The First Qualifying Exam is designed to test the student’s familiarity with a range of literature, at once various enough to encourage breadth of learning and focused enough to allow for the demonstration of intellectual grasp. Students are expected to complement their knowledge of individual works with a sense of broader historical, cultural, and intellectual contexts, as well as demonstrate the ability to apply critical analyses, frameworks, and tools used by professional scholars today.

For the purposes of the exam, the spectrum of literature and/or critical theory written in English is broken up into fifteen fields; these reading lists are specified in Section 19. Each list is supervised by its own faculty group, in consultation with student representatives (chosen from veterans of the exam). Students choose three fields on which to be tested, and are encouraged to consult with their faculty advisor about which fields best support their program of study. Students are not permitted to study more than three fields for their first qualifying exam. Students should prepare for the exam by studying the appropriate reading lists, along with supplementary historical, critical, or theoretical materials. Students are expected not only to be familiar with the significant details of the works on a given list, but also to be able to think critically and coherently about them in connection with one another. Additionally, once they know who the faculty examiners for each field will be, students are encouraged to meet with them and discuss how they might best approach a given list. After you select your lists, you may contact the Staff Graduate Advisor for the examiners for each list.

The First Qualifying Exam is administered once a year near the end of the spring quarter. Students in both the MA/PhD and the PhD programs should aim to take the exam no later than the end of their sixth quarter (i.e., their second year in the program), after fulfilling the coursework, distribution, and language exam requirements specified in Section 3 (3.1 – 3.3) and Section 4 (4.1 – 4.3). Students are responsible for reaching out to the Staff Graduate Advisor to register their three chosen fields by the end of the winter quarter before they will attempt the exam. You may register your three fields with the SGA anytime before that due date. After registering your chosen fields, no additional switches will be allowed.

The First Qualifying Exam is an oral exam two hours in length, followed by a 20-30 minute post-exam consultation with the faculty examiners. Each of the three exam lists will be represented by one faculty member affiliated with that field; each field will be addressed individually, for approximately 40 minutes, during the exam. The type of questions will vary between those designed to elicit a brief response, and those inviting a longer discussion; this proportion is left to each committee’s discretion, on the understanding that departmental policy mandates a combination of both for each field examiner. Fields will usually be examined sequentially, but the exam order should be decided between the student and the faculty examiner they have asked to act as “chair” of their exam.

Students should begin the process of independent reading for the first qualifying exam as early as possible in the program.

Students should be advised that the First Qualifying Exam is not merely the culmination of coursework, but a separate challenge. Graduate seminars often help to prepare students for the exam by developing their detailed knowledge of particular subjects and texts, but seminars alone are unlikely to provide the amplitude of coverage necessary to pass the exam.

Exam preparation should include:

1. Study of all works in their chosen reading lists. Resources such as the Cambridge Companions and Norton Critical Editions will help with situating these works in their broader critical conversations. (Additional sources are 20th Century Literary Criticism, ed. David Lodge; Contemporary Literary Criticism: Literary and Cultural Studies, ed. Robert Con Davis and Ronald Schleifer; and  Redrawing the Boundaries: The Transformation of English and American Literary Studies, ed. Stephen Greenblatt and Giles Gunn).
2. Frequent consultation of reference works for literary terms (e.g., the latest editions of A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams; The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics; and/or A Handbook of Literature by Holman, Thrall, and Hibbard; a reliable electronic resource is Oxford Reference Online, available through the UCSB Library databases).
3. A systematic survey of literary history and relevant aspects of intellectual, cultural, and social history with focus on the student’s intended exam fields, but also with some attention to periods before, between, and after those fields (Helpful reviews include introductory sections of The Norton Anthology of English Literature and The Norton Anthology of American Literature). Students electing lists not specified by a time period be sure to pay attention to the historical development(s) of the field as a whole, in relation to other literary, critical theory, and cultural developments.
4. Students are encouraged to consult with faculty examiners regarding how they might best approach a chosen list, and/or what to expect on the exam. Appropriate questions include those that have to do with finding texts, clarifying ambiguities in the assigned readings, or seeking advice on supplementary readings. However, it is inappropriate to ask questions that place faculty examiners in the position of predicting what particular materials, or kinds of questions, will be emphasized in that year’s exam.
5. In addition to the above steps, many students in the past have found it useful to form reading groups with their peers.

Immediately following the exam, the faculty examiners will confer together (without the student) and assign a grade: “Clear Pass” means passing all three areas; “Low Pass” means the student must be re-examined on one or two of the reading lists; “No Pass” means that the student does not perform satisfactorily on any of the reading lists.

After the examiners confer, the student will return to the room, and the committee will inform the student of the outcome. A paragraph of evaluation commenting on the student’s performance, including on specific strengths and weaknesses, will be composed by the examination committe chair and forwarded to the student, the DGS, and the Staff Graduate Advisor. This evaluation summary will be held in the student’s file.

If a student is deemed to have failed the exam, they will have the opportunity to be re-examined on all or part of the material. Depending on the committee’s deliberation and faculty availability, this re-examination generally happens the following fall quarter or the subsequent spring exam period. The full examining committee will be convened for the retake.

If a student is deemed to have performed inadequately on the exam after taking it for a second time, the chair of the examining committee will meet with the Department Chair and the DGS to decide the student’s status in the program. Both the oral examination and the student’s seminar record—as well as the student’s own account of their circumstances—will be considered at this time to determine whether the student should remain enrolled in the program or leave with or without an MA.

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