SOME GUIDELINES FOR PREPARING GRADUATE EXAMS

Bob Owen URL http://www.oswego.edu/~owen

The ramblings below are meant to provide some guidelines to those who are new to taking graduate level marketing or management exams. These are my own ideas only, and might not necessarily reflect the way that other professors look at your work.

TIMED EXAMS

(in-class, comps.) The structure and form of a graduate-level answer is every bit as important as the substance of the answer. On exams in which you are given a choice to select which questions to answer, briefly outline an answer to each question. This will help you to better determine which questions you can best answer. After you have selected the questions to answer, expand upon the outline for each question before you begin writing it in sentence-paragraph form. When you have an outline from which to work, writing an answer in sentence form is a process of merely filling in the spaces of a general framework.

Issues of sentence structure, grammar, etc. DO count. Outline/list only when appropriate. Use traditional length paragraphs (around five sentences) - single-sentence and two-page paragraphs are very difficult to read and interpret. If English is a second language and you believe that your writing is not specific enough, comment in parentheses in your native language - this can be interpreted/negotiated after the exam. In discussing product diffusion, one of my students drew a picture of a Victrola when he couldn't recall the word "phonograph"; he ended up with very high marks on his exam.

One exception to the above is when you are running out of time. It is better to receive a mediocre mark due to form than a low mark for lack of an answer. An outline helps you to pace your writing and to judge your distance: you should not run out of time if you plan ahead by sketching a few outlines first. A statement attributed to Abe Lincoln is very relevant here: If you have six hours to cut down a tree, spend the first four sharpening your axe. A rule of thumb is that most people will write about three to four pages per hour on a "blue-book" exam. If you are writing at a pace of more than four pages, you are probably rambling and not doing enough thinking and planning. If you are writing less than three pages, your answers are probably not complete in coverage.

Note also that penmanship is important. Someone must be able to read your writing to be able to score it. If the person scoring your answer has difficulty in reading or interpreting what you have written, they won't take the time to attempt to figure it out. It is your responsibility to provide evidence of what you know and not the responsibility of the scorer to find that evidence. Although your answer should be structured in sentence-paragraph form, do use tables or pictures if these better show relationships than could be done in sentences.

AT-HOME ASSIGNMENTS

The same general issues apply for at-home assignments as do for timed exams, except that there will be very little tolerance for problems of organization, clarity, sentence structure, and such. Reasonable access to a word processor is no longer an issue: problems of spelling and other typos are intolerable. Although seven-pin dot matrix print on fan-fold paper is generally acceptable, the print must nonetheless be easy to read for old professors with trifocals. Never use a font which draws undue attention to itself; use a standard typeface and size (12 point Courier or Times would be safe). Exams without time limits generally have strict length restrictions in which cheating on margins, line spacing, and type size will make a bad impression.

QUESTION INTERPRETATION

Undergraduate exams are typically designed to find out what you do not know. Graduate exams are typically designed to find out what you do know. As such, questions at the undergrad level tend to require "core dumping"; questions at the graduate level tend to be rather vague and general in nature. One serious problem with students who have only recently completed an undergrad program is a tendency to answer simple-sounding questions with simple answers.

"Do you agree or disagree with this statement" is not meant to elicit a simple "yes" or "no" answer. You are being asked to contrast and discuss the conditions under which the statement is true and is not true, to contrast points of view of different scholars, to contrast various ways that the issues of the question could be interpreted, etc. Requests such as "comment", "assess", or "discuss" generally imply the same. Such questions are designed to provide you with the opportunity to demonstrate your depth of understanding of and insight into an issue.

"Depth of understanding", however, does not suggest that you should attempt to write everything that you know about some topic. Do not stray from the issue of the question in an effort to show how much you have learned. Be sure that what ever you write is relevant to the question. (Recall: outlining is a necessary step.) Be very careful not to spoil your answer with statements that clearly show what you don't know! Like generations of professors before me, "I'll give you all the rope you need to hang yourself." Use only what you need and use that wisely.

Always be careful that the reader will be able to understand your perspective or context. Do not assume, for example, that the reader was exposed to the same examples that you recall from some past discussion in a class. Importantly, do not assume a local or North American environment without specifically stating this assumption. Foreign students with a North American professor can sometimes put themselves at an advantage by assuming an environment (if appropriate) with which they are familiar and which the professor is unfamiliar.

"If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bull" is not to be attempted, however. You must support every assertion that you make. Balance this support with evidence from real-world cases and with the writings of scholars in the discipline. No matter what you say, a professor can almost always find a statement to the contrary that was made by a scholar or executive who is more credible and famous than you. Avoid any statements that sound like personal opinions without substantiation. Any question which asks for an opinion is a trap!

PREPARING FOR AN EXAM

Cramming probably won't work since you are being examined on your depth of knowledge rather than on rote knowledge. The easiest way to prepare for a major exam is to learn the material when you get it. The best thing to do the night before is almost anything that you enjoy which doesn't involve studying. Get a good night's sleep!