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The Hussman School of Journalism and Media administers three exams common to all students in MEJO 153 to test the students' level of competency at certain points in the course. The week-to-week reading list for the course incorporates the material you will need to have read and the skills you should have acquired by each competency test. Dates for these exams are included on the week-by-week schedule.

The first will test your ability to exercise sound news judgment and to write accurately. You will be asked to write a simple news story from a set of facts. You should apply news values in determining which facts and quotes to use and follow the inverted pyramid style of writing for organization. At that point in the course, you should also be familiar with AP and UNC-CH style. You will also be graded on spelling, punctuation, word usage and grammar.

The second will test your mastery of points and principles covered in assigned readings in Reaching Audiences, class lectures and any other material from the instructor. The exam will be short-answer questions, and you will be expected to be able to discuss briefly topics such as libel, ethics in journalism, research strategies and evaluation, interviewing techniques, reporting with numbers, the need for editing standards, broadcast, public relations and digital writing, and the basic principles of good writing.

The third— the final exam — tests your ability to write a news story from your own notes taken from an event or other assignment. You are expected to produce a well-written and well-copyedited story, applying in practice all the skills and principles you have learned throughout the semester. You will either select the event to be covered or your instructor will assign it.

If you have to miss an exam, it is up to the individual instructor to schedule a make-up exam. You might receive a grade of zero on the exam if you miss it without an excused absence or if you do not make arrangements in advance.

- B. Quizzes: Current Events, Language Use, Style

Your instructor might quiz you on current events. Questions will be designed to test your broad knowledge of people and events; reading a daily newspaper online or in print will prepare you sufficiently for the quizzes. Quizzes on subjects such as language use, style, spelling and grammar might also be given primarily in the early weeks but also throughout the course. Your instructor might choose to give quizzes on certain sections of the Associated Press Stylebook or UNC-CH Stylebook. All style quizzes are open book. The grades become part of your daily classwork grade.

- C. Written Assignments

You should expect to be assigned at least one writing assignment in nearly every class session. Your instructor might give you a handout with information from which to write an assignment, or he or she might read a set of facts to you. You will also be expected to do research to supplement your information- gathering. Your instructor will set guidelines for those assignments.

You may have some written out-of-class assignments. Typical assignments would be a person-on-the- street interview based on a current event topic, an interview with a campus newsmaker, an event or a speech.