Comprehensive Examination

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Comprehensive Examination

• The Committee (Bob McCarthy, Barry McCoy, Laszlo
  Mihaly, Jac Verbaarschot, Tom Weinacht and Amos
  Yahil) looked at the development of our current
  exams, and comparable exams at several other
  schools. We heard the opinion of current and
  former graduate program directors, current and
  former chairs of the Exam Committee, and graduate
  students. We conducted extended discussions with
  faculty. We collected a number of physics
  problems and discussed their suitability for our
  exam.
• See written report for details

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Current exams

• Placement exam decide if a student has to take
  the core courses. Offered in two days in Fall
  only, in four subject matters (CM, QM, EM, SM),
  separately passed. No faculty meeting.
• Comprehensive Exam Offered every semester.
• Covers major research areas, like AMO, condensed
  matter, nuclear, particle, astronomy, etc.
  Students pick and solve 4 problems out of 12.
  One page handwritten help sheet is allowed.
• Faculty meeting decides passing. If a student
  fails at the last allowed attempt, first we look
  at his/her academic standing (core courses, lab
  course, seminar, breadth courses), and his/her
  attachment to a research group.  The faculty may
  decide to allow one more try, an oral exam.  This
  process is usually initiated by the students
  potential PhD advisor.
• Oral exam before advancement to candidacy.

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(No Transcript)
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New Qualifying Exam

• 2x3 hours, 6 problems from Classical Mechanics,
  Relativity, Electrodynamics and Optics, 6
  problems from  Quantum Mechanics, Statistical
  Mechanics and Thermodynamics
• The exam questions are selected from a set of
  50-100 problems in each subject area, handed out
  to students at least one semester prior to the
  exam. The Exam Committee is responsible for the
  grading. The Exam Committee will update the
  problem set regularly, so that a problem added in
  one semester may be on the exam the next
  semester.

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• This exam is based on material that the students
  should already know by the time they arrive to
  Stony Brook. 
• The exam will be held in two parts (two days). 
  The first part deals with Classical Mechanics,
  Relativity, Electrodynamics and Optics.  The
  second part is on Quantum and Statistical
  Mechanics (see syllabus fordetails). Each exam
  has 6 problems, approximately evenly distributed
  over the syllabus.  Students have to solve all
  six problems.
• The exam is designed so that students should be
  able to answer the questions in 3 hours. No
  written help sheet is allowed.
• The names of the students are not revealed to the
  graders. The scores for the first and second
  days are added up separately.  A faculty meeting
  will be called to set the passing levels for each
  part.  The names of the students will not be made
  known to the faculty.

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• The exam will be offered twice a year, at the
  beginning of the semester
• All students entering in the Fall are expected to
  pass the exam by the Spring Semester of the
  second year.  Students can try one last time at
  the beginning of the Fall semester of the third
  year, with the permission of the Graduate Program
  Director.
• Students who did not pass in the Fall of the
  third year are allowed to stay for one more
  semester to get a Master's degree (if
  applicable).  No more exams are allowed, and no
  special exams will be set up for students who did
  not pass. For students entering in the Spring
  semester the deadlines are modified by one
  semester accordingly.
• During the transition period the current Comp
  exam and the new exam is offered in parallel, at
  the same time.  New students, recruited when the
  new rules are in effect, have to take the new
  exam.  All others have a choice between the two
  exams.

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The job ahaed

• Collect, agree upon and publish 400 physics
  problems
• We recommend reconstituting this Committee for
  the Fall of 2005 so that we can finish our work,
  with the goal of replacing the current Comp Exam
  with the Qualifying Exam based on a set of
  published problems, as described above