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Final Essay Exam: Use this template to submit your essays

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Final Essay Exam: Use this template to submit your essays.  Do not alter the template other than to enter your name and your responses. Altering the template will result in a lower grade.

Carefully read the Final Essay instructions before taking this exam. Choose and respond to only 4 of the 5 following questions.  

The length of each response shall be 450-900 words, not counting repetition of the questions themselves and references. 

Make sure to follow APA Style Guide in preparing your responses, including the layout of your responses and the format of your references. Note that Abstract(s) are not required.

Remember to include references for each response and to place the relevant references at the end of each response. Also, remember the quality of your references is an important part of the scoring of your essays.

The completed essay exam is due by the official end of the semester at 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on the last day of class (Tuesday night).

 

1. You are the head of emergency management for the country of Vanaprastha and will take a delegation of emergency planners to the United States to study intermediate-term and long-term flood recovery. The US Department of State has arranged meetings in a variety of locations that have dealt with flood recovery:  Nebraska, Missouri, South Dakota, Iowa, and Kansas (Missouri River and its tributaries in spring 2019), Texas (Hurricane Harvey in 2017), Colorado (rains in 2013), New York City and coastal New Jersey (Superstorm Sandy in 2012), Elliccott City, Maryland (flash flooding in 2016 and 2018), and New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (Hurricane Katrina in 2005).

To prepare, outline at least 7 flood recovery topics that your delegation will discuss with each stop on the trip, including key activities and capabilities, along with the principles and factors that promote or impede success in those activities.  For each topic, define what it entails and why it is important to communities recovering from devastating floods.

[YOUR ESSAY RESPONSE HERE]

 

 

 

2. Maintaining good situational awareness to a large-scale, swift onset event is one of the major challenges during response. The term VUCA – volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous – is often used to characterize such events. Discuss how the National Incident Management System (NIMS) and the Incident Command System (ICS) structures are designed to promote situational awareness and better implementation of incident action plans.

[YOUR ESSAY RESPONSE HERE]

 

3. The term “Resilience” is often viewed in terms of the operating capacity of an organization to react to and recover from a disaster.  Discuss the concept of Disaster Resilience in terms of capabilities and resources, and the strategies and tactics an organization might use to address gaps in capabilities and resources.  

[YOUR ESSAY RESPONSE HERE]

 

4. After a series of adverse events, near misses, and one catastrophic incident, a cruise line corporation has hired you to revamp its emergency operations plans and preparations. The company’s fleet of cruise ships has experienced COVID-19 virus spreading among passengers; small and large fires while at sea and in port; a prolonged power outage; and a major accident where a ship struck rocks, compartments flooded, and the ship partially sank.

For each of the four types of incidents, what would be the main points in a hazard-specific annex to the overall emergency operations plan?  Also identify at least two National Response Framework (NRF) Emergency Support Functions (ESFs) the company needs, and the broad concept of operations for each chosen ESF.

[YOUR ESSAY RESPONSE HERE]

 

5.  Risks associated with natural and technological hazards and terrorist threats arise from both internal and external factors.  Identify at least 5 external risks associated with natural and technological hazards and terrorist threats (either threats or vulnerabilities to external threats) that can affect a critical infrastructure owner or operator.  For each external risk identified, propose at least 2 ways the risk could be managed.

[YOUR ESSAY RESPONSE HERE]

Final Essay Exam Grading Rubric

Your grade for the final will be based on a number of criteria:  demonstrated understanding of concepts; skill in synthesizing, analyzing, and evaluating information; proper use of references; and writing skills. 

Excellent:  95-100%

Content

• Demonstrate superb level of comprehension of the subject matter.
• Provide superb synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of information; demonstrate superior independent thinking.
• Offer highly relevant and convincing evidence and/or examples to support observations and inferences.
• Be highly accurate and comprehensive, fully responsive to both major and minor aspects of the assignment.
• Adhere to all guidelines for content.

References and Citations

• Fully credit all sources of information, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
• Fully support the content and fully appropriate to the topic.
• Are of exceptional quality, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles.
• Exceed the number of required references (when stated as an instruction).
• Consistently use the correct and required format (APA).
• Submitted to Turnitin.

Writing: Organization of Information

• Present a highly logical sequence of ideas; flow smoothly and exhibit smooth transitions.
• Provide very clear and concise statement of the significant elements, key ideas, and issues; clearly and consistently document ideas and assertions.
• Always stay "on track" and remain focused.
• Exhibit a highly effective organization and design of paragraphs and sentences; ideas and words are well chosen, paragraphs have topic sentences, etc.

Writing: Grammatical

• Contain few if any errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling; be consistently well written.
• Express ideas in an extremely clear manner to the reader; never be vague or incomplete.
• Achieve an excellent balance of how much to say: concise when needed, explanatory when needed.
• Use a highly appropriate tone; separate very clearly the objective from the subjective (opinions).
• Be of the required length (other criteria, especially quality rate much higher than this).

Good: 90-94%

Content

• Demonstrate good to very good level of comprehension of the subject matter.
• Provide good to very good synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of information; demonstrate good independent thinking.
• Offer relevant and convincing evidence and/or examples to support observations and inferences.
• Be highly accurate and comprehensive, fully responsive to both major and minor aspects of the assignment.
• Adhere to all guidelines for content.

References and Citations

• Fully credit all sources of information, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
• Support the content and appropriate to the topic.
• Are of good to very good quality, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles.
• Meet or exceed the number of required references (when stated as an instruction).
• Consistently use the correct and required format (APA).
• Submitted to Turnitin.

Writing: Organization of Information

• Present a highly logical sequence of ideas; flow smoothly and exhibit smooth transitions.
• Provide very clear and concise statement of the significant elements, key ideas, and issues; clearly and consistently document ideas and assertions,
• Always stay "on track" and remain focused.
• Exhibit a highly effective organization and design of paragraphs and sentences; ideas and words are well chosen, paragraphs have topic sentences, etc.

Writing: Grammatical

• Contain few if any errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling; be consistently well written.
• Express ideas in an extremely clear manner to the reader; never be vague or incomplete.
• Achieve an excellent balance of how much to say: concise when needed, explanatory when needed.
• Use a highly appropriate tone; separate very clearly the objective from the subjective (opinions).
• Be of the required length (other criteria, especially quality rate much higher than this).

Proficient: 85-89%

Content

• Demonstrate proficient level of comprehension of the subject matter.
• Provide proficient synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of information; demonstrate independent thinking.
• Offer relevant evidence and/or examples to support observations and inferences.
• Be accurate and comprehensive, responsive to both major and minor aspects of the assignment.
• Adhere to all guidelines for content.

References and Citations

• Credit all sources of information, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
• Support the content and appropriate to the topic.
• Are mostly of good quality, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles.
• Meet the number of required references (when stated as an instruction).
• Mostly consistent in use a citation format, though not necessarily APA’s format.
• Submitted to Turnitin.

Writing: Organization of Information

• Present a logical sequence of ideas; flow smoothly and exhibit smooth transitions.
• Provide a mostly clear and concise statement of the significant elements, key ideas, and issues; clearly document ideas and assertions.
• Generally stay "on track" and remain focused.
• Exhibit a proficient organization and design of paragraphs and sentences; ideas and words are mostly well chosen, paragraphs have topic sentences, etc.

Writing: Grammatical

• Any errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling are minor; writing is consistently proficient.
• Express ideas in a clear manner to the reader; meaning is rarely vague or incomplete.
• Achieve a solid balance of how much to say: concise when needed, explanatory when needed.
• Use an appropriate tone; separate clearly the objective from the subjective (opinions).
• Be of the required length (other criteria, especially quality rate much higher than this).

Somewhat Proficient: 80-84%

Content

• Demonstrate a proficient level of comprehension of the subject matter for the majority of the assignment.
• Provide synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of information for the majority of the assignment; demonstrate independent thinking.
• Offer some evidence and/or examples to support observations and inferences; the evidence and/or examples are mostly relevant.
• Be accurate and mostly complete / responsive to both major and minor aspects of the assignment.
• Adhere to most guidelines for content.

References and Citations

• Credit most sources of information, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
• Support the content and appropriate to the topic.
• Are mostly of acceptable quality, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles.
• Meet the number of required references (when stated as an instruction).
• Citation format both in the text and the reference list not necessarily in APA or any other recognized format.
• Submitted to Turnitin.

Writing: Organization of Information

• Ideas presented in a somewhat logical sequence; may or may not have proficient transitions between ideas.
• Usually but not always provide a clear statement of the significant elements, key ideas, and issues; usually but not always document ideas and assertions.
• Generally stay "on track" and remain focused.
• Exhibit a somewhat proficient organization and design of paragraphs and sentences; ideas and words are somewhat well chosen, paragraphs have topic sentences, etc.

Writing: Grammatical

• Needs more editing to fix moderate errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling; writing is somewhat proficient.
• Express ideas in a somewhat clear manner to the reader; meaning is at times vague or incomplete.
• May achieve a balance of how much to say: concise when needed, explanatory when needed.
• Use an appropriate tone; the objective from the subjective (opinions) not always clearly separated.
• Be close to or meet the required length (other criteria, especially quality rate much higher than this).

Passing: 75-79%

Content

• Demonstrate a less than proficient level of comprehension of the subject matter.
• Synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of information are not consistently at the graduate level; weak in demonstrating independent thinking.
• May or may not offer some evidence and/or examples to support observations and inferences; the evidence and/or examples may or may not be relevant.
• Shortcomings in accuracy; falls short in completeness and/or responsiveness to major and minor aspects of the assignment.
• Falls short in adhering to some essential guidelines for content.

References and Citations

• Credit most sources of information, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized.
• May or may not support the content and appropriate to the topic.
• At least half are of acceptable quality, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles.
• Meet the number of required references (when stated as an instruction).
• Citation format both in the text and the reference list not necessarily in APA or any other recognized format.
• Submitted to Turnitin.

Writing: Organization of Information

• Ideas presented in a somewhat logical sequence; may or may not have proficient transitions between ideas.
• Statement of the significant elements, key ideas, and issues sometimes unclear; ideas and assertions not always documented.
• Sometimes stray off track or lose focus.
• Need improvements in organization and design of paragraphs and sentences; too many ideas and words may be poorly chosen, paragraphs may be missing topic sentences, etc.

Writing: Grammatical

• Needs more editing to fix too frequent errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling; writing needs improvement.
• Some ideas need to be expressed much more clearly; meaning is at times too vague or incomplete.
• May need a better balance of how much to say: does not provide enough explanation at times or sometimes dwells on less important information. 
• Tone is not always appropriate (e.g., too informal); subjective (opinions) may predominate over the objective.
• May fall short of the required length (other criteria, especially quality rate much higher than this).

Barely Passing: 70-74%

Content

• Comprehension of the subject matter is weak or narrow (that is, does not see connections to related information).
• Synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of information are barely at the graduate level; weak in demonstrating independent thinking.
• May or may not offer some evidence and/or examples to support observations and inferences; the evidence and/or examples may or may not be relevant.
• Shortcomings in accuracy; falls short in completeness and/or responsiveness to major and minor aspects of the assignment.
• Falls short in adhering to some essential guidelines for content.

References and Citations

• Credit for sources of information, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized is often missing.
• Weakly support the content and not always appropriate to the topic.
• Quality, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles, is substandard; relies on shallow web pages or texts used in this course or other courses.
• Falls a bit short of the number of required references (when stated as an instruction).
• Citation format both in the text and the reference list falls short of APA or any other recognized standard.
• Submitted to Turnitin.

Writing: Organization of Information

• Ideas presented in a somewhat logical sequence; may or may not have proficient transitions between ideas.
• Statement of the significant elements, key ideas, and issues sometimes unclear; ideas and assertions not always documented.
• Sometimes stray off track or lose focus.
• Need improvements in organization and design of paragraphs and sentences; too many ideas and words may be poorly chosen, paragraphs may be missing topic sentences, etc.

Writing: Grammatical

• Needs more editing to fix too frequent errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling; writing needs improvement.
• Some ideas need to be expressed much more clearly; meaning is at times too vague or incomplete.
• Need a better balance of how much to say: does not provide enough explanation at times or sometimes dwells on less important information. 
• Tone is not always appropriate (e.g., too informal); subjective (opinions) predominate over the objective.
• May fall significantly short of the required length (other criteria, especially quality rate much higher than this).

Not Passing: 0-69%

Content

• Comprehension of the subject matter is very weak or narrow (that is, does not see connections to related information).
• Synthesis, analysis, and evaluation of information are very poor or irrelevant; weak in demonstrating independent thinking.
• Typically, evidence and/or examples not provided to support observations and inferences; the evidence and/or examples often not relevant.
• Shortcomings in accuracy; falls short in completeness and/or responsiveness to major and minor aspects of the assignment.
• Falls short in adhering to many essential guidelines for content.

References and Citations

• Credit for sources of information, whether quoted, paraphrased, or summarized is often missing.
• Weakly support the content and not always appropriate to the topic.
• Quality, such as peer-reviewed scholarly articles, is substandard; relies significantly on shallow web pages or texts used in this course or other courses.
• Falls short of the number of required references (when stated as an instruction).
• Citation format both in the text and the reference list falls short of APA or any other recognized standard.
• May not have been submitted to Turnitin.

Writing: Organization of Information

• Ideas often not presented in a logical sequence; may or may not have proficient transitions between ideas.
• Statement of the significant elements, key ideas, and issues often unclear; ideas and assertions poorly documented.
• Often stray off track or lose focus.
• Need major improvements in organization and design of paragraphs and sentences; too many ideas and words may be poorly chosen, paragraphs may be missing topic sentences, etc.

Writing: Grammatical

• Needs more editing to fix too frequent errors in sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, or spelling; writing needs improvement.
• Many ideas need to be expressed much more clearly; meaning is often too vague or incomplete.
• Need a much better balance of how much to say: does not provide enough explanation at times or dwells on less important information. 
• Tone is not always appropriate (e.g., too informal); subjective (opinions) predominate over the objective.
• Fall significantly short of the required length (other criteria, especially quality rate much higher than this).