The Midterm exam, which you must take by the end of week five of your enrollment,
consists of three parts:  map quiz (25 points), chronology (25 points) and essay (50
points).
The essay question is:  Summarize and characterize the changing political environment
in the world since 1945.
The map quiz part of the exam is straightforward.  You will be asked to locate some
geographical items on a blank map, and you already have a list of those items and a
blank map with which to study.  The chronology part of the exam asks you to choose
the most important events/people/ideas of the last 50 years and identify their
importance in chronological order.
The most important part of the midterm exam is the essay question.  If you look closely
at the essay question, you will see that it includes information that you studied for both
of the paragraph essays.  It is important as you prepare for the exam, and you cannot
take notes or any other materials into the examination, that you focus your answer on
one or two important points or theses.  Make sure that your written answer has a
structure with clearly identifiable points that I can follow.  There is no single right
answer for this question, but there are many possibilities.  It is also important that you
cite evidence for whatever points you try to make.  Finally, from your reading in the
textbook, it is clear that there have been substantial political changes in the world since
1945.  This question gives you the opportunity to put those changes in some sort of
meaningful analytical context.