This post contains specifics about the content and number of questions for our first exam in General Histology (DDS 6214).

I try to make the number of exam questions per lecture reflective of the length of each lecture (both in terms of number of hours and number of slides, although those don’t always match up exactly!) For this exam, for example, the Intro to Histology lecture was very short (and so were the number of objectives), so I only have one question on that lecture. As opposed to the Cartilage and Bone lecture which has 59 slides and took almost two hours – that lecture has 8 questions

Anyway – that’s my general practice, just so you know for this and future classes.

For this first exam, there are 40 questions. Here’s the full breakdown by lecture:

Intro to Histology: 1 questions
Embryology: 5 questions
Epithelial Tissue: 8 questions
Muscle Tissue: 7 questions
Nervous Tissue: 5 questions
Connective Tissue: 6 questions
Cartilage and Bone: 8 questions

All questions are multiple choice with one correct answer, and each question is worth one point.

Please take a look at the Sample Exam Questions post to get an idea of how I write questions. There will not be any tissue microscopic images on the exam, but as I mentioned in class, there may be an electron micrograph image of the sarcomere on the exam. Questions 13 and 14 in the Exam 1 Review Kahoot, and question 4 in the Sample Exam Questions post show this image – so take a look at those.

I’d like to give you a heads up on the way I write exam questions, so you’re better prepared for this first exam.

Exam questions should test your knowledge (obviously). You shouldn’t get a question wrong because it was confusing, or because it intentionally led you down the wrong path. When I write questions, I try to be as straightforward and clear as possible, so you understand what the question is asking you. And I don’t try to trick you into picking the wrong answer.

So if you look at a question and you know the answer right away, that’s okay! Don’t worry that you missed some sort of trick, or that the question can’t possibly be that simple.

Here are some examples of typical exam questions (the last two are on lectures we haven’t covered yet, but you can come back here after we do those lectures if you want):

1. In general, what happens during the second phase of the embryonic period?
A. Cells proliferate and migrate
B. Internal and external structures begin to differentiate
C. Organs grow and mature
D. Organs reach their maximum size

2. Which type of intercellular junction attaches epithelial cells to the basal lamina?
A. Zonula occludens (tight junction)
B. Zonula adherens (adherens junction)
C. Macula adherens (spot desmosome)
D. Gap junction
E. Hemidesmosome

3. What would you call epithelium composed of one layer of cells that are much taller than they are wide?
A. Simple squamous
B. Simple columnar
C. Stratified squamous
D. Stratified cuboidal
E. Pseudostratified columnar

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Question 4 refers to the electron micrograph above, which shows a sarcomere in its relaxed state.

4. Which letter (and corresponding line) marks a region that contains ONLY myosin filaments?
A. A
B. B
C. C
D. D

5. On H & E staining, which type of connective tissue proper is composed of abundant ground substance, scattered cells, and a few scattered thin fibers?
A. Dense irregular connective tissue
B. Dense regular connective tissue
C. Loose areolar connective tissue
D. Loose reticular connective tissue

6. Which glial cell myelinates axons in the central nervous system?
A. Astrocyte
B. Ependymal cell
C. Microglial cell
D. Oligodendrocyte
E. Schwann cell

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Scroll down for the answers!

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Answers:

1. B
2. E
3. B
4. B
5. C
6. D

I just wanted to let you know about a few things I’ve done today and yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll be working on getting some exam details straightened out, and so you’ll hear from me again soon.

For now, just wanted to let you know:

• I’ve left the practice exam open until September 3rd at midnight just in case you want to test it out again. I’ve also changed the settings so that you can take it as many times as you want.
• I posted Friday’s lecture on our Schedule page
• I put up the Kahoots page again, and updated the Epithelial Kahoot (the question asking about which intercellular junction has integrins was miskeyed – it’s now fixed)
• I posted the Exam 1 Review Kahoot we went through in class on Friday on our Kahoots page.
• Someone asked a great question about a misleading statement in the Epithelial Tissue lecture – and I posted a response to it on our Home page. 
• Some of you were asking for more explanation about how the sarcomere bands change as the sarcomere contracts – and I found the BEST VIDEO!! It’s super short and you can just stare at it and zone out. It’s on our Resources page – but before you watch it, please, please scroll all the way down and watch Le Bug. You may have seen it – it’s not new – but it is so funny, you deserve to see it again. Sound on. 

Okay, that’s it for now. If you have questions, please email. I’ll be working on getting the exam as straightened out as possible, including accommodations, tomorrow (and if I have to wait until people are in the office, I’ll finish on Monday).

Take care of yourself! Sleep! Eat some (dark) chocolate!. Hug a person or a furry creature. 

Just a quick update: all the lecture slides for this week are now updated and posted on our schedule page. I went through all of them last night, streamlined them a little bit here and there, and reposted them. So everything you see there now is current and won’t change 🙂

Also, just a reminder: there are review videos, Kahoots, and crosswords that you can go through if you like (they’re totally optional).

The review videos come with a little disclaimer: they were made a few years ago, which means that they sometimes contain content or slides that differ a bit from our current lecture content and slides. You’re ONLY responsible for the stuff we cover in our lectures this year – so if you choose to look at the review videos, please keep that in mind. I wish I had time to go back and make new videos but I can’t do that right now – so I am just leaving these up with that disclaimer in place. If this makes things too frustrating, then just ignore the videos for now 🙂 I certainly don’t want to add in any confusion.

I will go through the Kahoots and crosswords as soon as possible to remove anything that doesn’t conform to what we are covering this year. Those are much easier to edit – so I’ll do that asap and let you know when that’s done. Until then, the same disclaimer applies – if you see stuff that we didn’t cover in class, you’re NOT responsible for that information for our exams.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Hi everyone – I just posted the video for yesterday’s lecture on our schedule page. I ended up staying in the ER with my dad and wasn’t able to get to my computer until now – so I apologize for the delay. Normally lecture videos will be posted the same day as the lecture. I edited the video so that you wouldn’t have to skip through the breaks we took (it was really fun getting to talk to you guys during our coffee break btw!).

Also – as I noted on the schedule page, the last 40 minutes or so of lecture were accidentally recorded by the podium microphone – so the audio is not as great as I would like. There are some moments where it doesn’t pick up my voice – but I believe that we did manage to capture everything that was essential.

However, if you feel you are missing out on something or can’t quite grasp certain concepts, please feel free to email me at any time. I will be checking email frequently today and tomorrow in case you have questions.

I’m taking a quick look at the powerpoints for next week’s lectures to make sure that we’ll finish on time each day – so I’ve taken the previous ppts/pdfs down for now and will edit them a bit if needed. I’ll repost them today and tomorrow.

I’m so excited to meet all of you and start our General Histology course on August 17. Here’s a little information about our course.

Obviously, you’ve made it to our website, GeneralHistology.com. This is where all of our course stuff will reside (except for grades, which will be posted on Canvas). Here’s a quick summary of what this website contains:

• Our Home page is where I’ll post anything related to the course (student questions, schedule changes, stuff I run across that’s related to what we’re talking about in class, etc.). I’ll send the class an email each time I post something on this page so you don’t have to worry about checking it all the time. I like keeping everything here because it keeps all of our stuff in one place.
• The About page has the basic information you’ll want to know about our course. You can also download our course syllabus on this page (it will be posted soon) which is very long and boring but has all the official school policies in it.
• Our class schedule is listed on the Schedule page. You’ll also find the PowerPoint slides for each lecture here, as well as the lecture recordings (I’ll post these as soon as they’re available – usually they’re ready the same day as the lecture).
• There are a bunch of optional resources that you might find useful, including Summary Videos of each lecture, Crosswords, Kahoots (little quizzes you can take to test yourself), and Other Resources like helpful YouTube videos, etc.

If you have any questions, please always feel free to email me (kkrafts@umn.edu) – or when we start class, catch me before or after class. I don’t have scheduled office hours, because I’m teaching both first and second years, and doing a bunch of other stuff, and it’s hard to find a specific time that works for everyone. But I’m always open to setting up a meeting in person, or by Zoom if that works better.

Can’t wait to meet all of you!