone and the chordal seventh must each do at a close?

Week 14 Melody & NCTs. Can you identify all six non-chord tones by approach and exit? ·
Narrate a suspension's three phases in order? · Name the interval trap in harmonic minor
and both repairs?

Week 15 Charts, keys, real world. Can you transpose a melody and its chords in the
correct direction, peak-note tested? · Convert written-to-concert and back for B♭, E♭, and
F instruments using "sounds lower → write higher"? · Read a Nashville chart in any key and
follow a roadmap cold?

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Worked micro-examples — the moves, shown once each

Every example below is fresh (none appears on any exam or quiz), fully worked, and
verified against the course theory reference — the same pack every unit has cited all
term.

1 · Spell a flat-side major scale (Week 4 move, THEORY_PACK §2).
Task: D♭ major, ascending. Work: start at D♭, walk W W H W W W H, one of each letter:
D♭ E♭ F G♭ A♭ B♭ C D♭. Check: five flats — B♭ E♭ A♭ D♭ G♭ — matching the signature
table. Why it works: the letters are non-negotiable; the accidentals do the steering.

2 · Spell a harmonic minor with a double-check (Week 5 move, THEORY_PACK §3).
Task: c♯ harmonic minor. Work: natural form first — C♯ D♯ E F♯ G♯ A B C♯ — then raise ^7:
B becomes B♯, not C. Result: C♯ D♯ E F♯ G♯ A B♯ C♯. The raised note keeps its
letter; that's why B♯ exists.

3 · Name, then invert, an interval (Week 6 move, THEORY_PACK §5).
Task: E4 up to C♯5. Size: E F G A B C — six letters, a sixth. Quality: nine half steps —
major. M6. Inversion: 6 flips to 3, major flips to minor — m3. Two rulers, then
the sum-to-nine flip.

4 · Chord symbol to spelling (Week 9 move, THEORY_PACK §6).
Task: the chart says B♭m. Work: minor = m3 + P5 above the root: B♭ D♭ F. Letter-check:
B–D–F skeleton, accidentals from the quality arithmetic.

5 · The ^7 seventh chord, done right (Week 10 move, THEORY_PACK §7.2).
Task: spell viiø7 in A major. Work: ^7 of A major is G♯; stack the key's own notes:
G♯ B D F♯. Quality check: diminished triad (G♯–B–D) + minor seventh (G♯ to F♯) =
half-diminished. If you'd written a diminished seventh (F natural), you'd have left the
key — that's the vii°7-in-major trap in one line.

6 · Roman numerals in minor, both directions (Week 11 move, THEORY_PACK §7).
Task 1: in d minor, name G–B♭–D. Work: root G = ^4, quality minor → iv. Task 2: spell
V7 in d minor. Work: dominant needs harmonic minor's raise: A C♯ E G, the C♯ written
as an accidental. Case encodes quality; the raise encodes the pull.

7 · Call the cadence from two chords (Week 12 move).
Task: an A major phrase ends E major → F♯ minor. Work: E–G♯–B is V, F♯–A–C♯ is vi. V
resolving to vi = deceptive cadence — the ear was promised A and got its relative
stand-in. Numerals first, label second.

8 · Legal and illegal parallels, side by side (Week 13 move, THEORY_PACK §12).
Dyad pair one: F3–A3 to G3–B3. Both intervals are thirds (M3 → M3), same direction:
parallel thirds — legal, the two-voice workhorse. Dyad pair two: A3–E4 to B3–F♯4. Both
are perfect fifths (P5 → P5), same direction: parallel fifths — banned. The ban is
about perfect intervals, not about parallel motion itself.

9 · The suspension, phase by phase (Week 14 move).
Over a C bass: the upper voice holds F — a fourth above the bass — while the chord
arrives, then falls to E, a third. Figure: 4-3, hyphen, because one interval resolves
to another over a single bass note. Phases: preparation, suspension, resolution. The
hyphen is the suspension's private punctuation — inversions use slashes.

10 · Transpose for a singer, direction first (Week 15 move).
Task: the hook G4–B4–D5 strains the singer; take it down a perfect fourth. Work: every
note, same interval, same direction: D4–F♯4–A4. Peak check: D5 fell to A4 — genuinely
lower, singer relieved. Direction is the whole ballgame: too high means DOWN.

11 · Compound-meter arithmetic under pressure (Week 3 move, THEORY_PACK §10–11).
Task: does eighth–eighth–eighth–quarter–eighth fill a 6/8 bar? Work: 6/8 holds six
eighths' worth; the figure holds 3 + 2 + 1 = six. Yes — exactly one bar. Counting the
attacks: 1 la li 2 — li: the quarter swallows beat 2's first two thirds, so the last
attack rides li. Compound counting is arithmetic you can say out loud.

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The miss log — how to study your mistakes

Every practice miss goes in one of three columns, and each column has its own repair:

Miss type	You'll recognize it because…	The repair
Concept	you couldn't have explained the rule before seeing the answer	reread that unit's section in the review outline, then ask the prep tutorial to re-teach and drill it
Convention	you knew the idea but broke a course convention (hyphen for an inversion, enharmonic swap, wrong case)	drill the pinned convention block in the prep tutorial — five minutes, out loud
Speed	you'd have gotten it with another minute	mock-pacing mode in the prep tutorial; the time budget below

Two passes through the practice final with an honest miss log beats five passes without
one.

The 120-minute budget

The exam is sized for the block: two minutes per question, average. Foundations
questions take thirty seconds when the fundamentals are automatic — bank that time. Spend
it on spelling work in the back half.

• Pass 1 (minutes 0–45): answer everything you know cold. Flag anything that needs
  scratch work; don't do the scratch work yet. This banks 35–40 sure answers early.
• Pass 2 (minutes 45–90): flagged items only, scratch paper out. Spell on paper —
  letters first, then accidentals. Two rulers for intervals; re-stack before naming
  chords; peak-note test before any transposition answer.
• Pass 3 (minutes 90–110): the verification lap. Check every transposition's
  direction, every figure's punctuation (slash vs. hyphen), every ^7 chord's
  seventh, every case-sensitive numeral.
• Minutes 110–120: buffer. Breathe. Answer anything still blank — a reasoned guess
  beats an empty box; there is no penalty beyond the points the question was worth.

Honest strategies for this exam, specifically: the distractors are the course's named
misconceptions, so if an option restates something from the traps list (vii°7 in a major
key, a hyphen inversion figure, an up transposition for a strained singer), it is there
because it's tempting and wrong. When two options sound alike, spell both on scratch paper
— the letters settle every argument. And trust your ear's first read of a scenario; then
verify it with the arithmetic. That order — ear, then rulers — is the whole course.

Your prep, in order

1. This page — blueprint, checklists, budget. (You're here.)
2. The review outline — the full arc with the traps list and self-tests.
3. The prep tutorial — diagnostic, weak-spot drilling, mock-pacing mode. Go where your
   checklists said "mostly."
4. The practice final — once untimed with feedback, once under exam conditions.
   Zero overlap with the real form; everything it teaches transfers.

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