How to prepare PhD Qualifying Exam?
I am currently studying International Doctoral Program in Asia-Pacific Studies (IDAS) at National Chengchi University (NCCU) in Taipei City, Taiwan.
I took my PhD Qualifying Exam (QE) on 27 May 2022 and passed the exam on 29 June 2022. Therefore, I would like to share my experience in preparing QE-taker in the future. My experience will be solely based on the IDAS program and may not be applied to other PhD programs.
What is QE?
QE is a benchmark to evaluate how well a PhD student can apply the skill and knowledge she/he acquired during her/his coursework. Once a PhD student passes QE, she/he will be recognised as a PhD candidate, or “all but dissertation”(ABD), meaning that the student can fully focus on writing their thesis.
According to IDAS regulation, within one year after a PhD student finishes coursework, she/he should take QE, which usually takes place on the last Friday of May and September every year. Exam-takers need to send their application to the office secretary 1–2 months before the exam date (I applied on December 2021, 6 months before the exam). Those who failed the exam 2 times will be expelled from the program.
What is the purpose of QE?
Two important skill sets that any PhD program would like to prepare their graduates are research and teaching, two of the most common jobs requiring a doctoral degree.
QE is a way to evaluate if a student has the ability to (1) grasp the core concept of the subject, (2) aware of the latest discussion in the field and (3) contribute insights to the existing work. In a way, these abilities are linked to teaching. A professor teaching a university-level course needs to know the classic and current debate on the subject and express it concisely and succinctly, in addition, share new insights with the class.
In short, QE is to evaluate if a PhD student knows enough to teach the subject.
Choose a track
IDAS QE has 4 tracks: International relations (IR), Public governance (PG), Political Economy (PE) and Culture and Society (CS). Student only needs to choose one track to take QE.
My past academic background (BA in Political Science and MSc in Social Policy) is more related to PG, and the coursework I took was also related to PG (the only exception was “International Relations and Political Philosophy”, but it is more of a philosophy class than international relations). But eventually, I choose the IR track because there were a lot of past students who took the IR track, this make it easier for me to ask for past exam questions, and study materials and seek advice.
Step by step
As Sun Tzu’s famous quote goes “Know yourself and know the enemy, in a hundred battles you will never be in peril” [知己知彼，百戰不殆], you need to know where you stand now (i.e. yourself) and where your end goal (i.e. defeat your enemy QE) is, then you can try to narrow the gap between the two.
I finished my coursework in June 2021 but because the next QE would be in September 2021 (later postponed to December 2021), I reckon that it would be too risky to take the test with just 3 months of studying, so I aim to take the May 2022 exam, so that gives me around 11 months to prepare for the exam.
With little background in IR and working full-time at the same time, I have very limited time to prepare, so I need to have the right strategy.
First, I downloaded the reading list and past exam questions from the IDAS website and from people who have previously taken the exam. To me, a reading list acts like the ‘supply’ of the exam while a past exam act as the ‘demand’ of the exam. If exam questions are like a restaurant order, then the information in the reading list is like a shopping list of ingredients to make the dishes, so the trick here is to prepare all the necessary ingredients before the exam.
I strongly encourage future exam-takers to read past exam questions first, by reading the past 5 years' questions, you can immediately get a sense of how questions will be asked and what are the common theories that will be tested (e.g. realism and constructivism).
Second, the reading list for IDAS compulsory course “Asia-Pacific Regional Development” (APRD) is based on the QE reading list, so I started reviewing the weekly article and sharing notes written by myself and my classmates. At the same time, I borrowed notes from previous exam-takers, so that I don’t need to read everything from scratch.
Third, for articles that do not have past notes, then I would need to read them myself. But we don't need to read every page to understand the core idea of the book. I usually started the book with the introduction and the conclusion, and then I search on YouTube. Authors tend to have book launching events or give a speech in universities to promote their books, these kinds of videos are usually available on YouTube, where the author will summarise their book for you in a 1-hour speech. Then I go back to read more about the topics and search for more “exam-worthy” information. Book reviews are also an effective way to understand the reading materials.
Forth, build up theoretical foundations. As I am new to IR, I get confused about the theories and authors when I was reading more advanced articles, which just go straight into the discussion without explaining too much the basic ideas. I started reading entry-level books, like 圖解國際關係 [Illustrated International Relations], you can imagine this is the Mandarin version of “International Relations for Dummies”. This book gave me a clear mapping of IR theories so I can navigate myself when reading other academic works. Other textbooks include World Politics: Trend and Transformation by Charles W. Kegley. YouTube again played a role here, channels like KCL International Relations Today allow me to listen to IR theories during office lunch breaks and daily commute.
I also read additional books to understand some of the latest topics. Few articles on the reading list talk about Indo-Pacific strategy, so I read Contest for the Indo-Pacific: Why China Won’t Map the Future by Rory Medcalf and read Kevin Rudd’s book and listen to his speech on YouTube to understand the Australian perspective on the regional order.
Scheduling
As a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®), I view this QE process as a project, so scheduling would be an important part. I created a spreadsheet on OneDrive to control my reading schedule, it is common to be over-ambitious in the beginning, but as weeks go by, I try to adjust and try to set more realistic weekly goals. For daily goals, I tried to study at least one hour after work and at least spend one full day studying every weekend.
Note-taking
I combined all the notes I collected and my notes into a single file (158 pages in total). This is easier for me to search the text inside my note during the exam by simply using the Ctrl+F function.
As all QE questions will be checked through plagiarism detection software Turnitin so tries to paraphrase the original sentences while you are taking notes, this would save you time during the exam, so that you don't need to spend time paraphrasing the sentences.
Another way of doing it would be to turn information into bullet points or tables, as it is easier to read during exams and avoid plagiarism. I strongly recommend people use citation software when they are taking notes. I use Endnote for my study note, so during the exam, I can just copy the sentences from my notes to the answer sheet and the software will automatically create citations and a bibliography for me.
Resources
- Wikipedia: Good introduction to terms that I am not familiar with, I saved a lot of PDF versions of Wikipedia pages on my hard disk which I can use during exams. But please be aware that Wikipedia is open source, please read it and use it with caution
- Podcast: Podcasts from BBC and the Economist magazine help me to get the most up-to-date news about international affairs during my commute
- Official website: I visited the official website of ASEAN, the White House and other international organisations to understand their opinion on specific policies, such as Indo-Pacific Economy Framework (IPEF)
- Study Group: Two months before the exam, some IDAS students organised a bi-weekly IR discussion session, through the exchange of ideas with other IDAS students, I gained different perspectives on the same issues (which I can use in the exam)
- Speeches: NCCU and IDAS organise several speeches throughout the semester, inviting experts in each field to share their research and insights. This is important for gaining the most updated development in the field. One of the questions in my QE was highly related to the online speech I participated in a few days before the exam
Exam Day
- Lunch: Bring lunch with you as you will not have enough time to buy lunch (although you are allowed to). Prepare food that doesn’t need to be heated (e.g. sandwich) and does not take too much time to eat, which will save you time
- Equipment: Make sure you save a backup of your notes on cloud services (e.g. Google Drive, OneDrive, DropBox) in case your laptop runs into some technical trouble before the exam. Bring the keyboard, mouse, and monitor, that you are familiar with to the exam, so you spend as little time adapting to the exam environment as possible
- Time control: 8 hours (09:00–17:00) is shorter than you think. With 4 questions in the exam, you only have less than 2 hours per question. Please plan your time before the exam, for example, if you plan 09:00–10:50 for question 1, you need to stop writing question 1 at 10:50 and switch immediately to question 2. Please reserve enough time for each question, as if one question is not finished, it will very much lower the average score of your QE
- Outline: When reading the questions, try to turn questions into the title/subtitle of your answers. This has several advantages: (1) remind yourself to “answer the question”, (2) show the grading professor that you understand the question and easier for the professor to search for answers
- Paraphrasing and citation: Always remember to paraphrase sentences and add citations to avoid plagiarism. If the Turnitin score is too high, the grading professor has the right not to read your paper at all
- Content: When answering the questions, try to cite materials from the reading list, showing that you have read the required materials, these books and articles are classic works that can act as a foundation for your answers. Then try to cite books, journal articles, magazine articles, and newspaper articles that are related to the topic, showing that you are aware of the latest discussion in the field
Ending remark
I received a lot of help and encouragement during my exam preparation, so I hope that my sharing would be helpful for people who are still struggling in preparing for their QE.
When I was preparing for my QE, I have a friend who was also preparing for his PhD QE at National Taiwan University (NTU). As he is very certain that he would like to go into teaching, so he prepares his QE by designing a 16-week curriculum, with teaching materials and study materials for future students. In this way, not only did he prepare for his QE, but he can also claim that he can teach this subject in future job interviews. If you have time and are interested in teaching as a career path, this would be a way that you can consider preparing your QE.
Good luck!
