First Qualifying Exam Roundtable
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[edit] First Qualifying Exam Roundtable
Student panelists: Sarah McLemore, Eric Nebeker, Steven Sohn
Faculty panelists: E. Cook, Carl Gutierrez-Jones, Michael O’Connell
[edit] Student Panelists
[edit] Sarah McLemore
- Sarah spoke first and provided a very comprehensive handout which you all got. I won’t reproduce it here but if you need copies, see me. I will be working on getting it posted to the graduate portion of the website.
[edit] Steve Sohn
- Be confident in the exam…you know more than you think.
- Reading groups provide great incentive and keep you on track and working hard
- Mock exams are great preparation but remember, they are sometimes more difficult than the exam itself!
- Give yourself some decompression time: 2 days before the exam you won’t be learning any new material at this point so have some fun and try to relax.
- Your physical presentation is important. Dress nicely and in dark colors to avoid sweat stains!
- Create some review sheets (he handed out examples, see me for copies)
- In choosing your three areas, even if you haven’t read much from a certain area but area very interested in it, choose it…your interest will compel you to do well. Don’t pick areas just because you’ve already read some of the material.
- Don’t be cocky about the area you think you know best. Steve did the best in the area he felt he knew the least about.
[edit] Eric Nebeker
- His heavy reading period took place in the winter and spring before his spring exam
- Visit your examiners and listen to their advice and suggestions…see them while you are doing your reading rather than waiting until you are reviewing what you’ve read
- Be prepared to improvise. You may be asked to think about a text in a way you haven’t prepared for. Examiners seemed to want to get a sense of how well he could talk about certain texts.
- He didn’t participate much in reading groups as they were too time consuming but he felt that there was value in the fact that they force you to talk about the texts.
- Don’t stress any more than you need to about getting the reading done. Exam situation was not that scary…was comfortable and not threatening. Enjoy it as much as possible
- Don’t be so self-conscious about everything you say. If you say something dumb, move on! If stumped by a question, be honest.
[edit] Faculty Panelists
[edit] Carl Gutierrez-Jones
- Faculty wants you to succeed. Think of exam as a pedagogical moment—like walking into a classroom to teach, you can have your own agenda. The major value of the exam happens outside the examining room…don’t have the goal of all you’re studying be just the completion of a 2-hour exam.
- Save all the notes you take while studying and use them for when you are interviewing for jobs.
- Check on availability of reading materials as soon as you know what areas you are reading in. Some texts can be very hard to find.
- Use a layered note-taking system
- In addition to books, have access to literary history. The interpretation of the texts demands that you know the surrounding history. Spend time with criticism on some of these texts.
- There will be many styles of questions depending on your examiners. Some will be character questions, some plot questions and questions that define the field. You will be expected to connect texts. Try to lock onto key passages in texts.
[edit] E. Cook
- Emphasis for faculty is testing the breadth of the field and the range of texts read. Questions might relate to how each text fits into the field. Don’t be surprised if you are cut-off in mid-speech…examiners are looking for coverage not specific details.
- Build rhetorical structures to fall back on…crutches devised to enhance performance
- Remember that you will most likely be teaching this material at some point and consider it as a kind of savings bank of useful material that will be used beyond the 2-hour exam.
[edit] Michael O’Connell
- The idea that you can actually enjoy the exam is great and more realistic than thinking of it as a frightening time. At its best it is a civilized conversation about the texts that you have read.
- What faculty is looking for is someone they can imagine successfully teaching the material at a later date. Think of the work you are doing as building up a fund of information that you will use at a later date.
- Visit the examiners and try not to dwell on anticipating what type of questions they will ask.
- Make connections among texts and writers as well as contrasts and relationships between style and theme.
[edit] Question/answer time
Is it appropriate to talk about a text that isn’t on the list? Yes, as long as there is a connection between the question and the text and you are still productively answering the question. Make sure you don’t look like you are dodging the question.
What if I can’t finish reading all the texts? There will be texts you can’t get through. Make sure you know something about those texts even if you can actually read the whole thing. Must have some physical contact with all the texts…remember, faculty teach material they aren’t completely familiar with all the time. Work out ways of mastering as many of the texts as you can.
Will there be questions relating two fields or is each field separate from the others? Asking a question that relates two fields would be an exception but could happen. More likely is that you will be asked to connect themes across the lists.
For setting up mock exams, get in touch with Steven Deng, sdeng@english.ucsb.edu.
