written qualifing exam

[kplusonline]

Did anyone have to take a written qualifing exam? My written quals are coming up soon (bioloigal sciences), and have been studying for a while now. Intensely for the past month or so. It's over all the course work from the first year ( A LOT of information), and now with just under two weeks left, I feel there's just no way I can pass. Actually remember all this information, in addition we also get to read some scienfific papers and answer questions on that. Anyone been in this situation before??

[ELM616]

I'm sure many people have been through this before. And just like them you will make it also.

 

I had written qualifying exams after completing first year of Economics PhD and it was insanely stressful. Tons and tons of pressure. The rumors before the exam were that only about 40% pass each year. The rumors turned out to be true.

 

We started with a cohort of 16 and only 7 of us passed at the PhD level. Everyone gets two attempts in my program. I completely bombed it my first attempt. I was just way too freaked out the first attempt. I was so nervous I nearly had a panic attack when they handed out the exams, and it was disastrous.

 

The second attempt was much better. Despite the fact that it was my last and fateful attempt, I was more calm the second time around. I think the second attempt, I was able to mentaly accept the fact that I might fail, and if I did fail, that all would be ok.

 

My advice is to get lots of exercise, eat healthy and remember to take one day every week without studying. On that one day, do whatever you want. Rest, go to church, go to the bar, anything. Just make it a special day for yourself to keep your sanity.

[danieleWrites]

I'm not sure. For my MA, I had to take three comprehensive exams in three sub-fields of my field (British literature, American literature, and creative writing). We had extensive reading lists that the exam questions would be derived from. We would be given three questions for each exam, which would use two to six of the many, many works on the list, and we would choose one question. We had three hours to write a complete, comprehensive essay that would answer the question. Incomplete essays would fail. We could only use the word processor on the computer in the computer lab, pencils, and paper. Everything we wrote had to come straight from the brain.

 

It was torture.

 

You will always feel as if you're not ready, even after you've actually gotten word that you passed. You'll wonder how you managed to fool them into thinking you have any clue.

 

To be clear, I don't know anything about your exam, or what written quals would be like in biology. At all. I'm assuming that from the word "written," it's an essay exam rather than short answers and multiple choice. As someone with no real experience in your field, but someone with a lot of reading in pedagogy in several fields, I find that essay exams with a lot of information tend to be either synthesis or comparison. That means that you do not need to know every bit of information. Instead, you need to know the important bits of information so you can work the various bits from different sources together. On a practical level, this means that instead of trying to memorize important things separate from each other, you try to understand how things relate to each other. For example, if you've already thought about (and here's my ignorance shining brightly) how photosynthesis and is connected to the idea of carbon sinks, you don't have to try to work out the connection when faced with it on an exam. Even better, the average person remembers things better when its understood in a context, and even better in multiple contexts.

 

When I was getting my master's, I went to the DGS and asked him to be the faculty adviser for a comprehensive exam study group. I wanted to make it formal because I wanted to use him as a resource. I wanted him to give me copies of past questions. I wanted him to give me copies of past, successful exam answers. I wanted him to come to a scheduled group meeting and give a talk on how to pass the exam. Because each exam had at least three readers who would either pass or fail it, I wanted to arrange for the readers to come to a group meeting and give a talk on how to pass the exam. Not only was I able to get those resources, I was able to get permission to create a group within the university's learning management suite (Angel at that time, it would be Blackboard now) to create a respository for the resources and a discussion forum for the group to ask questions of each other, and more importantly, to ask questions that the guest speakers at the group meetings could answer.

 

I have no idea if you can get the person responsible for your quals to share those kinds of resources or not, but I found that to be extremely helpful in guiding my study. Knowing the basic logic of these questions, in advance, allowed me plan a method to prepare.

[shadowclaw]

While I am not currently in a PhD program, I did have to take a qualifying exam during my second semester for my masters in biology. I'm not sure if a PhD qualifying exam would be more intense, longer, etc, but I can give you some feedback. My exam was written (although my university is switching to oral exams, which seem to be more prevalent). Unlike a PhD qualifying exam, the questions came from the graduate committee instead of my thesis committee, and the questions were the same for everyone taking the exam at that time. So the questions weren't really tailored for me specifically.

My exam was six questions (generally with multiple parts for each one), and I had an hour for each question. Each question came from a different branch of biology (evolution, ecology, cell biology, etc). I had to hand write the answers (no computer), and I wrote roughly four pages of material for each question, which included essays, short answers, and diagrams. They also put us into a very uncomfortable room with stools that were too high and desks that we couldn't fit our legs under. I was in physical pain after the exam.

To prepare for the exam, the only advice I was given was to read and remember everything in an introductory biology textbook. Truthfully, just knowing what was in the textbook wasn't enough, because some of the questions delved quite deeply into the topics, and an introductory knowledge wouldn't have cut it. In particular, the evolution question was extremely detailed and essentially wanted me to condense the entire evolution class I had taken the semester before into four pages. If I hadn't taken that class, I would have failed the question. The ecology question also happened to be on climate change (which I had taken an undergrad course on), and I was the only one to successfully answer the question. The other students all have to take a global change course in the spring to remedy the deficiency.

It may seem like you can't possibly remember all of that information, but you'd be surprised how much you really do recall as you're working your way through your exam. The committee that will be reviewing your answers are also not likely looking for perfection or every little detail. They just want to make sure you have a solid grasp of important biological concepts.