I think did pretty darn good (but I'll refrain from using "aced it" for now).
For some reason I couldn't get "ECONOMY" out of my head when I read the paper, a few hours before the test. But as soon I snapped out of it and stopped shitting bricks, I decided to go with these...
Actually, just think of every question for every exam in the course as really saying "show us you were paying attention, that you understand, and that you can use the language we introduced."
Say you assume "terrorism" is the most critical issue...
Since the topic in the text book and during lectures was centered around Hobbes, Morgenthau's realist theory vs. Rousseau's and focused on power vs. cooperative future, I just picked "Counterterrorism" as my topic for the first question and compared the Bush administration's approach to Obama's. Found an okay(ish) source with some nice facts, then flexed my memory and proved that I was "paying attention." Which couldn't be more true when it comes to this professor and course requirements. And that was that.
For the second essay, I just picked the second one (international system), since I wasn't left with much time after completing the other sections. It was a straight forward writing about the power polarity in the past, present day, and the highly contested future blah blah blah. Everything was taken from what was discussed in lectures and the book, no personal input was even needed. I barely made it in time.
You guys got me out of a bind, thanks!
Edit-
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Funny story: I wrote the first essay in a Word doc and ran to the library to print it 30 minutes before the test, that was when I realized that I forgot to copy the doc to my flash drive. I emailed the professor and dropped him a voice message right away, then went back to sweating bullets and shitting bricks again. Thankfully, he emailed me right before I started, and asked me to email it to him later. Phew.
We are the 94%. :rock
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90th Percentile :rock