Comprehensive examination

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A comprehensive examination (or comprehensive exam or exams), often abbreviated as "comps," is a specific type of examination that must be completed by graduate students in some disciplines and courses of study. At some institutions it is known as a preliminary examination and abbreviated as "prelims." The examination may be written or oral, but is most often written and sometimes comprises an oral section.

The form and general requirements for the comprehensive exam varies according to the faculty or department, degree sought, university, and country, but typically tests general knowledge of the subject area and may be used to determine a candidate's eligibility to continue their course of study.

For example, Ph.D. students at Canadian universities must take comprehensive exams in their second year; those who fail to pass with a sufficiently high mark may retake the examination only once. Failure to pass a second time will normally result in expulsion from the program. Students who pass are distinguished with the title Ph.D. candidate. In some university departments, graduate students seeking a Ph.D. degree must take a series of written cumulative examinations on the subject of their study in the first year or two of the Ph.D. program. These cumulative exams are often given on a pass/fail basis and a graduate student who seeks to continue in the Ph.D. program must pass a minimum number of these cumulative exams. After this minimum number of cumulative exams is passed, this degree requirement is considered to be met, and the Ph.D. student no longer takes these exams but continues work on other Ph.D. requirements.

In some US graduate programs, particularly in the natural sciences, the majority of students do not have master's degrees when they begin graduate work, and the successful students will earn doctorates without getting master's degrees on the way. In these programs, a student who does not pass "comps" or "prelims" on the second try will generally be allowed to earn a terminal master's degree but not permitted to become a candidate for a doctoral degree. Technically, at many institutions being formally accepted as a candidate for the Ph.D. automatically entitles the student to a Master of Arts degree, but very few students actually bother submitting the paperwork to apply for the MA degree after passing prelims.

Comprehensive examinations are typically based on a reading list agreed upon by the student and his or her committee, which is staffed by the primary supervisor and several advisors, normally professors at the university, but not necessarily in the same faculty. This reading list may comprise dozens or hundreds of books and other works.

The student must make him- or herself thoroughly familiar with the works on the reading list; in the examination, which often lasts three or more hours and during which the student may usually not consult any texts, the student must refer to the works on the reading list by author and title.

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