Midterm Practice Exam (ungraded) · Weeks 1–7 (Objectives 1–5 / language portion)

Course: Public Speaking — Fundamentals of Oral Communication (COMM 1) · Silver Oak University (fictional sample) · Prof. Marchetti
What this is: a low-stakes rehearsal for the cumulative midterm. It mirrors the real exam's blueprint — same coverage, item-type mix, length, and concept-and-scenario difficulty — but is built from fresh item-bank variants and shares none of the live midterm's questions.
Settings: ungraded (0 points) · unlimited attempts · feedback shown after submission · opens before the exam window so you can prepare. (Unlike the real midterm, this rehearsal is open for practice — but sit it timed and closed-note to make it count.)

This is the human-readable practice exam with its vetted answer key and feedback (released after submission). The import-ready Classic QTI 1.2 is in O-practice-exam-week-08-qti.xml (generated by a validated Python script — parses with 20 items). The Canvas placement block is at the bottom.

Integrity note for students. Every item here is a fresh variant — a new scenario and wording — with a pre-vetted answer. None of these are the live midterm questions. Working them builds the skill the midterm tests, honestly. The paired live exam is L-midterm-week-08.md.

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Blueprint (mirrors the midterm)

Coverage is proportional to teaching time, matching the live exam by week. Includes a communication-model item (Q2), an audience-analysis item (Q7), a source-credibility / oral-citation item (Q13), an organizational-pattern → use matching item (Q10), and a listening-type → purpose matching item (Q5).

#	Type	Concept	Week
1	Multiple choice	Communication process — psychological noise	W1
2	Multiple choice	Communication model — the receiver's role (decoding)	W1
3	True / False	Ethical speaking — plagiarism misconception	W1
4	Multiple choice	Managing apprehension — the number-one strategy	W1
5	Matching	Listening type → its primary purpose	W2
6	Multiple choice	Audience analysis — situational vs. psychographic	W2
7	Multiple choice	Audience-centeredness — speaker vs. audience focus	W2
8	Multiple choice	Specific purpose — well-formed vs. flawed (too broad)	W3
9	Multiple choice	General purpose vs. specific purpose	W3
10	Matching	Organizational pattern → when to use it	W5
11	Multiple choice	Topic narrowing — flawed broadening move	W3
12	Multiple choice	Supporting material — type classification	W4
13	Multiple choice	Source credibility — CRAAP criteria / oral citation	W4
14	Multiple answer	Credible sources — select ALL that typically qualify	W4
15	Multiple choice	Organizational patterns — causal pattern	W5
16	Multiple choice	Outlining — full-sentence vs. keyword outline at the lectern	W6
17	Multiple choice	Outlining — connective type	W6
18	True / False	Outlining — coordination rule	W6
19	Multiple choice	Oral style — personal pronouns	W7
20	Multiple choice	Rhetorical devices — parallelism vs. antithesis	W7

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Questions, key, and feedback (feedback releases after you submit)

Weeks 1–2 — Communication Process, Ethics & Apprehension; Listening & Audience Analysis

Q1 (MC). During a persuasive speech, a student in the audience keeps replaying an argument with her roommate in her head and misses three of the speaker's main points. The type of interference that blocked her listening is —
- A. Physical noise
- B. Psychological noise ✅
- C. Semantic noise
- D. Physiological noise

Feedback: Psychological noise is internal mental interference — daydreaming, personal worries, bias, or preoccupation. The student wasn't distracted by a sound (physical), a language barrier (semantic), or a physical condition (physiological) — her own internal mental state was the barrier.

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Q2 (MC). In the communication process, the audience member who interprets the message — running the speaker's words through their own knowledge, cultural background, and current mood — is performing the function called —
- A. decoding ✅
- B. encoding
- C. channel selection
- D. noise filtering

Feedback: The receiver (audience member) decodes the message — interprets the sender's encoded words, tone, and gestures using their own existing frameworks. The sender (speaker) encodes — turns an idea into words and delivery choices. Decoding is why the same words land differently with different audiences.

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Q3 (True / False). "Patchwork plagiarism" — weaving together phrases and sentences from several different sources, mostly in the original words — is not really plagiarism because you are combining multiple authors, not just copying one.
- True
- False ✅

Feedback: False. Patchwork plagiarism is one of three recognized forms of plagiarism (along with global plagiarism and incremental plagiarism). Using unattributed phrases from multiple sources, stitched together, is still plagiarism — whether you copy one author or ten.

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Q4 (MC). According to the course material, the single most effective strategy for managing communication apprehension before a speech is —
- A. Avoiding looking at the audience until you feel comfortable
- B. Memorizing the speech word-for-word so nothing surprises you
- C. Thorough preparation and out-loud practice ✅
- D. Opening the speech by telling the audience you are nervous

Feedback: Thorough preparation and out-loud practice — knowing your material well — is consistently identified as the most effective tool for managing speech anxiety. Memorizing risks complete collapse if you blank; telling the audience you're nervous can undermine your credibility before you begin.

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Q5 (Matching). Match each listening type to its primary purpose.

Listening type	Primary purpose
Appreciative	Enjoying and being moved by the message — music, storytelling, an entertaining speech
Empathic / Therapeutic	Understanding the speaker's emotional state and providing supportive presence
Comprehensive / Informational	Understanding and retaining the content of a message
Critical / Evaluative	Assessing the logic, evidence, and validity of an argument

Feedback: The easy mix-up: empathic is about the speaker's feelings; critical is about the argument's quality. Appreciative listening is for aesthetic enjoyment; comprehensive listening is for information retention.

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Q6 (MC). A speaker planning an outdoor presentation at a campus farmer's market on a Saturday afternoon notes the size of the expected crowd (~80 people), the informal casual setting, the time (11 a.m.), and the fact that most attendees will be stopping by voluntarily. She is primarily conducting which type of audience analysis?
- A. Psychographic analysis
- B. Demographic analysis
- C. Situational analysis ✅
- D. Attitudinal analysis

Feedback: Situational analysis examines the occasion, setting, size, time, and voluntary vs. captive nature of the audience. Knowing the crowd is 80 casual voluntary shoppers at 11 a.m. on a Saturday shapes her time, formality, and attention-getting strategy. Psychographic analysis would probe the audience's attitudes and values; demographic would cover age, education, and group memberships.

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Q7 (MC). A student decides to give her informative speech on quantum computing because she finds the topic fascinating — but she makes no effort to consider whether her classmates know anything about physics or have any reason to care about quantum computing. The problem with her approach is that she is being —
- A. speaker-centered rather than audience-centered ✅
- B. too narrow in her topic selection
- C. too general in her specific purpose
- D. unethical in her choice of subject matter

Feedback: Audience-centeredness means designing your speech around the audience's knowledge, interests, and needs — not the speaker's enthusiasm alone. Choosing a topic because you love it (without connecting it to the audience) is speaker-centered. The fix: find an audience-relevant entry point and adapt the technical level.

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Weeks 3–4 — Topic, Purpose & Thesis; Research, Support & Oral Citation

Q8 (MC). A student writes this specific purpose: "To inform my audience about the history of Western civilization." Her instructor says it has a flaw. The flaw is —
- A. It contains two ideas.
- B. It is not phrased as an infinitive.
- C. It is far too broad — it cannot be adequately covered in any normal speech length. ✅
- D. It is not audience-centered.

Feedback: A well-formed specific purpose must be achievable in the allotted time with adequate depth. "The history of Western civilization" is a topic for a multi-volume encyclopedia, not a speech. She needs to narrow drastically — to a specific era, event, figure, or theme — before she has a workable purpose.

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Q9 (MC). A student asks: "What's the difference between the general purpose and the specific purpose?" The best answer is —
- A. The general purpose is longer and more detailed; the specific purpose is a one-word label.
- B. They are essentially the same thing, just phrased differently.
- C. The general purpose labels the broad speaking aim (to inform, to persuade, to entertain); the specific purpose is a precise infinitive phrase naming exactly what the speech will accomplish. ✅
- D. The general purpose is the thesis stated differently.

Feedback: General purpose = the broad aim category (to inform / to persuade / to entertain or mark an occasion). Specific purpose = the precise, audience-centered infinitive phrase stating exactly what this speech, for this audience, will accomplish. The specific purpose is the tool you actually use to build the speech; the general purpose is a starting label.

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Q11 (MC). A student's instructor tells her to narrow her topic "from 'social media' to something manageable." She responds, "OK — I'll speak about 'technology and communication in the modern era.'" What is wrong with her revision?
- A. She narrowed too far — the new topic is too specific.
- B. She changed the general purpose without meaning to.
- C. She broadened the topic instead of narrowing it — "technology and communication in the modern era" is even wider than "social media." ✅
- D. Nothing — this is a correct narrowing move.

Feedback: Narrowing means constraining the topic to a smaller, more focused aspect. Moving from "social media" to "technology and communication" is broadening — she's added scope, not reduced it. A correct narrow might be: "how Instagram's algorithmic feed affects teen self-perception."

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Q12 (MC). A speaker, trying to show that campus safety has improved, cites "a local parent who told me she feels much better about her daughter's safety this year than last year." This is an example of —
- A. Expert testimony
- B. A statistic
- C. Peer / lay testimony ✅
- D. An extended example

Feedback: Peer/lay testimony is a personal account or everyday experience from someone who is not a credentialed expert on the subject. The parent's feeling is authentic and may be meaningful — but it is lay testimony, not expert testimony, and should be supported by verifiable data if the claim is to stand.

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Q13 (MC). Before using a fact about teen screen time in her speech, a student checks the source and finds it was published five years ago by a nonprofit she has never heard of, with no listed author or board and no clear funding disclosure. Based on source-credibility criteria, she should —
- A. Not use this source and find a more credible one — it lacks identifiable authority, accountability, and currency. ✅
- B. Use it anyway, as long as she orally cites it.
- C. Use it because nonprofits are automatically credible.
- D. Use it because a five-year-old source is still current for any topic.

Feedback: Source credibility requires identifiable authority (who created this?), accuracy (how is quality controlled?), and currency (is it recent enough?). No listed author, no accountability, and a five-year-old source on rapidly-changing teen technology fails on all three. Citing a weak source doesn't make it strong.

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Q14 (Multiple answer — select all that apply). Which of the following are typically considered credible sources appropriate for supporting a claim in a public speech? Select all that apply.
- A. A peer-reviewed journal article from an established academic journal ✅
- B. A data report from a federal government agency (e.g., CDC, Bureau of Labor Statistics) ✅
- C. An anonymous blog post with no listed author or date
- D. An interview with a recognized subject-matter expert ✅
- E. An AI-generated summary with no citations listed

Feedback: Credible sources (A, B, D) have identifiable authority, accountability mechanisms, and verifiable accuracy. Anonymous blog posts (C) and AI-generated summaries without citations (E) have no accountability structure and cannot be independently verified — they fail the authority and accuracy criteria.

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Weeks 5–6 — Organizational Patterns; Outlining

Q10 (Matching). Match each organizational pattern to the situation where it fits best.

Pattern	Best use
Causal (Cause-Effect)	Explaining why something happens by linking causes to their effects — or effects back to their causes
Spatial	Describing something by its physical location, geography, or arrangement in space
Chronological / Temporal	Presenting a topic in time order — steps in a process, a historical development, or a narrative
Monroe's Motivated Sequence	A five-step persuasive arc designed to move an audience from awareness of a problem to taking a specific action

Feedback: Causal and chronological are the most confused pair: causal explains why (cause → effect); chronological explains when (time order / steps). Spatial organizes by where. Monroe's is a specific five-step persuasive structure ending in a call to action.

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Q15 (MC). A speaker argues that the rise in campus food-insecurity rates (the effect) is caused by the recent elimination of a state-funded meal-voucher program (the cause). She organizes her speech to show this link clearly. The organizational pattern she is using is —
- A. Topical
- B. Problem-solution
- C. Causal ✅
- D. Chronological

Feedback: The causal (cause-effect) pattern directly links a cause to its effects — or traces effects back to their causes. The speaker is not simply listing problems and solutions (problem-solution would mean she's presenting a fix); she is making an explanatory argument about why the effect happened.

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Q16 (MC). During her speech, a student glances down at her notes and reads every sentence word-for-word from a full paragraph document. Her instructor tells her to use her speaking outline instead. The speaking outline would —
- A. Include full paragraphs so she doesn't miss anything.
- B. Be organized differently from her preparation outline.
- C. Use only keywords and brief phrases as delivery cues, so she speaks conversationally instead of reading. ✅
- D. Include all sources in footnotes so she can cite them while speaking.

Feedback: The speaking (keyword) outline uses brief cues — single words, short phrases, key numbers — that prompt conversational delivery from memory and preparation. It is not a script; it is a trigger for what you already know. A speaker who reads from paragraphs is no longer delivering a speech — they're reading a paper aloud.

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Q17 (MC). After finishing her first main point, a student says: "Now that we've seen how sleep deprivation affects memory, let's turn to its impact on mood." This is an example of —
- A. A transition — a bridge sentence that moves the listener from one main point to the next ✅
- B. An internal preview — a brief statement of what sub-points are coming next
- C. A signpost — a very brief directional marker ("first," "second")
- D. An internal summary — a brief restatement of what was just covered

Feedback: A transition summarizes what just happened and bridges to what's coming next ("Now that we've seen X, let's turn to Y"). It is more developed than a signpost (just "second" or "moving on") and different from an internal preview (which previews sub-points coming up) or internal summary (which summarizes just-completed content).

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Q18 (True / False). The coordination rule in outlining means that the Roman-numeral main points (I, II, III) must all be sub-points of the same broader category and carry roughly equal logical weight in the speech.
- True ✅
- False

Feedback: True. Coordination requires that items at the same outline level are logically equivalent and belong to the same broader category. If main point I is about sleep's effect on memory and main point II is about healthy eating, they violate coordination — they're not parallel aspects of the same thesis. All Roman-numeral points must be of equal conceptual weight.

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Week 7 — Language & Style

Q19 (MC). In revising her speech for delivery, a student changes all the impersonal constructions — "It has been established that…" and "One may argue that…" — to direct, personal statements — "Research shows…" and "You might wonder…" This revision moves toward —
- A. Written style — more formal and academic
- B. Oral style — more personal, direct, and appropriate for the ear ✅
- C. Less inclusive language
- D. Denotative meaning over connotative

Feedback: Oral style uses personal pronouns ("you," "we"), direct address, and plain language because speeches are heard, not read. "You might wonder" is personal and conversational; "One may argue" is formal, impersonal, and reads well but sounds stiff. Adapting for the ear is a core principle of oral-style revision.

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Q20 (MC). A student opens her speech with: "Democracy is not the absence of argument; it is the management of argument." She is using contrasting ideas in balanced parallel structure to make her point sharp and memorable. The rhetorical device is —
- A. Anaphora — repetition of a phrase at the start of successive clauses
- B. Simile — a comparison using like or as
- C. Antithesis — contrasting ideas placed in balanced parallel structure ✅
- D. Metaphor — a direct comparison without like or as

Feedback: Antithesis pairs contrasting or opposing ideas in a single, grammatically balanced construction — "not X but Y." It creates sharpness and memorability because the contrast lands in one sentence. Anaphora repeats a phrase at the start of successive sentences; metaphor and simile both compare two unlike things (without and with like/as, respectively).

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Answer key (quick reference)

Q	Answer	Q	Answer
1	B (psychological noise)	11	C (broadened instead of narrowed)
2	A (decoding)	12	C (peer/lay testimony)
3	False (patchwork plagiarism is plagiarism)	13	A (not credible — no authority/currency)
4	C (thorough preparation and out-loud practice)	14	A, B, D
5	Appreciative→enjoy/moved / Empathic→feelings/support / Comprehensive→retain content / Critical→assess argument	15	C (causal)
6	C (situational analysis)	16	C (keywords only — speaks conversationally)
7	A (speaker-centered, not audience-centered)	17	A (transition)
8	C (too broad to cover adequately)	18	True (coordination rule)
9	C (general = broad aim label; specific = precise infinitive phrase)	19	B (oral style — personal/direct)
10	Causal→why/cause-effect / Spatial→physical location / Chronological→time order / Monroe's→five-step call-to-action persuasive arc	20	C (antithesis)

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Quality gate (self-checked)

• Mirror check: 20 items; coverage by week mirrors the live midterm (W1 = 4, W2 = 3, W3 = 3, W4 = 3, W5 = 2, W6 = 3, W7 = 2); item-type mix (14 MC + 2 matching + 1 multiple-answer + 2 T/F) closely matches the midterm.
• Single-answer integrity: every MC and T/F item (Q1–Q4, Q6–Q13, Q15–Q20) has exactly one correct option; the two matching items (Q5, Q10) pair four prompts one-to-one; the multiple-answer item (Q14) keys A, B, D (C and E are incorrect). Each confirmed against the QTI parse.
• No arithmetic: all items test concepts, scenarios, and classification — no computation to mis-key.
• RUBRIC + CITATION-INTEGRITY GATE — PASS. No fabricated quotation, statistic, or citation appears in this practice exam. The antithesis example in Q20 ("Democracy is not the absence of argument; it is the management of argument") is an original illustrative example created for this item — it is not attributed to any real person. No real speaker's words are invented or misattributed. All attributions are factual: Alan H. Monroe (Monroe's Motivated Sequence), Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" use of anaphora (described, not quoted beyond the title phrase, and linked in the review outline).
• QTI parse: O-practice-exam-week-08-qti.xml parses as imsqtiasiv1p2 with 20 items; every single-answer item has exactly one SCORE=100 condition; each matching item's four pairs distribute credit equally; the multiple-answer item requires exactly A/B/D. Each item's points_possible = 5.0. (Canvas placement makes it ungraded with feedback visible after submission.)
• Integrity vs. the live exam: 0 items are shared with L-midterm-week-08.md — verified by full stem comparison (0 identical prompts; 0 high-similarity pairs). Where a concept slot overlaps, this form uses a different scenario: e.g., the midterm tests semantic noise with jargon in a presentation (Q1); this practice tests psychological noise with a student distracted by an internal argument (Q1). The midterm's matching tests listening purpose with discriminative/comprehensive/critical/empathic; this practice tests appreciative/empathic/comprehensive/critical. The midterm's oral citation item (Q13) tests recognition of a well-formed oral citation; this practice's Q13 tests whether to use a weak source. Zero overlap.

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Canvas placement block

canvas_object              = Quizzes::Quiz
title                      = "Midterm Practice Exam (ungraded)"
assignment_group           = "Practice exercises"
points_possible            = 0
grading_type               = not_graded
allowed_attempts           = unlimited
show_feedback              = true        # released after submission
available_from_offset_days = -3          # opens 3 days before the exam window
due_offset_days            = 6           # on or before the exam due date (Sun Oct 25)
published                  = true
shuffle_answers            = true
provenance                 = "~ Prof. Marchetti's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com"