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 Advice please, M.A. Comprehensive essay exam |
Resident Skeptic |
I am in search of advice from anyone who has taken an essay form, comprehensive exam in a Master's program. The exam I will be taking lasts 5 hours and will have one question each from the following subjects: Historiography, Religion in America, Medieval Period, and the American West. The questions could ask for a general overview of the topic or could zero in on one small, seemingly obscure aspect of the field. For instance, instead of asking for an overview of the three eras of the Medieval period, I could be asked to write about one particular Pope. So, if I happen to be lacking in knowledge about that one Pope, I am toast. Five hours gives me roughly 75 minutes per question.
Has anyone ever taken a similar exam? Any advice?
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"It is doubtful if any Trinitarian Pentecostals have ever professed to believe in three gods, and Oneness Pentecostals should not claim that they do." - Daniel Segraves UPCI |
Acts-dicted
Posts: 8065
10/13/19 9:21 am
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| Re: Advice please, M.A. Comprehensive essay exam |
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| Resident Skeptic wrote: | I am in search of advice from anyone who has taken an essay form, comprehensive exam in a Master's program. The exam I will be taking lasts 5 hours and will have one question each from the following subjects: Historiography, Religion in America, Medieval Period, and the American West. The questions could ask for a general overview of the topic or could zero in on one small, seemingly obscure aspect of the field. For instance, instead of asking for an overview of the three eras of the Medieval period, I could be asked to write about one particular Pope. So, if I happen to be lacking in knowledge about that one Pope, I am toast. Five hours gives me roughly 75 minutes per question.
Has anyone ever taken a similar exam? Any advice? |
I did a comp for business for a Ph.D. I dropped by the different professor's offices and got little advice. One prof. for International Business gave me just about nothing useful, so I dropped by again after he had actually written the question. He said to focus on the main themes of the course.
I made a spreadsheet of all the papers in the classes. The spreadsheet included author, year, abstract, and any comments I had on the contribution the paper made to the literature in the topic of the course I was studying. I had to be able to do in-text citations, but they might have exempted me from writing the full reference at the bottom. For example, something like (Kogut & Zander 1992).
I looked over the papers in the classes for main themes. Before my international business exam, I kept looking over those papers for the main themes. I had a dream that Dr. Who talked to me and told me to study internationalization. I woke up and realized that was really a main theme in the course. Hey, and Dr. Who is supposed to be able to go forward in time and see my test, too. 
The question was what is the difference between Internalization and Internationalization.
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Acts-perienced Poster
Posts: 11849
10/15/19 6:17 pm
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| Re: Advice please, M.A. Comprehensive essay exam |
Resident Skeptic |
| Link wrote: | | Resident Skeptic wrote: | I am in search of advice from anyone who has taken an essay form, comprehensive exam in a Master's program. The exam I will be taking lasts 5 hours and will have one question each from the following subjects: Historiography, Religion in America, Medieval Period, and the American West. The questions could ask for a general overview of the topic or could zero in on one small, seemingly obscure aspect of the field. For instance, instead of asking for an overview of the three eras of the Medieval period, I could be asked to write about one particular Pope. So, if I happen to be lacking in knowledge about that one Pope, I am toast. Five hours gives me roughly 75 minutes per question.
Has anyone ever taken a similar exam? Any advice? |
I did a comp for business for a Ph.D. I dropped by the different professor's offices and got little advice. One prof. for International Business gave me just about nothing useful, so I dropped by again after he had actually written the question. He said to focus on the main themes of the course.
I made a spreadsheet of all the papers in the classes. The spreadsheet included author, year, abstract, and any comments I had on the contribution the paper made to the literature in the topic of the course I was studying. I had to be able to do in-text citations, but they might have exempted me from writing the full reference at the bottom. For example, something like (Kogut & Zander 1992).
I looked over the papers in the classes for main themes. Before my international business exam, I kept looking over those papers for the main themes. I had a dream that Dr. Who talked to me and told me to study internationalization. I woke up and realized that was really a main theme in the course. Hey, and Dr. Who is supposed to be able to go forward in time and see my test, too.
The question was what is the difference between Internalization and Internationalization. |
I will have 1 essay question each on the following topics.....
-Middle Ages
-American West
-Religion in America
-Historiography
We have 5 hours to do the test. Not so much as a scrap of paper is allowed to jot down notes as we take the test. Taking good notes was emphasized during our courses as a way to prepare for the comps. The problem is, who knows what the questions will be? For example, the Middle Ages question might be "Write a general overview of the Middle Ages, including major people and events," or it could be "write 4 pages on Pope Gregory." I feel that it is basically a PLEASE SELECT ANOTHER WORD and I can only hope I'm not asked a zinger question. Studying old essay exams from these courses seems logical. Your idea of sticking to the main theme also seems logical. Still, I will not be surprised if I fall short on one of the subjects, though I currently have a 4.0 GPA.
_________________
"It is doubtful if any Trinitarian Pentecostals have ever professed to believe in three gods, and Oneness Pentecostals should not claim that they do." - Daniel Segraves UPCI |
Acts-dicted
Posts: 8065
10/15/19 8:41 pm
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| Re: Advice please, M.A. Comprehensive essay exam |
Link |
| Resident Skeptic wrote: | | Link wrote: | | Resident Skeptic wrote: | I am in search of advice from anyone who has taken an essay form, comprehensive exam in a Master's program. The exam I will be taking lasts 5 hours and will have one question each from the following subjects: Historiography, Religion in America, Medieval Period, and the American West. The questions could ask for a general overview of the topic or could zero in on one small, seemingly obscure aspect of the field. For instance, instead of asking for an overview of the three eras of the Medieval period, I could be asked to write about one particular Pope. So, if I happen to be lacking in knowledge about that one Pope, I am toast. Five hours gives me roughly 75 minutes per question.
Has anyone ever taken a similar exam? Any advice? |
I did a comp for business for a Ph.D. I dropped by the different professor's offices and got little advice. One prof. for International Business gave me just about nothing useful, so I dropped by again after he had actually written the question. He said to focus on the main themes of the course.
I made a spreadsheet of all the papers in the classes. The spreadsheet included author, year, abstract, and any comments I had on the contribution the paper made to the literature in the topic of the course I was studying. I had to be able to do in-text citations, but they might have exempted me from writing the full reference at the bottom. For example, something like (Kogut & Zander 1992).
I looked over the papers in the classes for main themes. Before my international business exam, I kept looking over those papers for the main themes. I had a dream that Dr. Who talked to me and told me to study internationalization. I woke up and realized that was really a main theme in the course. Hey, and Dr. Who is supposed to be able to go forward in time and see my test, too.
The question was what is the difference between Internalization and Internationalization. |
I will have 1 essay question each on the following topics.....
-Middle Ages
-American West
-Religion in America
-Historiography
We have 5 hours to do the test. Not so much as a scrap of paper is allowed to jot down notes as we take the test. Taking good notes was emphasized during our courses as a way to prepare for the comps. The problem is, who knows what the questions will be? For example, the Middle Ages question might be "Write a general overview of the Middle Ages, including major people and events," or it could be "write 4 pages on Pope Gregory." I feel that it is basically a PLEASE SELECT ANOTHER WORD and I can only hope I'm not asked a zinger question. Studying old essay exams from these courses seems logical. Your idea of sticking to the main theme also seems logical. Still, I will not be surprised if I fall short on one of the subjects, though I currently have a 4.0 GPA. |
Did they give you 20 or 30 academic papers (Usually 20 to 50 pages each) as reading assignments throughout each course? That's what they gave for me, so there was so at least some clear subject matter. Surely, you studied some specific content in the course, right? Did you study pages and pages on Pope Gregory for the course?
It seemed to me the professor's attitude was, "I had to take this difficult test, so you guys do, too." and not whether this kind of comprehensive exam without any materials on hand demonstrated a real-life skill we needed. I suppose there is some value to memorizing the references and main points of the core literature of a field, though. But realistically we tend to specialize more than that in our actual research, and no one would teach all that core research unless they were teaching a Ph.D. seminar which would probably be years down the road, and the papers they'd teach might change a little.
Come to think of it, what I was describing was my qualifying exam, not my comprehensive exam. The year after I finished mine, the next cohort just had to write a paper for their qualifying exam if I remember right. That's actually useful for their career, potentially.
For my comprehensive exam, they gave me a week. Three professors each sent me a topic. I had to write a paper on each topic, and it was 'open book.' One Japanese prof. whose English wasn't perfect caught a little error on one of my papers and advised me to hire someone to check the grammar and spelling. I spent probably 70 or so hours in the PhD lab writing three academic papers during that week that answered the professor's questions. Some day, I might do something with one of those, but it required a social experiment that required data collection in China, so I haven't done it yet.
For the q
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Acts-perienced Poster
Posts: 11849
10/21/19 9:51 am
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