Midterm Exam — Instructions

Overview

This is the scored midterm for Public Speaking. It checks the first half of the course, Weeks 1 to 7: the message-building half, before delivery and the speech types. How does communication work, and what makes a speaker honest? How do you listen well and read an audience? What is a speech for, what is its one message, and how do you prove your evidence out loud? Which shape fits the message, how does it go on paper, and which words will a listener follow the first time?

The midterm has 25 questions, and every question counts the same. Most of them (22) ask you to select exactly one option. Two ask you to judge a true-or-false statement, and one asks you to select every applicable option. Every speech moment, message, outline line, or chatbot exchange a question uses is written out in the question, so nothing depends on watching or hearing a recording. No question needs a calculator; any count a question asks for is small enough to work on scratch paper.

Every question practices a skill you have already used in the weekly quizzes, lecture tutorials, and Speech Workshops. Most questions describe a short, illustrative speaking situation and ask you to name the idea at work in it. Nothing on the midterm comes from outside Weeks 1 to 7.

Coverage and scope

The midterm covers Weeks 1 to 7: Objectives 1 to 4 and the language half of Objective 5, as taught in those weeks. Here is what the drawn form holds, objective by objective, with the weeks its questions come from:

• The communication process, ethics, and nerves (Objective 1, 6 questions): 5 from Week 1 and 1 from Week 2. Be ready to place the six elements of the communication model on an everyday message, to keep the channel apart from the message, and to sort noise into its four kinds. Know where each element came from, and which delivery method the course aims for. Nerves count as normal, and the course gives you strategies for working with them.
• Listening and audience analysis (Objective 2, 4 questions): all from Week 2. Review the five types of listening and the purpose each one serves, keeping critical apart from negative and empathic apart from comprehensive. Review the three lenses of audience analysis and the profile they build, with an adaptation for every finding.
• Purpose, central idea, and evidence (Objective 3, 8 questions): 3 from Week 3, 4 from Week 4, and 1 from Week 5. From Week 3, review the four tests every specific purpose must pass and the line between the specific purpose, which stays on your planning page, and the central idea, which the audience hears. From Week 4, review the kinds of supporting material, expert and lay testimony, the credibility checklist, and the complete oral citation that names who, what, and when before the evidence. Week 5 carries the central idea into the body, where its parts become the main points.
• Organizing and outlining (Objective 4, 3 questions): 1 from Week 5 and 2 from Week 6. From Week 5, review the six organizational patterns matched to their purposes, the decision logic for choosing one, and why the body is built first. From Week 6, review the four outlining rules and the four connectives.
• Language and style (Objective 5, 4 questions): all from Week 7. Review the six devices named on their verified fragments, the line between a simile and a metaphor, and the four killers of clarity with the cure for each.

By week, the 25 questions come out like this:

Weeks 1 and 2 carry the most questions, 5 each, so the communication model, listening, and audience analysis deserve the most review time. Weeks 4 and 7 come next with 4 each, Week 3 has 3, and Weeks 5 and 6 have 2 each. By objective, purpose, central idea, and evidence carry 8 questions, the largest share, spread across Weeks 3 to 5. Organizing and outlining have only 3 questions, yet a clear sense of the main points helps on the Week 3 and Week 5 questions too, so give them a pass.

By difficulty, 9 questions are easy, 11 are medium, and 5 are hard, so most sit at an easy or medium level.

Week 8's five canons of rhetoric are not scored on their own. They are still worth a look, because they lay the first seven weeks out as one workflow: invention, arrangement, and style.

These notes map the skills the midterm checks. The questions themselves are drawn from the course's question bank and are not listed here.

Instructions

• Attempts: one. The midterm is a single scored attempt.
• Time limit: there is no time limit. Take the time you need, as long as you submit before the exam closes.
• Window: the midterm opens in the Week 8 module and closes at the due time your instructor sets. Start early enough to finish comfortably inside that window.
• Navigation: the questions appear one at a time, and once you move on you cannot go back to an earlier question. Settle each one before you move to the next.
• Materials: every speech moment, message, or outline a question uses is written out in the question, so scratch paper is all you need. Unless your instructor announces otherwise, the midterm is closed-note.
• After you submit: Canvas shows your result. The keyed choices stay hidden so the midterm stays fair for every student.

Academic integrity

The midterm is an individual, scored assessment, and it is closed to AI. Do not use a chatbot or any other AI tool, do not get help from another person, and do not share or post the questions during or after your attempt. These rules come from the course syllabus. The midterm confirms that you personally can name the parts of the communication model, write and test a specific purpose and a central idea, complete an oral citation, tell a transition from a signpost, and name a device on its fragment.

The honest way to prepare is open to you. The study guide, the practice exam, and the exam-prep tutorial rehearse the same skills with fresh variants, and nothing on them appears on the midterm word for word.

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