The lines are long and the fighting is strong

Back to lectures today, and just seven days until the test. I've pretty much revised everything (except the small topic on bargaining), but am no less mystified about what we're actually doing in this course. Lectures and textbook alike seem to veer bewilderingly from the mundane to the arcane, spending vastly more time on the former than the latter. I don't get it. I'm constantly thinking either "where is the hard?" or "what just happened?", and there is no visible connection between the two.