For anyone who has taken History of Greece and Rome with professor Corner, how did you find it in terms of easiness? Where there a lot of essays, and how were the midterms/exam?

Hi,

Took this course last year with Dr. Corner. I will give you my personal experience(s)/opinion(s) based on the course syllabus.

i.) Quizzes -- 10%

-We had to do ten quizzes, each of which counted for one percent of our final grade. They were entirely based on tutorial readings, so as long as you read the tutorial book, they were basically free marks. If you slack off & miss them, you won't get the points. Personally, I found that they helped, as they gave me a basic understanding of what we discussed in tutorial, which greatly helped my overall grade.

ii.) Tutorial Participation -- 15%

-An easy 80+ if you do the readings, an easy failure if you don't. It's that simple.

iii.) Passage for Comment -- 10%

-This assignment was basically a 250 word response (one paragraph/one page) to a passage. KEY TIP!: Be sure to follow instructions! Many students received poor grades (I could name at least 10+ people who received 50-60) for simply not answering the required question(s). I got a 75%, and although I believed I ought to have earned a higher grade, the TAs did mark this assignment fairly tough, as they sought to give students an idea of what they'd be looking for throughout the course.

iv.) Academic Writing Exercise -- 10%

-A very easy assignment so long as you follow instructions. Give thoughtful responses, read what is required, and answer the questions adequately. I scored 90% and found this to be very fair.

v.) Library Assignment -- 10%

-Another very easy assignment so long as you follow instructions. MANY students did poorly, as they did not answer what was asked. If you follow instructions and PROOFREAD, you'll do great.

vi.) Essay (6-8 pages) -- 20%

-This essay was on an interesting subject--the death of Julius Caesar--but, having said that, we were required to read a plethora of fairly long articles. The key to this assignment is i) giving yourself enough time to READ the articles thoroughly, ii) starting the writing AHEAD of time, and iii) proofreading your work. My TA marked this pretty thoroughly, and I put a lot of time into it. I feel I could have scored a little better if I wrote 8 pages in entirety as opposed to 7 1/4. So, in short, read well, write well, and write 8 pages, and you should do well.

vii.) Final Exam -- 25%

-In my opinion, this was the hardest part of the course. The exam consisted of 3 sections:
*Multiple Choice (30 marks) -- quite difficult, but here's a tip, look at PAST EXAMS on the library site,
as some of the questions were pulled directly from it
*Definitions (25 marks) -- we were given a list of 64 terms, of which 8 or 10 appeared on the exam, and we had to answer 5. Overall, this section was fair, but a LOT to study for
*Long Answers (45 marks) -- for this section, random (long) quotes appeared from 5 course readings (overall, there were 40+ readings), and we had to respond to 3 of them by identifying the author, work, and contextual information. Quite hard, as there was a lot to study for.

In my opinion, this exam was rather tough, so just do your best.



Overall, this course was pretty good. Dr. Corner is a very nice man who stresses being professional, punctuality, and hard work. If you put forth your best effort, you will be rewarded. If not, then you will not do well.

Hope this helps! Best of luck.