In upper level classes, I’ve discovered that students learn the material much better if they have a more focused understanding of what it is they are expected to learn. I wondered why we choose to keep our final exam questions a secret. I have, therefore, in my upper level classes, provided on the first day of classes a long list of final exam questions that they are expected to learn the answers to. I explain that they must learn the answers well enough to discuss them with me in a one-on-one oral exam.
In 10 years of teaching upper level cosmology, I have found that the students really did the learn the material much better than with a normal examining approach. Below are the list of questions from Winter 2024 (my last term teaching).