HSH1000 The Human Condition
The Complete Exam Bible · Sem 1 AY2026/27HSH1000 Overview
- 4 units
- Semester 1 AY2026/27
- Arts and Humanities
- In person tutorial seminars
- Asynchronous e-lectures
What this guide covers
The Human Condition is a four-unit graded course at the National University of Singapore, and its whole design turns on one question: what does it mean to be human? Four essential texts carry that question across four very different times and places.
- Where quality moves your grade Only the final project and the final exam are graded on how good your thinking is; together they are 60 per cent.
- Where marks are simply lost Surveys, peer reviews and tutorial engagement tasks are scored for completing them on time, so a missed deadline costs marks no essay can win back.
- The skill the exam rewards Naming a reading or reasoning concept and applying it to a passage you have not seen before.
- Your tutor is the operational surface Prompts, engagement tasks, summary instructions and your project brief are all set and graded by your own tutor.
How HSH1000 is assessed
| Component | Weight | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Surveys, peer reviews and practice exam | 5% | Individual, described by the course as non differentiating. The surveys are anonymous and scored for completion rather than for content. The peer reviews run on the TEAMMATES platform and are used to check that group members are pulling their weight. The practice exam exists so you meet the Examplify platform on low stakes questions before the real paper. |
| Tutorial engagement tasks | 15% | Individual, described by the course as non differentiating. Your tutor defines the tasks, and they are usually completed during the tutorial seminar itself, sometimes as preparation beforehand. The course is explicit that marks are for completing the tasks on time, not for attendance alone, and the component is split into two halves across the semester. If you must miss a session for an official, documented reason, ask your tutor in advance about attending an alternative session or an alternative assignment. |
| Group discussion summaries | 20% | Group scored, described by the course as less differentiating. Each is a short piece of writing of 300 to 400 words setting out how your group discussed the set text under a prompt your tutor supplies, typically submitted about a week after the tutorial seminar. Polished prose and outside research are explicitly not what earns the mark. Tutors give brief qualitative feedback against three published targets. |
| Final project | 30% | Individual. Preparation tasks carry 10 per cent and are scaffolded through the semester; the finished product carries 20 per cent and runs to 700 to 900 words, with part of the write up optionally replaced by another medium. Your own tutor sets the prompt and grades the work. Submission is a Word document or PDF named for your tutorial group and student number, and every assignment needs the course's generative AI use declaration form. |
| Final exam | 30% | Individual, described by the course as differentiating. Two hours, in person, sat on the Examplify platform in secure full lockdown mode. You may bring any printed, handwritten, non electronic material you choose; your own devices and electronic texts are not allowed, and the electronic texts of the essential readings, the Primer and the Course Guide are supplied inside the platform. It tests comprehension of the lectures, careful reading of the essential texts, and accurate identification and application of the critical reading and thinking concepts, possibly in new contexts. |
The five published weights sum to 100. Two figures in the course materials disagree and both are shown here rather than resolved for you. The practice exam appears as 2 per cent in the Canvas course summary and as 2.5 per cent in the summary schedule table; the itemised Canvas entries for the three surveys, the two peer reviews and the practice exam add up to the published 5 per cent bucket only on the 2 per cent reading. The number of group discussion summaries appears as three to five in the syllabus and as three in the summary schedule note, which also says your own tutor's instruction governs. No pass condition, minimum mark or compulsory component is stated anywhere in the course materials available here, so treat that as unstated rather than as settled either way, and ask your tutor.
Current HSH1000 dates
| Date | Item | Control |
|---|---|---|
| Survey 1, Getting to Know You | due Mon 17 Aug 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Peer Review 1 and Survey 2 | due Mon 21 Sep 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Tutorial engagement, first half | due Mon 28 Sep 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Practice exam on the Examplify platform | due Mon 5 Oct 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Final project, product | due Sun 1 Nov 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Final project, preparation, and Peer Review 2 | due Mon 2 Nov 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Group discussion summary entry | due Mon 9 Nov 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Survey 3 and tutorial engagement, second half | due Mon 16 Nov 2026, 11.59 pm | |
| Final exam entry on the Examplify platform | listed Sat 5 Dec 2026 |
Dates are as published in the Canvas course summary published for this offering. The final project information page and the assessment table both describe the product as due on the Monday of Week 13, while the Canvas entry above is dated the Sunday; the guide prints both readings rather than choosing one. Confirm every date and the examination sitting on Canvas and on the official examination timetable.. Confirm exact deadlines and submission settings in the live LMS.
What HSH1000 covers
Thirteen chapters follow the semester's own alternation between an essential text and the reading or reasoning skill taught beside it, from the first orienting read to the final project.
Reading With Method: Vibe Check and Close Reading
Two passes over one text: an orienting read, then a reading anchored to quoted words02What Words Do: Statements, Definitions and Genres
Sort describing from prescribing from predicting, and treat a genre label as a claim03Omelas and the Moral Cost of a Good Society
Use the story to test a moral doctrine, and use the doctrine to test the story04Metaphor: Source Domains and Target Domains
Name the two domains, list what the mapping carries, and find what it hides05Gilgamesh: Mortality, Civilization and the Wild
Read the epic for what it says about mortality, the built world and the wild beyond it06Anachronism and Perspective Taking
Catch a later idea smuggled into an earlier world, then rewrite the claim so it survives07Argument Analysis: Premises, Conclusions, Support
Separate whether the premises are true from whether they support the conclusion08Xunzi on Human Nature and the Best Explanation
Tell deductive, inductive and abductive apart, and rank rival explanations on stated grounds09Ritual, Music and the Making of a Person
Follow the claim that standards are made by deliberate effort rather than found in nature10Historical Narrative, Contingency and Identity
Separate events from selection from emplotment, and watch a self form under pressure11Sources of Information and How to Weigh Them
Classify a source against the question you are asking, then say what it cannot establish12Identity, Morality, Society and Knowledge
Four lenses that pull the whole course together for the exam and the final project13Writing the Summaries and the Final Project
Hit the three published summary targets, then write 900 words that earn all three project outcomesThe Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, a short story by Ursula Le Guin, opens the semester on morality and the good society. The Epic of Gilgamesh follows, on mortality, civilization and the wild. Selected passages from the Xunzi bring an argument about human nature from the Warring States period.
Truong Nhu Tang's A Vietcong Memoir closes the sequence with identity, historical narrative and the weighing of sources.
Running alongside the texts is a second, equally examinable strand: a set of critical reading and thinking skills introduced through short video guides and practised in every tutorial seminar. Those skills are what the exam asks you to apply, sometimes in contexts you have not seen.
This guide keeps both strands visible. Thirteen chapters alternate between a text and the skill the course teaches beside it, in the order the semester introduces them.
How the course runs
There are no in-person lecture meetings. Lectures are asynchronous videos you watch before class, and the small-group tutorial seminars are the core of the course.
Ten meetings are scheduled, in Weeks 2 to 6 and Weeks 8 to 12, with buffer sessions in Weeks 7 and 13 that can absorb a meeting displaced by a holiday. Your tutor sets the preparation tasks, runs the engagement tasks, gives feedback on your group's summaries, sets your final project prompt and grades it.
That makes your tutor the single most important surface to keep track of, because much of the week-to-week detail is theirs rather than course-wide.
Where the marks are
Five components carry the mark, and they split cleanly into two kinds. Sixty per cent is graded on quality: the final project at 30 per cent and the final exam at 30 per cent.
Forty per cent is earned by doing set work properly and on time: tutorial engagement tasks at 15 per cent, the group discussion summaries at 20 per cent, and the surveys, peer reviews and practice exam at 5 per cent.
The course states this distinction itself, calling components differentiating, less differentiating or non-differentiating, and the labels are worth taking seriously when you plan your effort.
The consequence is that the cheapest marks in the course are also the easiest to lose.
A missed survey or an unsubmitted engagement task costs marks that no amount of good writing recovers, while the final project and the exam are the only places where the quality of your thinking moves your grade.
Protect the first group with a calendar; invest your thinking time in the second.
How to use this guide
Work one chapter at a time, and finish each one by doing something rather than by reading to the end. Cover the worked answer and rebuild it. Take the practice prompt and write your version before comparing.
When you reach a chapter whose text you have already read for class, reread one short passage with the chapter's skill in hand rather than rereading your notes.
The exam rewards applying a named concept to an unfamiliar passage, and that is a habit you build only by doing it repeatedly on short pieces of text.
What is ours and what is the University's
Component names, weights, formats and published conditions come from the course's own Canvas materials for this offering.
Every explanation, worked example, practice item and figure in this guide is written by us from the standard published scholarship on these texts and on critical reasoning. Nothing here reproduces a tutor's prompt, a tutorial task or an examination question, and no practice item carries a University mark scheme, because the course publishes none. Confirm operational details with your tutor or on Canvas.
Sorting a paragraph into describing, prescribing and predicting
- 1Label sentence 1 and name its truth maker.
- 1Label sentence 2 and say why counting cannot settle it.
- 1Label sentence 3 and name the evidence that would confirm or refute it.
- 1Label sentence 4 and explain what a definition is doing here.
Key terms
- Vibe Check
- The course's name for a first orienting pass over a text, in which you register genre, tone, apparent purpose and the questions the text raises before analysing any single line.
- Close Reading
- A slow second pass over a short passage in which every claim you make is anchored to particular words, their repetition, their order or their absence.
- Prescriptive Statement
- A sentence that says how things ought to be rather than how they are. No amount of counting settles it, because its support has to be an argument about what is worth doing.
- Source Domain
- The familiar area a metaphor borrows from. In the expression a wall of argument, walls are the source domain and the argument is the target.
- Anachronism
- A concept, value or category imported into a period that did not have it, which quietly converts a historical claim into a judgement made from the present.
- Premise
- A statement offered in support of a conclusion. Whether a premise is true and whether it supports the conclusion are two separate questions, and an argument can fail either one.
- Inference to the Best Explanation
- Reasoning that moves from something observed to the account that would best explain it, after rival accounts have been named and compared on stated grounds.
- Deliberate Effort
- The standard rendering of Xunzi's wei, the cultivated activity that shapes raw human nature through learning, ritual and music rather than releasing what is already there.
- Historical Narrative
- An account that selects events, orders them into a story and implies why one led to another. The selection and the ordering are claims, not neutral background.
- Primary Source
- A source with direct relation to the question being asked. The same document can be primary for one question and secondary for another, so classify it against the question rather than once and for all.
- Differentiating Component
- The course's label for an assessment scored on the quality of the response, as opposed to a non differentiating component where completing the set task properly and on time earns full marks.
HSH1000 FAQ
How is this course assessed, and what is each component worth?
Five components carry the mark. Surveys, peer reviews and the practice exam together are 5 per cent; tutorial engagement tasks are 15 per cent; group discussion summaries are 20 per cent; the final project is 30 per cent, split into 10 per cent preparation and 20 per cent product; and the final exam is 30 per cent.
The published weights sum to 100. The course calls the project and the exam differentiating, the summaries less differentiating, and the first two components non differentiating, which tells you where quality changes your grade and where punctuality does.
What does the final exam look like?
It runs for two hours, in person, on the Examplify platform in secure full lockdown mode. The course materials describe roughly 30 questions in two slightly different ways: the syllabus says approximately 30 multiple choice questions, likely with four options each, and the assessment page says roughly 30 multiple response type questions. More format detail is released through the practice exam.
It tests comprehension of the lectures, careful reading of the essential texts, and accurate identification and application of the critical reading and thinking concepts, possibly in new contexts.
Can I bring materials into the exam?
The course states that you may bring any printed, handwritten, non electronic material of your choice. Your own electronic devices and electronic texts are not allowed, and the syllabus adds that there is no internet or artificial intelligence access during the paper. The electronic texts of the essential readings, the Primer and the Course Guide are made available inside the platform itself.
What makes a good group discussion summary?
The published targets are three. It has to show that the group engaged thoughtfully with the topic, that it holds the basic concepts securely, and that the exchange itself was a good one, laid out so a reader can tell which person contributed which point. Each is 300 to 400 words on the set text, written to a prompt your tutor supplies, and it is scored as a group.
Neither polished prose nor outside research earns anything here.
How long should the final project be, and what is it graded on?
It runs to 700 to 900 words, and the course means at least 700 and no more than 900. Graders are not obliged to read past the first 900 words and will score on those alone. Part of the write up can optionally be replaced by another medium.
The three published outcomes are that you have accurately understood at least one key idea from the course, critically engaged with it using the reading and thinking skills taught, and reflected on how it applies to your own situation or to the world today.
Which texts do I actually have to read?
Four essential texts anchor the course: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula Le Guin, The Epic of Gilgamesh, selected passages from the Xunzi, and extracts from Truong Nhu Tang's A Vietcong Memoir. They are not the only required reading; each week's page lists the videos and readings you are responsible for.
For the three translated texts, the version hosted on Canvas is the one the course treats as the source text, so quote from that version and not from another translation.
Am I allowed to use generative AI?
Yes, with a declaration. The course states that using generative AI tools is generally permitted and that you will not be penalised for it, but that using such tools without declaring them counts as plagiarism under National University of Singapore policy.
Every assignment, individual or group, needs the course's generative AI use declaration form, and if you used a tool the form must include a transcript, either pasted in or linked as a shareable weblink. Translation tools count too, even when it is unclear whether they use AI.
How to study for the exam
Split your week the way the course splits its marks. The set videos and readings come before the tutorial seminar, and everything the engagement tasks ask you to do assumes you have done them, so treat the pre-meeting list as the real deadline rather than the meeting itself.
Keep a one page log per essential text with three columns: a passage you could quote, the skill concept it best illustrates, and one sentence on what it says about being human.
That log is the raw material for your group summaries, your final project and the exam, and building it as you go costs far less than reconstructing it in Week 11. For the exam, practise on short unfamiliar passages rather than rereading familiar ones, because the paper asks you to apply a named concept in a new context; take any four lines of prose, run the two reading passes on it, and name the statement types, the metaphors and the argument.
For the final project, start collecting material early, take your tutor's feedback on the preparation tasks seriously since the same tutor grades the product, and write to 900 words knowing that nothing past that line will be read.
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