Saturday, October 13, 2007

On Anonymous' Question About the Review Topics for 2302 Test 2

Here is a comment sent from one of your fellow students in full:

hey,
i've looked in the book and online and i can't really find anything helpful on a few terms.
i know we went over them in class breifly but some you skipped over, i think to try and fit in everything. if you could help me with a few of these i would appreciate it.

administration
independent agencies
revenue agencies
internal security agencies
external sercurity agencies

what do we need to know aobut them i mean some i can figure out but is there something specific you want us to know?

I know I try to keep it casual, but you should not start emails to people with some level of authority (even as little as mine) with "hey." I also let a few misspellings on my own slip so I don't want to be a hypocrite, but let's make an effort OK? "I" is capitalized by the way.

As far as the terms the student cannot find, I can either say where they are--and be patronizing about it, or remind you that you are adult college students and ought to be able to follow simple instructions. I'll do the former.

All five terms can be readily found in Chapter 7 of the American Government textbook, the one that covers the bureaucracy.

administration: page 278, five lines down, four words to the right. Look for the word "administration."

independent agencies: Page 282, under the section "How is the Executive Branch Organized?" Look on the third line under the title and you will notice "(2) independent agencies." You should be able to take it from there.

revenue agencies
: Page 285, near the bottom of the page you will see in blue ink (which makes this tricky I know) you will note the term "Revenue Agencies." Begin reading from that point.

internal security agencies: Page 286, after the section described above. You will note the term (again in blue ink) "Agencies for Internal Security." Read from there.

external sercurity agencies:
Page 286, after the above section, you will notice also in blue ink "Agencies for External National Security." I know that the terminology is different, so I apologize of that throws a few of you off. Again pick up your reading from that spot.

The last part of the question is legitimate. What do you need to know about them? Please be able to define them and understand them in relationship to other aspects of government. You already know what my tests look like so imagine what type of multiple choice questions you might get about them.

Sorry if this is a bit low-brow for some of you, but please understand that this class is not pitched at a high level. All the information necessary for you to do well is easily available to you.