The first midterm exam is on poetry, and will take place during class time on Thursday, February 1.

NB You may use a (paper, not electronic) dictionary in this exam. While you should do your best to ensure that what you write is grammatical, clear, and even stylish, your written Spanish will only be penalized if it is unintelligible.

Busco lecturas interesantes (no necesariamente “correctas”), bien pensadas y bien argumentadas con evidencia detallada tomada del texto.

The exam has two parts, each of which is on a poem or an extract of poem that you have read for the course so far. In other words, you will have read the texts already.

Each part is worth the same amount: 50% of the total mark.

Each part also has two questions, each of which is worth the same amount. So: 25% of the total mark. (25+25 = 50)

The first question in each part consists of three short questions (for which you should write a few sentences or a short paragraph), which focus on particular details of the poem or extract: a word or sentence, for instance

The second question in each part asks you to offer a more general interpretation on some aspect of the poem or extract. I expect you to write a page or so in answer to this question (all depending on how large your handwriting is or how fast you write).

In short, you will have:

Part I: Question 1 (abc) on Text A [25%]
Part I: Question 2 on Text A [25%]
Part II: Question 1 on Text B (abc) [25%]
Part II: Question 2 on Text B [25%]

As they are each worth the same percentage, you should probably spend about the same amount of time (and write roughly the same amount of words) on each question.

All this will perhaps make more sense (and become much clearer) when you see the exam itself.

One more thing: the exam will cover approaches to the poetry that we have discussed in class. There is no particular need to have memorized the various technical terms (“arte mayor,” “arte menor” etc. etc.) described in the book, though you may use such terms if you find them helpful.