Any student who needs to revise all or part of their departmental level examinations will be given specific, tailored feedback from the Comps Committee and will be required to complete revisions by the end of the semester. Each revision is overseen by one member of the Comprehensive Examinations Committee. Third, a student can fail one or both questions. In the case of failure, the student is asked to retake the departmental level of comprehensive examinations during another term. No written feedback is provided for students at this level of the examination.
Substantial feedback is provided at the committee level.
The purpose of this examination is to assess both your knowledge of a specialized area of interest and your ability to craft a scholarly argument. The task should be designed to at once address the students' particular substantive interests, and the breadth of concerns that characterizes scholarship within the student's particular emphasis area. In conjunction with the crafting of this questions, students should develop a potential bibliography that they intend to use in answering the question. The task should be one that can be completed in 10 days, and should require the drafting of a response that is about 15-20 double spaced pages. In this meeting, faculty will compare tasks and questions, ensuring that students have equitable assignments and that the tasks designed address general departmental concerns, as well as the student's particular scholarly interests.