A number of graduate students who took the qual Feb 1 2013 agreed to share their experience and tips for preparing for the exams.
A high-level summary:
- Plan ahead. e.g., make a schedule, and keep track of your progress.
- Know thyself! Identify your strength and weakness, and develop a strategy (e.g., comprehensiveness vs. efficiency, see Lulu's response).
- Balance group study time with individual study time.
- Make summary sheets as you study, so that you have a condensed version of the most important concepts to go through for the last week or so!
- Take practise exams seriously (see John's and Mareena's responses).
- Take advantage of the senior grad students (esp. the ones in your group!) and ask plenty of questions.
The following is a list of questions and responses that will hopefully give you an idea of what to expect in the next couple of months. I do want to note that people studied very differently, and this is by no means a representation of everyone!
1. How long did you study for? e.g., how early did you start, and how intense was the studying. Would you recommend more or less studying?
Pun
0-1 month before quals around 8-12 hours a day; 1-6 month before quals around 10 hours a week average
Becky
Started in the summer to try not to lose what was learned from 211 and 106. Meet about once a week to go over 106 and 101 during the summer for a couple hours. We started a little late as a group doing review for 211 and 312 and ran out of weeks before exams in the fall semester to get through the last couple topics. For those two each person was the lead for a topic and brought study guides. It worked well for some things and not so well for others but doing practice problems was always good. It was good to review early, get your mind refreshed, get organized. That way in January every thing feels more like a review because hopefully anything you needed to relearn or learn in the first place was done before xmas break. I think I studied about the right amount because I feel like I reached saturation and couldn't absorb/learn/memorize any more at the end.
John
I basically studied intensely for the month of January, but I had started reviewing in the months leading up to the test.
Mareena
I started studying for the qual about 8 months before, in July. During the summer, my studying consisted of rereading notes and looking over problems. I found it difficult to keep focused while I was away on internship and reviewing by myself so I consider my summer the time I got myself into the right mindset.
The real studying started that fall before the qual. Literally day one, my office mates and fellow study group partners came up with a weekly study schedule that we stuck very close to. Having the schedule helped keep our momentum up and keep us accountable for the material. We would review the lecture notes, in depth! The main goal of studying is to plug the holes in our understanding and make sure we see the larger picture each course is trying to tell us.
During that fall, our studying was pretty intense but we were still taking classes so we had to divide our time. Once IAP started, all we did was review for quals. Literally starting for 8AM to 10-11PM, we reviewed old homeworks, old exams and all the old quals multiple times. I think seeing all the possible ways someone can ask the same question really helped drill the point home. Even with all this studying, they still found a new way to ask it.
Some of my study partners made note cards for each class. I made post-it notes that I stuck them all over my office and also made QuickRead guides for each class that summarized the main points.
In terms of more or less studying, it's person dependent. The important thing is that you are honest with what you do and do not know, swallow your pride and fill the holes. Everyone taking the qual is a potential resource, whether for material or a different type of explanation of a concept. Working as a team toward learning the material helped me stay focused and acquire a comprehensive review packet.
Lulu
Very light study over the summer; listen to classes + cleanup notes + read books (recommend Reuss, Hebert, and Stacy) + weekly group meetings in the fall; full-time study in January.
2. Did you study with people? Would you recommend studying alone, small group, large group etc?
Pun
I studied alone mostly and join study group weekly. I would recommend studying alone then sharing answers and asking questions in group.
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IAP afternoons and nights: going through notes & practising myself.
3. Any good strategy you want to share?
Pun
Probably heard this too many times, but prepare well and eat well and sleep well before quals. Write up notes of stuff that are hard to remember, and spend your last two days on it.
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Be positive: make qual prep into a positive experience by staying organized and having a support group. Use whatever tricks you need to make yourself happy! I tried printing out a schedule with check boxes, and checking items off with a giant red marker, and it seemed to help me stay motivated. Also don't forget that the reason you are doing this in the first place is to learn stuff!
4. Things that did not work for you?
Becky
wish I started a few days or a week earlier to leave more room for down time, especially because my oral was early and I would have like to be able to rest my brain a bit more, so about 5 weeks before really get going
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312: I spent a good amount of time going through theories and struggled with the-seemingly-countless-number-of-equations. As soon as I started going through practise problems, it turned out there were really a couple types of problems, and for each type you use a very small subset of the equations learnt in class.
5. Any other feedback?
I saved Dave’s response to this section -- enjoy! -- Lulu
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