Tips for the Final?

Q;  DO YOU HAVE ANY TIPS FOR THE FINAL. ARE YOU GOING TO EMPHASIZE ON CLADOGRAMS??. I HAVE TO START STUDYING  ^_*. THANKS.

A:  I strongly suggest the following strategy for studying.
 1)  Start by memorizing the cladograms including the branching order and all of the characters listed.  You should fully understand the cladogram, i.e. how it represents the history of the lineages and which groups have which characters, etc.
 2) Go through the lecture material with the cladograms at hand.  Correlate where on the cladogram each animal discussed fits in.  Make sure you understand (not memorize - that won't work) all of the additional concepts that we talked about.  If there are slides or lines in the lecture notes that you don't fully understand, make of note of them and bring them to my or your TAs office hours.
 3) There will probably be one or two questions on the final exam from the additional readings.  If (and only if) you are going for a top score in the class, then you should go over the additional readings (in the ExtraReadings folder at the course website).