Tips/Insights in prepping for comp/qual exams?

[hejduk]

I will be taking four exam questions, each on a separate day, and lasting 4 hours each. I am doing "closed book", in that I am not allowed to take notes, but will be able to take a reference list. Additionally, these questions will be completed in a quite office in my department, and not at home. We're recommended by faculty to study for two-months, which means I have all of August free, but then will be balancing studying in Sept along with coursework and teaching responsibilities.

• How long does one need to study every day? Are we talking 8 hours/daily, or something 4-5?
• Will I be able to balance everything in Sept when I'll be studying, take a course, and teaching as well?
• Any tips for studying? As I'm doing closed book, I have no clue how to organize and take notes. I've always had difficulty remember things and taking notes, as I would just read course materials (i.e. articles) as close to class as possible.

Thanks all! It's exciting to get to this point in my studies, but honestly, my comps scare me more than anything!!

[jeffster]

It's hard to give advice for these things, because everyone is different.

 

My recent comp exam was 5 hours long, four questions.  I ended up hand-writing about 20 pages worth of equations and narration and graphs.  I think what worked for me (and I passed on the first try, so I guess it did work!) was about a week off (between the end of classes and the start of studying) to relax a bit, another week of casual studying a few hours a day on my own, followed by two solid weeks of intensive studying, mostly with other people.  In the intensive stage I did no less than 6 and no more than 10 hours a day.

 

The real key for me, I think, was finding two people in my program who are at similar levels of knowledge and skill, and had similar work habits to my own.  There are some people in my program that are just so far ahead of everyone else, studying with them is at best pointless and at worse frustrating.  My study mates kept me motivated and on-schedule (we always made sure to set solid times and places to meet).  Studying full-time is exhausting.

 

As you can see, what worked for me was pretty specific to the program and format I was facing.  But maybe you can pick something useful from it.  Good luck!

[Zorah]

I had oral and written comps (closed book). The oral comps were done as a team of  3 to 5 students. We studied together as a team at least 32 hours a month for four months. The week before comps we spent 5 consecutive days of 14 hours days together.