Mba Comprehensive Exam Questions And Answers Pdf

[Kayleen Dauteuil]

Strictlyspeaking, forming a committee is not part of the doctoral exam, but rather something that must be completed in order for the exam to take place. For my exam, my committee consisted of three members:

The opening statement for the exam is almost like an abstract that you would submit to an academic conference: short, summative, and somewhat imaginary. The student is essentially asked to describe two topic areas that they wish to study during their comprehensive exam, provide their rationale for picking these areas of study, and submit a few readings that they would like included in the exam. In my department, this all has to be completed in less than 1500 words and 8-10 bibliographic references, so the writing parameters can feel rather tight!

Negotiating the reading list can be done synchronously (in a meeting with your committee) or asynchronously (through emails). Due to the Zoom fatigue associated with the pandemic, my committee and I decided that email would be the best method of finalizing the list, and we managed to complete it within a couple of weeks. My final reading list is linked below, and consists of 30 items including books, journal articles, and chapter excerpts.

For my exam, this negotiation process resulted in a slight revision of my research areas. Videogame Afterlife was expanded to Media Lifecycles/Trajectories, as the initial topic was deemed too narrow and I was eager to read more canonical media studies works (something I missed out on due to my fine arts undergrad). My second topic area was simplified from Communities of Expertise to Expertise, and ended up including many readings about subculture and technology, with a healthy sprinkling of Foucauldian discourse. I probably ended up with a broader focus than I originally intended, but balancing the line between breadth and depth is a pretty common challenge in comprehensive exams.

The exam questions are sent to the student on the first day of their ten week exam period, as a sort of kick-off to the formal examination. However, the number one piece of advice that was given to me at the start of exams was that you really should begin reading as soon as your list is finalized. Maybe even before (if you have the time and bandwidth), especially if you already know a few texts that will be central to your work. You never feel like you have enough time to get through the exam so any extra work you can squeeze in ahead of time is well worth it.

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If an MBA student does not pass the comprehensive examination (ADMN 6981), the MBA student must contact the MBA office to review their answers. Then the MBA student must retake the comprehensive examination (ADMN 6981). To earn an MBA degree, an MBA student must pass the comprehensive examination (ADMN 6981). An MBA student receives two attempts to pass the comprehensive examination (ADMN 6981) . If extenuating circumstances exist, a student may submit a petition and supporting documentation to the MBA Office for review and consideration of a third and final attempt.

If a student believes his or her answers are not fairly graded, the student can file an academic grievance to Jack H. Brown College of Business and Public Administration, following University guidelines. The academic grievance should include a detailed description of the grounds upon which the grievance is based, for each of the sections (questions) being included in the grievance. The grading grievance will be responded by the Department(s), depending on questions.

Going through problems on old exams will give you some idea of the kinds of questions that are used in these exams, but the committees that write these exams will change over time. This means that very old exams might not be representative of what you'll be given this year. Even if you focus on more recent exams, the committee might have changed and you could well get an exam that looks very different from last year's exam.

In any case, solving problems from previous exams should not be the only way in which you study. You should also take time to review the subject and consolidate your understanding of key concepts, definitions, formulas, and theorems.

Not knowing some required definition or theorem. If a question is of the form "Show that A has the Frobnitz property" and you don't know what the Frobnitz property is, you simply won't be able to answer that question. You can avoid this by having read broadly on the subject and by making sure that you have committed important definitions and theorems to memory.

Not having good problem solving skills. Although doing old comprehensive exam problems will certainly help with this, doing problems from many sources is likely to be just as helpful. The key here is to focus on solving hard problems that may involve several non-obvious steps rather than the trivial exercises that fill many textbooks. Keep in mind that with a textbook you've been given a lot of context- if the problem appears in the chapter on contour integration than you can assume that the problem involves contour integration. This won't be true of the problems on your comprehensive exam.

Poorly written solutions. Sloppy logic in the solution to a homework problem might get substantial partial credit in an undergraduate class. In a comprehensive exam this is much less likely to happen. You need to give precise and rigorous solutions that cover all aspects of the problem, and there is no room for arithmetic or algebra errors. The difficulty in preparing for this is that you need someone competent to critique your solutions. If you have a study partner, I would suggest that you pick some problems to solve separately and then grade each other's solutions critically. If you find that you're making seemingly minor mistakes but usually have the basic idea for a correct solution, this is an indication that you need to check your work more carefully.

The last is really the main point of comps, and indeed the standard by which comps are judged. If you present as somebody who will go on and do a credible job of sounding knowledgeable and defending your ideas in your defense and job talks, you will pass your comps. This is the real goal.

A brief word on format. Since the 2-2.5 hour goal is nearly universal, this means the schedule looks similar most places. The professors will set up a rotation, usually the furthest from your research first, your adviser last. The first professor is told they have about 20 minutes to ask you questions. When they finish you go to the next professor and on through all four or five people. Many but not all places then take a 5 minute break where you leave the room and they confer. Then usually the professors go around as second time for 5-10 minutes each. Five to eight questions would be typical for one professor in the first round and one to three in the second round.

Some questions will force you to think on your feet, and may not even have a clear-cut correct answer. Other questions check that you have a firm grasp of the basics. One sure way to risk failure is to be shaky on things like definitions of basic concepts.

Ask post-candidacy students about the sorts of questions the profs on your committee tend to ask. For instance, my advisor, Peter Morin, always asks students to name five famous female ecologists or evolutionary biologists and briefly summarize their contributions to the field.

Although I am only 1.5 years into my M.S., I am trying to read broadly as a general preparation for being a well-rounded and knowledgeable professor (1 step of which includes my comps). (Caveat: I realize I still have a long way to go, and will need to narrow my reading based on the sub-field of my PhD and my PhD committee). Keeping a cheat sheet seems like an impossible task given the breadth and depth of ecology and evolution. What types of ideas, or topics, or references are on your cheat sheet? Was this based on suggestions from your committee? Any advice for text-books or classic papers to read (my interests are very similar to yours, macroecology, community ecology, mathematical and statistical models for population and community dynamics)?

At the time I took my comps, my proposal was based on revisiting the increased diversity lead to increased stability question. So my cheat had all the major population dynamic formulas, all the more recent modifications for spatial/metapopulation/stochastic variations and who authored those. At the time I took comps pushing 15 years ago, I was able to fool myself into thinking I had a pretty comprehensive list, but I think it would be hopeless now.

I had a committee member who studied evolution of sociality. So I had the 5 or so major milestones there on my cheat sheet. I had a committee member who was big on evolutionary history so I made sure I had a good review of the geologic eras and history of life (as you can see exams at my school were much more on the comprehensive all inclusive side).

Just to update this, after some debate, I decided it would actually be misleading and unhelpful to share my cheat sheet for the following reasons:

1) It is now 20 years out of date

2) Your research is different than mine and the composition of your committee is different than mine, and so what you need to know is different

3) One of the main benefits of a cheat sheet is the time and energy spent thinking about what is important or what is not, and additionally the studying/memorization that happens while making your cheat sheet. The evidence is strong that writing your notes are much more effective than reading your notes.

In short the benefits are mainly in the doing, not in passively reading, and content is highly specialized (comps are supposed to be at the frontiers of knowledge!)

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