Ph. D. Qualifying Exams: Making it to the Other Side

By Melissa Sanchez, Ph.D Student
English & Comparative Literature

For many students who have not yet taken their Ph.D. qualifying exams, the very idea evokes terrifying images of being trapped in a small room, surrounded by experts in your field who are grilling you on extraordinarily difficult questions and waiting for you to trip yourself up. The idea of writing a dissertation may be stressful and intimidating, but the qualifying exam somehow creates a more immediate and clear-cut sense of terror.

If you feel this way about taking your exams, you are not alone. The qualifying exam is undeniably rigorous, and you will need to do a lot of hard work in order to pass this milestone successfully. It may help to remember, however, that the majority of students do pass and that there are steps you can take to increase your chances of doing the same.

• Put the exam in perspective. While the Ph.D. exam certainly requires that you know a great deal about your field, it is also intended to test your ability to communicate this knowledge. “You’ve got to convince people that you really know what you’re talking about,” says former Berkeley Associate Graduate Dean Daniel Melia. “It’s not just a question of what you know, it’s a question of being able to impart what you know. . . this is something that you are going to have to do in your real life as a Ph.D.” In other words, while it is important to have a solid understanding of your field, try not to stress about all of the things that you don’t know. Instead, concentrate on presenting what you do know intelligently and confidently.

Talking to students who have already passed their exams is another way of putting the process into perspective. Not only can they give practical advice on organization and studying, but hearing about their experiences can be reassuring. The more that you talk to people who have already passed, the more confident you will feel about your ability to successfully navigate your own exams.

Finally, try to recognize that your committee wants you to pass. Most likely, your committee will be made up of professors that have contributed to your training over the years, so in a sense your success is a reflection on them. Also, because “you will represent their department when you leave the University,” your success is a reflection on the department as well. This doesn’t mean that you will pass if you are unprepared or incapable of answering the questions, but it does mean that your committee will do whatever they can to help you get through the exam successfully. As one student observed, “It was not a grill atmosphere . . . It was an attempt to give me every opportunity to show what I know.”

• Find out what is expected of you. You can do away with much of the stress of facing the qualifying exam if you demystify it as much as possible. Talk to your advisor and your committee members. Ask them what they expect you to be able to do when you take the exam. The more you know about what to expect from the actual exam, the better you can contain your studying so that you focus on things that will really matter. Find out as many specifics as possible: how long will the questions be? is it more important that you exhibit depth or breadth of knowledge? do you get any breaks? what materials are you allowed to bring to the exam? how can you best organize your time as you prepare? what are the most important things you should be reading?

Another excellent source of information about the exams is students who have already passed, particularly those with whom you have committee members in common. Try to find out which professors like to ask tricky questions, how previous examinees structured their answers, what they wish they had known beforehand. Again, the more information you have, the more confident you’ll be about your own preparation.

Even something as simple as familiarizing yourself with the physical surroundings in which you will take your exam can be helpful. Prior to the actual date of the exam, visit the room in which it will be held. Plan how you will arrange your materials and where you will sit. Visualize yourself entering that room prepared to communicate all of the knowledge you have accrued from the studying you’ve been doing.

• Learn the material. It may seem self-evident to say that you need to know the material in order to pass the exam, but students have been known to enter the examination room still unsure about key concepts in their field. Moreover, “the best defense against nervousness is to really know the material.” If you are unsure about an area that your committee has advised you to study, do not just ignore it and hope it doesn’t come up during the exam. Instead, spend some time working through the problem until you feel that you can talk about it with some degree of confidence. “The things I had problems with on the exam were the things I’d had problems with before conceptually and never followed up on,” said one student. You can’t be expected to know everything about your field, but do make sure that you are well-versed on its key issues, concepts, and methodologies.

• Practice Answering the Questions. Remember, knowing your facts is only half the battle; you also have to be able to demonstrate that you can communicate knowledge clearly and effectively. Depending on your department, you may be asked to take a written exam, an oral exam, or both. Whatever the format of your qualifying exam, you’ll feel a lot less nervous if you’ve practiced the skills that you’ll need to pass.

One way of practicing for the exam is to develop a list of questions and go over it with your advisor. S/he will be able to tell you if you have missed potentially important questions. Once you have a fairly solid ideal of what you will be asked, practice answering. If your exams will be written, write the answers as you would during the actual exam. This will give you an idea of how long it will take you to write each response and how to shape your answer so that it answers the question with the most relevant information.

If your exam will be oral, practice stating your answers aloud. Many students have never taken an oral examination and are unsure how to prepare for it. You might start by speaking into a tape recorder and then playing it back to evaluate the confidence and accuracy of your response. Or, you might get together with a group of fellow students, stage a mock exam, and then have them critique your performance. Remember to also practice how you will handle mistakes: “Rehearse saying that you don’t know. And plan what you will say in case you draw a blank. . . . Gain time by saying, ‘Let me take some time to consider that question.’ Your committee will understand and wait for you to recover.” Recognizing beforehand that your exam won’t go perfectly and preparing to handle those moments will help your performance much more than telling yourself that you have to be perfect.

• Approach the exam with a positive attitude. Look at the exam as an opportunity to demonstrate what you know. View your committee as a group of peers with whom you can discuss the work you’ve done. While it is true that your committee “is judging your ability to reason, synthesize, and communicate,” it is also true that “in many ways you are a peer in knowledge, particularly in your specialty areas.” Seize this opportunity to discuss your own work with a group of experts who are interested in and engaged with what you have to say.

Also, remember that you do have some degree of control over the exam. Take the amount of time you need to answer questions. Pause and think things through, rather than giving a rushed and disorganized response because you don’t want to hold things up. If you aren’t sure how to answer a question, repeat it in your own words or ask the committee member to repeat or rephrase it. If you wish to improve upon or add to a response you gave earlier, find a way to connect it with another question. Finally, if you honestly don’t know the answer, say so. Remember that “the examiners are trying to push the limits of what you know, so expect that they will find gaps. It’s not like a normal course exam where you are expected to know everything. If you don’t know, say so instead of blathering nonsense and irritating the examiners.” If you try to fake your way through an answer it will show, and admitting to not knowing everything will look much better than giving an evasive or contradictory answer.

Frightening as they seem, qualifying exams do not have to be (too much of a) torturous experience. As a graduate student, you are on your way to becoming a scholar and an expert in your field. Try to look at the qualifying exam as one more opportunity to expand your knowledge and expertise. Certainly, it’s a big milestone to pass, but do your best to get as much out of the experience as you can before you pass to the other side.

Notes

1“Studying for the Qualifying Exam,” The Graduate 2:3, University of California, Berkeley: The Graduate Division, 1986.
2 “The Qualifying Exam: Clearing the Hurdle,” The Graduate 2:3, University of California Berkeley: The Graduate Division, 1986.
3 Ibid.
4 Peters, Robert L., Getting What You Came For: The Smart Student’s Guide to Earning a Master’s or a Ph.D. (New York: Noonday, 1992): 158.
5 “Qualifying Exams: Clearing the Hurdle.”
6 Ibid.
7 Ibid.
8 Peters, 159.

Source: GradVoice Online - http://www.ags.uci.edu/~gvoice/99winter/qualify.html