Qual 2 Exam Information for Faculty

FACULTY INFORMATION FOR QUAL 2 EXAM

Exam Logistics

  1. The major advisor will act as ‘Chair’ of the two-person mini-committee.
  2. Students will be given 3 hours to complete each exam; the Academic Affairs Office will administer the exam. Students will be provided a desktop computer and pens/pencils. Each testing room will include an electronic keyboard, CD player, and noise-cancelling headphones.
  3. Typically, the exam is divided into morning and afternoon question sets; the Chair of Qual 2 determines which questions are assigned in the morning versus the afternoon. Students have approximately three-hours to answer each question set.

One week prior to the exam

  1. The Chair of Qual 2 will assemble the questions and email them to Academic Affairs. All exam-related material must be delivered no later than 3 business days prior to the written exam date. Sound files should be given to Academic Affairs in CD format. Scores that can be easily printed on 8.5×11 paper may be sent to Academic Affairs to be printed, but other paper sizes should be printed by the Copy Center and delivered to Academic Affairs.
  2. The Chair will receive an official Qual 2 Results form that must be submitted to Academic Affairs within one week of the faculty’s receipt of the student’s answers.

Reviewing answers to the written exams

  1. Answers to Qual 2 will be made available one business day after the written exam takes place. Academic Affairs will email the Qual 2 questions and answers to the committee and student.
  2. Because the exam results must be reported within one week, the Qual 2 committee members shall review the student’s answers as soon as possible, and the Chair shall contact the Cognate member for his/her evaluation of the student’s responses.

Reporting Results to Academic Affairs

  1. A grade of pass or not pass will be awarded for each part of the Qual 2 exam; the Qual 2 committee shall use the official results form provided by Academic Affairs. Results must be submitted to Academic Affairs within one week of receipt of the student’s written exams. If there is no oral exam (see 2, below) the Chair shall either: (a) print the results form and sign it, passing it (either scanned or in hard copy) to the Cognate faculty member, who shall sign and deliver it to the Academic Affairs office (either as a scan, or in hard copy); or (b) both the Chair and the Cognate faculty member shall confirm the result to Academic Affairs Office by email.
  2. If a student’s exam in either area is borderline for pass/not pass, the mini-committee may allow the student to elaborate on his/her answers in an oral interview with both faculty members, in order to decide on the grade. (The date and time or any such follow-up interview will be organized by the Chair of the mini-committee in consultation with Academic Affairs.). The oral interview, if required, should occur within a few days of the written exam so that the results are still reported to the Academic Affairs Office within one week (either using the results form or by email, as indicated in 1, above). For this reason faculty are encouraged to assess the written exams within a day or two of receipt.
  3. If either part of the exam is determined to be a ‘not pass’ (either with or without the oral exam), the student will be required to take a second exam in that area. If the faculty member wishes the student to do further research-based work for this re-test, the written portion may be done under exam conditions, using an “open book” format, and (if required) additional writing time may be allowed at the mini-committee’s discretion. (This mechanism eradicates some of the serious academic infractions that arose in the old prelim model, when ‘written work’ was allowed to remediate an exam that was deemed inadequate.)
  4. The Academic Affairs Office will notify students of the Qual 2 results within one week of the faculty’s receipt of the written exams.