Section outline
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This course explores visual art forms and their cultural connections across historical periods, designed for students with little experience in the visual arts. It includes brief studies in art history and in-depth inquiry into the elements, media, and methods used in a range of creative processes. At the beginning of this course, we will study a five-step system for developing an understanding of visual art in all forms, based on:
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Time: 33 hours
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College Credit Recommended
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Free Certificate
- Description: A work of art from an objective point of view – its physical attributes and formal construction.
- Analysis: A detailed look at a work of art that combines physical attributes with subjective statements based on the viewer's reaction to the work.
- Context: Historical, religious, or environmental information that surrounds a particular work of art and which helps to understand the work's meaning.
- Meaning: A statement of the work's content. A message or narrative to express the subject matter.
- Judgment: A critical point of view about a work of art concerning its aesthetic or cultural value.
After completing this course, you will be able to interpret works of art based on this five-step system, explain the processes involved in artistic production, identify the many kinds of issues that artists examine in their work, and explain the role and effect of the visual arts in different social, historical and cultural contexts.
First, read the course syllabus. Then, enroll in the course by clicking "Enroll me". Click Unit 1 to read its introduction and learning outcomes. You will then see the learning materials and instructions on how to use them.
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How do we define art? For many people, art is a tangible thing: a painting, sculpture, photograph, dance, poem, or play. Art is uniquely human and tied directly to culture. As an expressive medium, art allows us to experience a wide range of emotions, such as joy or sorrow, confusion or clarity. Art gives voice to ideas and feelings, connects us to the past, reflects the present, and anticipates the future. Visual art is a rich and complex subject, and its definition is in flux as the culture around it changes. This unit examines how art is defined and the different ways it functions in societies and cultures.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.
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First, we need to ground ourselves with some key concepts to define our area of study. What do we mean by art, what is and what is not art, and why? Can anything be art based on anyone's subjective opinion, or are there some objective features of art we can generally agree on? Since art is as old as human culture, we have developed many specialized terms associated with its study over time.
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Our understanding of art and how we explain it consists of a few qualities. First, there are descriptions and analyses of the features of a work of art. These are based on the perceptual qualities of the artwork (such as the composition's colors, shapes, or contrasts), the material they are made of, and the methods used to produce them. Secondly, there are interpretive aspects that are informed by culture. These interpretations can be unique to a given person, group, or society. Since most humans perceive art similarly across populations (by using our eyes and ears), there can be quite broad agreement as to the perceptual and material aspects of art, since these can be objectively verified.
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It is hard to separate art from conversations about it, which are also called the "discourses" of art. Art is saturated with concepts, histories, schools, movements, linkages to the history of ideas, debates about the nature of beauty, or judgments about what makes art "good" or "bad". Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that deals with matters related to art. This term is based on the ancient Greek word aesthesis, which means "sensory experience". As you might expect, different cultures have produced different discourses on aesthetics: for example, what might have been considered beautiful in Indian art 500 years ago will likely be very different from what was considered beautiful in the European Renaissance or a 20th-century postmodern exhibit. The development of ideas is inextricably linked to the movements of culture, and aesthetics is affected by variations across social geographies and throughout history.
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Interpretations of art can be subjective. Art is often controversial, mysterious, socially significant, or personal. These interpretations depend on other factors, such as the cultural background of the artist or viewer, the use of symbolic material, or the artistic consumption habits of its audience. The perceptual and material dimensions – the objective aspects of an artwork are described as its form, whereas the interpretive (subjective) components are its content. These categories, form and content, derive from Greek antiquity, where philosophers made the distinction between what something says (the content) and how something is said (its form).
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Art performs certain common functions, such as recording faces and places – this will be familiar to anyone today who takes pictures with their smartphone. Images can also serve scientific purposes, such as capturing images of galaxies or microscopic organisms. Churches and temples are also full of artistic images that convey religious, mythical, and spiritual ideas.
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Taking a broad view of the diversity of artistic practices, we can create categories of art that include art that is in the museums (such as paintings and sculptures), art we find on the streets (such as graffiti or billboards), art on our persons (such as jewelry, clothing, and fashion), and art in our homes (such as embroidery and rugs). Similarly, we can organize art into the categories of fine art, popular art, or decorative art, depending on the roles it fulfills along these social dimensions. We might consider a work of art important for cultural preservation and reflection (fine art), a type of popular communication (pop art), or a handicraft that ornaments or decorates items in our lives (decorative art).
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We often expect art to depict something specific, such as when a portrait must resemble a certain person. We call this art's mimetic role, which comes from the Greek word mimesis and refers to creating a representation of something. But we also know that art often takes great creative liberties in representation. Many works impart all strong stylizations to the objects they represent. We call these artworks abstractions because their main goal is not to produce "accurate" mimesis. Finally, we have all experienced works of art that do not resemble anything at all from our everyday experiences. This kind of art may work with geometries, colors, or materials in ways that do not lend themselves to a clear interpretation. We call this kind of art non-objective because it foregoes any ties to objects we recognize.
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With much artwork, you have a sense of its cultural background as soon as you see it. Sometimes a certain amount of expertise may be required. For example, something may seem "old and tribal" at first glance. You may not know what part of the world it is from until you read the description cards or consider the name of the museum wing it inhabits. Art embodies cultural values and beliefs. Cultures rely on their art as artifacts to serve as repositories for their values and beliefs. In this way, art and culture rely on each other for their full understanding.
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We see biologically and neurologically – our eyes send information about the external world to the brain's visual processing centers. But we also see in personal ways that are informed by our social and cultural background. Both ways of "seeing" are important in art. For example, artists are highly sensitive to the nuances of form and color. They are also attuned to the ways certain audiences may react to their work. Artists often purposely challenge our usual ways of seeing and looking to produce extraordinary effects we are not accustomed to.
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In this unit, we explore artistic processes in their social contexts, covering individual artists turning their ideas into works of art, forms of collaborative creative projects, public art, and the role of the viewer.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 1 hour.
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Art does not come about on its own; rather, it emerges within a larger social space which includes various people who perform specific roles that are part of the artistic endeavor or process. Curators, critics, gallery owners, and collectors are just as important as artists for there to be an art world in the fullest sense. Institutions, such as art schools, publishers, and museums, outlive individuals and create a historical continuance of ideas and practices.
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We often think of an artist as a lone, creative genius who does strange things in their studio, perhaps driven by intense psychological dramas. We can apply this description to many of the artists we read about or see in film throughout history. However, most artists are more like film producers or directors. They guide a process that several participants with specialized skills perform to realize the artistic endeavor. Instead of acting intuitively in wild fits of inspired creativity, most artists put considerable effort into the preliminary planning stages of their work, which ultimately shape what they will eventually produce.
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Centuries ago, we thought of artists as craftspeople. Painters and sculptors were organized into guilds. Their place in society was similar to other craft workers, such as blacksmiths and stone masons. In many cultures, artists learned through apprenticeship methods. Art education eventually made its way to become a formal academic discipline. These institutions now mint newly-degreed artists into the world every year. There are also many self-taught artists who create their own informal and personalized learning programs guided by their vision and passion.
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As in the past, a single person does not usually create most of today's artworks. We immediately associate several art forms with large groups of people who are needed to complete them. Think of feature films or architecture. Artists must collaborate with non-artists, drawing members of the general public into their creative process.
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Art asks us questions and conveys meaning. It expresses ideas, uncovers truths, manifests what is beautiful, and tells stories. In this unit, we begin to explore the meaning behind particular works of art within the context of various styles and cultures. We introduce the conceptual tools professional art critics use to interpret art. During this activity, you will provide your own interpretation of a piece of art. You should return to this activity after you have completed this course and review your response.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 1 hour.
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The distinction between subjective and objective information was key to the development of science and the philosophies that emerged during the Enlightenment (1685–1815). René Descartes (1596–1650), the French philosopher, clearly articulated this concept when he famously stated "I think, therefore I am". We realize the objective dimension of the world through our senses and through instruments that measure our environment. For example, using methods such as carbon dating, we can analyze the pigments artists used when they created cave paintings and arrive at objective determinations about when they were produced. We can also agree that certain stylistic features belong to a particular period of time. The subjective dimension is less tangible and rooted in our personal experiences. We not only encounter art as raw sensory data, but we also bring our own biases, expectations, needs, and prior art education when we formulate our judgments.
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When we see any object, we can immediately understand its form: the physical attributes of size, shape, and mass. With art, this may first appear simple: we can separate out each artistic element and discover how the artist used it in their work. You practiced doing this in the last two units. The importance of this formal level of meaning is that it allows us to look at any artwork from an objective viewpoint. Artists use specific processes to create their artwork to achieve a certain perceptual effect. Most artists are keenly aware of the material properties of the media they work with. They understand the objective qualities and anticipate the subjective responses people will likely experience as they view the work.
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Art criticism is part of the intellectual tradition in most cultures. Each of these traditions provides key concepts and methods of analysis.
- Structural criticism considers art as a system of elements that are composed together, like a language or set of repeating forms. Artworks are comprised of stable, recurring cultural codes that an art critic decodes.
- Deconstructive criticism focuses on the differences among artworks that prevent them from forming stable structures of meaning.
- Formalist criticism analyses the material and perceptual attributes of art and its associated experiences.
- Ideological criticism seeks out power and social imbalances. For the artist, art is a way to perpetuate worldviews that need to be challenged.
- Feminist criticism focuses on gender inequality and roots out forms of patriarchy that appear in art.
- Psychoanalytic criticism traces the patterns of conflict between consciousness and the unconscious and seeks aspects of personality in the art that are beyond subjective control and which subvert social personas.
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In this unit, we study the terms used to describe and analyze any work of art. We will explore the principles of design – how the artist arranges and orchestrates the elements they use. Just as spoken language is based on phonemes, syntax, and semantics, visual art is based on elements and principles that, when used together, create works that communicate ideas and meaning to the viewer. We can think of them as the building blocks of an artwork's composition – the organized layout of an image or object according to the principles of design.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 3 hours.
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When we consider art's formal aspect (materials, the methods used to work them, and their perceptual effects), we can distinguish the basic units (called elements) from the various principles used to combine elements. Elements proceed from the simple to the complex: from a point to a line, to a planar shape, to mass, to a figure or ground distinctions, and so on. In a given work of art, these fundamental formal units relate to one another on a second, higher level. Artists arrange them according to principles of design, such as balance, repetition, emphasis, unity, variety, and so on. The key point to understand here is that there is a fundamental conceptual distinction between simpler formal elements and the general rules or patterns for how they are combined, which we call the principles of design.
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In this section, we introduce the various kinds of space that artists represent in their works and the different techniques of perspective they use to create the illusion of space on a two-dimensional (2D) surface. Space is an intuitive concept in many ways – after all, we experience everything in some kind of space. In art, however, space is a construction built according to specific techniques and intentions. Space is also a cultural variable. Some cultural contexts are less interested in the accurate modeling of real space and more interested in psychological rendering.
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Now let's explore the artistic principles or how an artist arranges and orchestrates the elements in a work of art. These elements include visual balance, repetition, scale and proportion, emphasis, time and motion, unity, and variety.
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Artists find all sorts of ways to express themselves and use almost any resource that is available. Making extraordinary images and objects from various but somewhat ordinary materials is a mark of creativity. Using charcoal, paper, thread, paint, ink – and even found objects such as leaves – artists continue to search for ways to construct and deliver their message. In this unit, we look at artworks created from two- and three-dimensional media and artworks made using different types of cameras.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 4 hours.
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No painting or drawing is "purely" two-dimensional (2D) since all surfaces have a thickness and 2D planes are a geometric abstraction. However, in 2D or planar-surface-based art, the thickness of the medium is of no or very little importance. With 2D art, we only pay attention to the image rendered on the surface of the medium (paper, canvas, wall, etc.) in its height-by-width aspect ratio.
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Photography is a relatively-new medium that originated in the 19th century. It is easy to view and understand the changes it wrought. For example, photography made portraiture, which had been very expensive to produce, accessible to the larger population. Many photographic portraits emulated painting styles. Photography freed painters by allowing them to do more with paint than simply copy reality. It opened up new avenues toward abstraction and non-objective art.
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Three-dimensional art adds depth to height and width. For example, artists use depth to cut a stone figure against its background material, create a space for performance art, or place objects in a room as in installation art. Three-dimensional art activates all three dimensions of physical space in a way that is different from two-dimensional art.
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In this unit, we explore architecture, its history, and its relation to visual art. Architecture is the art and science of designing structures and spaces for human use. Architectural design is an art form realized through considerations of spatial design and aesthetics. Related to sculpture, architecture creates three-dimensional objects that serve human purposes and form visual relationships with the surrounding areas.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.
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Architecture is the art and science of designing structures and spaces for human use. Architectural design is an art form in itself realized through considerations of spatial design and aesthetics.
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Since prehistory, people have manipulated the materials in their local environment to create expressive dwelling places.
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When we travel to other countries, we are often impressed with how different buildings look based on their geographic location. These differences indicate the cultural backdrop that framed how and why they were created. While their general functions may be similar – for worship, military defense, education, work, or housing – the uniqueness of cultures means their architecture displays unique forms that are well-suited to their cultural environment – forms that distinguish them from those produced elsewhere.
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Comparative analysis of art looks carefully for similarities and differences in similar art forms across different cultures. For example, you might compare the art on temples in Hindu and Buddhist cultures or compare Christian churches with Jewish synagogues. We can analyze any cultural artifact for similarities and differences in various cultural contexts, such as textile patterns, paintings, sculptures, or films.
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The Industrial Revolution (1760–1840) prompted new needs and capabilities for architecture and infrastructure. During this period, workers adopted new techniques, and the ability to mass-produce building components created new possibilities for steel-based frames and concrete that would radically increase the scale of built structures. These buildings were inherently different from those that were previously built out of stone or wood and assembled with much less technological apparatus.
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Modernist architects rejected the ornament and decorative elements past historical styles had adopted. Rather, they embraced the use of contemporary materials and methods to create a style dissociated from the past which addressed the present. A popular Modernist idea was that homes should be like "machines for living".
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Postmodern architects rebelled against the austerity and rationality of modernist architecture. They believed architecture should use symbols and ornament that played with cultural ideas – implementing them with less seriousness and gravitas than earlier movements, such as neoclassical and neo-gothic architecture. This allowed them to reincorporate the world's architectural heritage into contemporary building design. They often fused ornamental and symbolic aspects with modernist design, so buildings could still fulfill their functional roles.
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Green architecture incorporates ecologically and environmentally sustainable practices into site preparation, materials, energy use, and waste systems.
A building is a system. We may think of them as structures, offices, or homes, but they support human activity by assembling several functions that address a variety of human needs. Typical building systems include heating, cooling, lighting, ventilating, and powering, and may include recycling rainwater or supporting a living roof. Each of these systems involves methods and technologies we can trace to the origins of architecture. However, today's more ecologically-informed era would deem most of these systems unsustainable. Green or sustainable design looks for new ways and approaches that minimize the harmful environmental impact of traditional building systems.Activities: 2 -
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In this unit, we explore how artists express and interpret our world. If nothing else, visual art provides an avenue for self-expression. As a primary source of inspiration, artists express attitudes, feelings, and sentiments about their environment through personal experiences, social interaction, and relationships with the natural world. In short, art helps us perceive and react to our place in the world. In Unit 1, we referred to description as one of many roles art adopts, but description is often imbued with the artist's subjective take on the world. In this unit, we examine how art operates as a vehicle for human expression – a kind of collective visual metaphor that helps us define who we are.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 2 hours.
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We typically associate identity in art with forms of portraiture or representations of human bodies and faces. Artists convey information about their human subjects through expression and pose. We often respond directly to art's language of identity based on our familiarity with human representation in our everyday lives. Sometimes, deeper cultural meanings are obscured and require additional narrative and analysis for understanding. In this section, we focus on art and identity, which is a recurring theme in this course.
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Self-portraits indicate an artist's inward gaze as they present a view of themselves to the world. The representation of self may bear a close resemblance to sensory experience (such as a photograph based on similar optical principles as the eyes), or they may seem highly abstract (for example, when an artist uses patterns of DNA sequences to reflect a new kind of contemporary portrait of the self). Part of our role as those who experience art is to come to grips with the kinds of self-knowledge we can obtain from works of art.
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Nature and the objects of nature (such as landscapes, animals, or flora) have been a source of artistic inspiration for as long as history. Think of the animals depicted in cave paintings in France many thousands of years ago. This natural subject matter can range from highly-idealized and stylized imagery, such as animals representing gods and the force of nature, to a very different kind of aesthetic treatment, such as in scientific illustrations grounded in the accuracy of representation.
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Artworks are often grounded in themes, such as when an artist wants to make a particular or generalized statement about their social or political situation. For example, they may borrow from thematic material to challenge certain political beliefs or activities. During artistic forms of social discourse, debates rage about sex and power, politics and violence, and nature and the body. Artworks take creative positions in the public space. You can see examples in almost every form of artistic expression, including poetry, plays, film, murals, paintings, and popular music.
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Humans use art to capture ideas about worlds outside our own. Art can be a vehicle for myth, which uses narrative to convey truths about human nature. Art also expresses hard-to-articulate aspects of spiritual worlds, which are products of religious practices. Cultures use iconography to symbolize abstract ideas, such as dreams, love, power, and emotion, and societies call on the artist to create them. Art also plays a significant role in rituals and ceremonies. In this unit, we explore how artists materialize human thought, belief, and imagination through art.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 3 hours.
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We derive myth from the Greek word mythos, which means story. Most cultures preserve collections of stories to preserve their most ancient historical backdrop. We sometimes call them folk tales or heroic epics. These stories help us define our cultural identity on a grand scale across space and time, such as by tying people to territories and relating current events to the old creation myths. We retell myths, legends, stories, and songs to highlight the more durable features of human character and general patterns of life that recur across the generations.
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The influence of dreams in art is significant. Dreams provide creative subject matter for visual artists and play an additional role in art through ceremony and ritual. For example, William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream continues to be a popular play from Elizabethan literature.
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We often make general distinctions between the major, organized religions – Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, and Judaism – which we associate with global identities and hierarchical social institutions, and the myriad rituals and ceremonies which are unique to smaller, diverse tribes or groups which trace their beliefs and practices back for millennia. Whether they are religious or spiritual in character, artworks that express this facet of human existence invoke questions about human nature and the nature of the cosmos.
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The era and location where a work of art was created often determine the formal and stylistic aspects of the piece. In this unit, we study the evolution of art in time and place in the Western world. We will help you develop the tools you need to identify major formal and stylistic trends that punctuate the timeline of Western art history. This approach will allow you to witness the relationship between works of art and their specific social-historical contexts. You will also see a certain continuum that runs through Western art from Ancient Greece to modern times.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 14 hours.
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We can trace the oldest human artworks back tens of thousands of years, where we find examples of art that humans wore, handled as objects of ritual, or used to create immersive spaces or environments, such as in painted caves. However, art-making practices probably extend far beyond what we have discovered in the archaeological record. Every few years, new discoveries reset our horizons of the earliest known art. Interpreting the meaning of these objects beyond simple decorative items is often unknowable since their connections to the cultural and symbolic systems are absent. We can only guess by comparing them to other objects we have discovered that are accompanied by additional explanations.
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The art of Egypt and the Ancient Near East is often associated with the first recorded civilizations. This history depends on the writing systems that have preserved our knowledge of the past. Writing – which we see in tablets, papyrus walls, temple walls, and other media – provides a rich background for helping us interpret the meaning of the artworks from these times.
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The societies and cultures of Greece and Rome provide the origins of what we consider Western civilization. In Greece, we find elements of science, philosophy, and theories of democracy. The Greeks developed ways of thinking about the world that surpassed mythology toward more abstract beliefs about the world. The Romans built on this Greek tradition and created their own conception of a republican form of government. These democratic processes were more indirect and tied to the expansion of one of the world's largest empires. To sustain empire building, the Romans produced innovations in roads, viaducts, and architecture, which often incorporated Greek artistic elements.
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Empires wax and wane throughout time. We call the period between the Fall of the Roman Empire and the rise of science the Middle Ages (500 to 1500). These are useful bookends on the historical timeline, but we can also interpret the Fall of the Roman Empire as the relative decline of its Western capital in Rome and the rise of its Eastern capital in Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), which was the center of Byzantine art. It also refers to the period when Christianity had spread throughout all of Europe and many other areas of the world, including Africa, the Middle East, and further.
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The word renaissance means revival. In the context of art history, the Renaissance period (the transition period between the Middle Ages and modernity during the 14th and 16th centuries) marked a return to the dominance of classical (Greek and Roman) styles in art, literature, and architecture. Mimesis – the accurate, even scientific, representation of form we discussed in Unit 1 – became increasingly important in the visual arts while the architectural styles of the Greeks and Romans were revitalized. Many factors led to this resurrection, including the rediscovery of classic works, new technological innovations, and increased interactions among different areas of Europe.
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We associate Baroque art with an increase in intricacy and complexity in the arts, while the Rococo style added to these Baroque tendencies toward pleasure, delight, and playfulness. Both are notable for their great attention to detail and decorative elaborations. Baroque originated in the Catholic Church – it was intended to contrast with the seriousness of Protestant art during the Reformation and was meant to play up a stronger sense of life and emotion. Rococo art was often meant for indoor domestic spaces and was generally more secular in its themes compared to Baroque art.
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During the 18th and 19th centuries, we saw a more rapid progression of several different styles and schools of creative thought. They ultimately created a background for abstraction, formalism, and conceptualism in the 20th century. This period began with continuances of various neo-classic traditions, but rebellion against the Industrial Revolution began to emerge with Romanticism. The final major art movements of the 19th century, including Impressionism, began by producing highly abstract imagery where light effects were of greater interest than the representation of objects and people.
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With the rise of denser, industrialized, and heavily populated urban centers, we saw the emergence of subject matter that is "grittier" in its realism compared to traditional mimetic approaches. Instead of using an accurate representation of figures, forms, and spaces to embody classic ideals and values, artists began presenting reality as they experienced it every day. However, in academic salons, classical values continued to dominate the application of mimetic techniques.
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Impressionism set the stage for greater degrees of abstraction in art, followed by Cubism and the New Objectivity art periods. It is hard to understand Impressionism without appreciating the effects photography had on painting. Once the camera allowed anyone to produce accurate imagery, artists began looking for new realms of creativity to expand their craft. Photography competed with the skills painters had for producing portraits and landscapes. Impressionism emerged just a few decades after photography came into widespread use. While photographs operated on the scientific, objective principles of light, Impressionism manifested the subjective, personal experience of light as its subject matter.
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The Post-Impressionists pushed the tendencies toward abstraction even further than the Impressionists. They created a naturalistic sensibility in their rendering of light and separated color from form as an object of artistic concern. Like the Impressionists, they emphasized the artificiality of painting as a construct. They often tied emotional and symbolic meanings to their use of color, which often produced a sense of form's disintegration. Post-Impressionists often used much bolder (and thus less natural) colors in their art, aiming for a more expressive impact.
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The 20th century witnessed more distinct periods of art and style compared to any previous period in the history of art. This was a time of unprecedented technological and social change. The world experienced two world wars, the development of nuclear weapons, revolutionary paradigm shifts in the sciences (including relativity and systems theory), and an explosion of new representational media, including film, television, and radio.
There was an increasing acceptance that "anything goes", as exemplified by Marcel Duchamp's urinal, which was presented as a sculptural artifact in 1817. By the 1950s, visual art had been entirely emancipated from mimesis of any kind of connection to reality in its embrace of pure form. Figurative art was not entirely replaced by abstract art. Rather, what we see happening in the early 20th century are processes of continuous transformation of approaches to figurative art as new art movements recontextualize expectations around the role of representational techniques with each new artistic movement.
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The rapid expansion of various art movements, including conceptualism, minimalism, and postmodernism, continued after World War II. Nazi Germany's attempt to reject 20th-century art by calling it "decadent" proved to be a brief reactionary moment. However, this rejection did continue in Soviet and communist societies, which officialized "socialist realism" as the only state-legitimized aesthetic. In free societies, artists continued to experiment and push the boundaries of what we consider art. They incorporated multiple media, popular culture, new technologies, and conceptualism. They even presented ideas about art rather than actual artwork.
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This study guide will help you get ready for the final exam. It discusses the key topics in each unit, walks through the learning outcomes, and lists important vocabulary. It is not meant to replace the course materials!
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Please take a few minutes to give us feedback about this course. We appreciate your feedback, whether you completed the whole course or even just a few resources. Your feedback will help us make our courses better, and we use your feedback each time we make updates to our courses. If you come across any urgent problems, email contact@saylor.org.
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Take this exam if you want to earn a free Course Completion Certificate.
To receive a free Course Completion Certificate, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on this final exam. Your grade for the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt.
Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate.
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Take this exam if you want to earn college credit for this course. This course is eligible for college credit through Saylor Academy's Saylor Direct Credit Program(opens in new window).
The Saylor Direct Credit Final Exam requires a proctoring fee of $5. To pass this course and earn a Credly Badge and official transcript (opens in new window), you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on the Saylor Direct Credit Final Exam. Your grade for this exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you can take it again a maximum of 3 times, with a 14-day waiting period between each attempt.
We are partnering with SmarterProctoring to help make the proctoring fee more affordable. We will be recording you, your screen, and the audio in your room during the exam. This is an automated proctoring service, but no decisions are automated; recordings are only viewed by our staff with the purpose of making sure it is you taking the exam and verifying any questions about exam integrity. We understand that there are challenges with learning at home - we won't invalidate your exam just because your child ran into the room!
Requirements:
- Desktop Computer
- Chrome (v74+)
- Webcam + Microphone
- 1mbps+ Internet Connection
Once you pass this final exam, you will be awarded a Credly Badge and can request an official transcript.
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