What Were Your Comprehensive Exams Like?

[Puget]

For context, I'm in psychology--

In my PhD program comps consisted of take-home exams at the end of each proseminar (taken over the first two years), and then a review paper (hopefully publishable) on a topic of our choice related to our research area. The meta-analysis I did for mine is still my most cited paper (thanks to a hot topic people need an easy reference for,  and very good journal placement). One of the other programs in my department still did several day exams for comps, but everyone else thought they were crazy to still do that.

My department now doesn't do comps at all, which I have mixed feelings about. We do have a first year project with a second reader from the department, then a dissertation proposal defense (with full committee minus the outside member), and then a stats defense (again minus the outside member) before the final defense -- this last bit is brilliant, and ensures the final defense is more of a public celebration since they've had a chance to fix anything the committee doesn't like after the stats defense.

[MarathonRunner]

We had two questions released to us on a particular date (one general for our overall field, one more relevant to our proposed dissertation research). We had two weeks to write one 15 page paper for each question. We had been given reading lists of materials to review a few months earlier so had that time to read and take notes on the readings (over 60 for the general question, ~20 for the more specific question). For the general question we had no idea what the question would be, for the specific one we had an idea of the topic at least, between the readings and our proposed research, but no idea of the exact question.

I'm in health sciences. This was after coursework but before proposal defence.

[Parasaurolophus]

We didn't have any (though they are common in my field). Instead, we had to submit what amounted to another Master's thesis. (And pass the logic and language requirements, of course.)

[mythbuster]

Biomedical science program. We didn't have ones that were separate from what many would call a proposal defense.
   For that we had to write two NIH style (5 pages each) research proposals. The first was your proposed thesis research, the second had to be "fundamentally a different field". For example, my thesis was on immune responses to a bacteria, while my alternate proposal was on protein sorting and secretion in an parasitic amoeba. This was to demonstrate your ability to craft a hypothesis and experiments without your advisor's assistance.
   Then we had a 3 hour oral exam with a committee of 5, that did NOT include your advisor, and was in part selected based on the topics of your proposal. Anything remotely relating to the science of either of your proposals was fair game. During mine, they asked several questions to which no one on the committee knew of an answer, they just wanted to see how I thought through the issue.

I think the single hardest part was actually scheduling 5 faculty for a 3 hour block of time. I had the added complication that our resident parasitologist was doing field work in Africa and so we had to work around her field schedule (no Zoom back them!).

[ab_grp]

I am in a STEM field.  We had a four-hour theory exam of six questions to write to that could cover any topic in the program.  But previous exams were available, so we had some idea of the general assortment of topics we might run up against.  Still, that was a bear to study for.  The second part, which usually took place the following day or so, was an all-day practicum of sorts requiring more applied work (e.g., analyses, report writing).  Both were in-person.

[Kron3007]

Mine (STEM field) were oral.  I think it was a 3 hour inquisition where they took turns asking questions that were supposedly based on readings they had assigned.

Where I am now, it is a written exam where they have 8 hours (no references) and choose to answer one of two questions provided by each of 4 exam committee members.  This is then followed by an oral portion to follow up and delve deeper on the written answers. 

[apl68]

It's been so long I hardly remember.  It was a set of essay exams in my subject field that took several hours.  I and all but one of my cohort passed.  And before the exams one of my advisors trolled me by advising me to study for a sub-field that wasn't actually going to be covered.  I put in a lot of hours of study on that before finding out it wasn't serious.

Had I not choked on writing the dissertation, I would eventually have faced an oral defense.

[wellfleet]

My Pd.D. comps (ages ago) were done in 12 hours split over two days in a computer lab, with no reference material available.

The M.A. program I work with now has a comprehensive exam track (vs. thesis track) that involves two substantial take-home papers written over five days, with full documentation expected and some choice of questions for each paper.

[FishProf]

I essentially did two, one required, one by consequence of coursework.  In Marine science, one program had a year-long course which had rotating professors in morning and afternoon sessions.  Over the course of the year, every professor and PI in the institution ended up teaching the cohort.  The final exam was the Quals for everyone in the program.  I was in an affiliated program, so I could take the course and ended up also taking that Final/Qual exam.

In my own program, my 6-member committee gave me essay questions to answer and I had 8 hours to do so.  Plus an article to translate to demonstrate a 2nd language.  Then an in person oral exam.

Only then could I start the process of developing my Research proposal for my Dissertation.

(BTW - this was a post-Bac PhD program)

[bio-nonymous]

I was in a biomedical program. We had 2 parts to our comprehensive, written and oral. For the written we had 3 days where we could only work 8 hours on day 1, 8 hours on day two and 4 hours on day four. Each committee member (n=5) gave us essay questions pertinent to our research "designed" to be completed in 4 hours, we got the questions at 8am and had to turn the questions given for that day before our time was up. It was open everything--so the sky was the limit as to how much detail you could cram in to each answer (time management was a huge part). After you passed the written, you had to write a comprehensive research proposal with extensive background. You would then schedule an oral presentation and defended your research proposal at the oral. I think it was a good system.

[aside]

I had a week of two three-hour written exams per day.  Literally locked into a room by myself each time with a sealed envelope.  Opening the envelope constituted one of your two allowed attempts at passing the exams.  If one passed enough of the written exams, an oral exam ensued. 

[kaysixteen]

Near as I recall, in my classics doctoral program, I had to do Latin and Greek exams, language qualifying exams in French and German (those with Italian could sub it for one of these), plus a special topic exam (ancient history track) which was done as a 30-ish pp paper, and a 'special author' exam, where I chose an ancient author and again wrote a 30-ish pp paper on him.  I actually failed the Greek exam the first time, as it was graded by the Princeton-educated classical linguist.

[zyzzx]

For mine (STEM field) you had to have worked on two unrelated research projects during your first two years in the program. One could be related to your thesis, and the other had to be with a different advisor. You had to submit papers on both projects; while the thesis-related one could be more of a proposal, you were expected to have produced results for the second one, and even better if both had results. Once these were approved, you'd have a 3 hour oral exam where you'd first present your projects and then be grilled about whatever the committee wanted. No assigned readings or anything - if you were lucky they'd stick in the vicinity to what you'd written and presented, but this was not guaranteed. Older students who could predict what questions certain committee members would ask were highly valuable resources for this.
This was set up to focus less on your knowledge and more on your research abilities and how you could think things through on the spot. It also kick-started the writing process - for me, the two projects turned into my first two publications.
Of course, since there was no consistency to the oral exam, it also made for very different experiences for different students and was very subjective.

Where I am now, your comprehensive exam is basically your masters degree. You need a masters to pursue a PhD, but there is no further gatekeeping. 

[RatGuy]

Three written exams. The first, an 8-hour (1 required questions, 2 others from a bank of 5) covered the literary period of coursework (American before 1900, British before 1750, British 1750-1900, American+British after 1900, world after 1750). The other two were 4 hours; one covered a major figure chosen by the student, the third a discipline/theory/movement unrelated to the other two. Exams given on MWF schedule.

Scratch paper provided, but no books or aids. Department issued a "comps laptop" that had nothing on it and no way to install anything. Students are expected to offer specific quotes from relevant texts--both primary and secondary--from memory. Instructions were to include "breadth and depth of knowledge," including both primary texts as well as fundamental scholarly texts from relevant disciplines.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I took comprehensive exams in a format similar to what OP is describing: Two fields, two questions for each field, six hours for each field, no notes/books.  We completed the exams on campus on computers disconnected to the Internet.  My understanding is that plagiarism and other cheating in prior years led the department to adopt this approach, although I don't know any details.

Expectations were still pretty high. Certainly citations to major works and theoretically informed arguments were expected.  People did fail pretty frequently, although mostly they pass eventually.

I'm in a social science field, but not psych.