Last updated: 4/7/01
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AGS 3340 "Big Picture" Questions for Final

The Final will be in-class on Saturday April 28, 9 - 1:00 PM. I expect that most people will finish early, within two hours, and you are free to leave when you are done with the Final; there will be no other course acitvity. The Final will be cumulative, based on the Reading Questions for all of the AGS 3340 textbooks, and in addition there will be a Team part, described below. The Final will be open-book.

So you will have all of the questions for the Final in advance.

Taking tests:
Two simple rules for taking tests:

• ALWAYS check that you have answered all of the questions. If nothing else, check them off on the exam sheet.
• NEVER leave a question blank (unless some fraction of wrong answers is deducted from the grade to discourage guessing).

"Big Picture" Questions for Final

In The Third Wave, Toffler establishes future developments, and then often explores their implications in later chapters. Each effect can become a new development, and therefore a new cause. For The Third Wave, describe the connections from the earlier chapters to the later chapters in the sequences listed below:

• Sequence:
  • Chapter 13 - De-Massifying the Media
  • Chapter 22 - The Crack-Up of the Nation
  • Chapter 27 - The Political Mausoleum
  • Chapter 28 - Twenty-First Century Democracy
• Sequence:
  • Chapter 4 - Breaking the Code
  • Chapter 15 - Beyond Mass Production
  • Chapter 18 - The Corporate Identity Crisis
  • Chapter 19 - Decoding the New Rules
• Sequence:
  • Chapter 2 - The Architecture of Civilization
  • Chapter 15 - Beyond Mass Production
  • Chapter 20 - The Rise of the Prosumer
  • Chapter 26 - The Personality of the Future
• Sequence:
  • Chapter 16 - The Electronic Cottage
  • Chapter 17 - Families of the Future
  • Chapter 21 - The Mental Maelstrom
  • Chapter 25 - The New Psycho-Sphere

That is, what aspect of the first Chapter in the sequence carries over to the second Chapter to cause a new effect, which then carries over to the third Chapter, and so on.

EXAMPLE (briefly):

• The Blip Culture in Chapter 13 results in fragmented information and a feeling of chaos.
• In Chapter 14, each of us will be able to use the computer to assemble interesting blips into a meaningful personal pattern.
• In Chapter 27, "The Collapse of Consensus" draws the conclusion that, since we will be choosing our blips individually, that we will choose different blips, and will not agree on any given situation, and consensus will be impossible to achieve, and democracy will not work as well as it used to, if it works at all.

Your Team's answer should include a description of the connection, as above, and quotations.

Part I (Team Part) of the Final Exam will be a selection from these items, with some choice allowed.

Part II (Individual Part) will be to answer a selection from the Reading Questions.

As with all questions for this course, these questions can be discussed ahead of time on the computer conference. I will not hide my own views, although the class frequently comes up with new approaches, which I encourage, as long as they are justified by the readings.