To be administered at the end of their second semester to first-year students who have completed both SYA 6125 & 6126. Part-time students will be given the exam when they have completed both courses.
Scheduling:
The Competency Exam in Theories will be
given annually at the end of the spring semester.
Students
will pick up the exam on an assigned Monday morning from the main office and return the completed
exam to the same location at noon on the following Thursday. The exam must be
completed in the s
Format:
1. The exam will be take-home.A finding of collaboration with other students or of plagiarism will result in failure of the exam and may prompt expulsion of the offending student(s) from the program.
2. Professors
who have taught the theories courses (SYA 6125 & 6126) during the academic year
in which the exam is given will
prepare exam questions that require students to synthesize material from the
courses and to think critically. Students must answer two of the (typically
four) questions posed.
3. Students’ responses
to each of the two questions chosen will be no fewer than five (5) and no more
than ten (10) pages per question. The exam will be typed and double-spaced in
12 point font, use standard 8˝ x 11” paper and 1” margins (all sides). Students will not include their names in the
text of their responses or anywhere on their exams; instead, students will type
their Panther ID on each page of the exam (using a header is best).
4. Each response should begin by clearly
identifying the question being addressed and responses to the two questions
should not repeat material nor refer to one another. Citations,
if appropriate, should be placed in-text and consistently follow either the
American Anthropologist or American Journal of Sociology citation guidelines. A
list of cited references, using the format appropriate to the journal citation
style chosen must be appended to each response.
Staple the pages of each question’s response and bibliography together
and paperclip the two essays together when submitting them.
Grading:
Each question will be read and graded independently
by (1) the professor who wrote the question, and (2) another member of the departmental
faculty. The grading scale is:
1 = Fail 2 = Low pass 3 = Pass 4 = High Pass 5 = Exceptional
In most instances, the student’s grade for each of the two essays will be the average of the two readers’ scores. However, if the scores given by the two readers are not contiguous, i.e., they differ by more than one (1) point, a third reader will be asked to grade the exam. The score of the third reader will then be added to the initial readers’ scores to calculate the final average score. The student’s overall grade on the exam will be the average of the scores for the two essays and will be based on the 5-point scale above. Scores will be rounded up to the next integer if .5 or above and rounded down if below .5.
Students should be aware that although any passing grade is sufficient to satisfy the requirements for this exam, higher competency exam scores will be advantageous for students seeking admission into the PhD program.
Students who receive
a failing grade on a Theories Competency exam may petition the Graduate
Committee to repeat (‘re-take’) the same exam. Students granted the privilege by the Graduate
Committee to re-take the Theories Competency exam will do so at the end of the
summer following their initial attempt and their subsequent petition, unless
otherwise agreed to by the Graduate Committee.
Students receiving passing grades on a Theories Competency exam will not
be allowed to repeat
it or to take any subsequent Theories Competency exam in order to obtain a
higher grade.
Professors
writing exam questions will use a
reading list that combines all required and recommended readings used for the
two theory courses taken by the exam-taking students as the basis for their questions.
The list will include readings with which students
should be familiar, i.e., most (but not necessarily all) will have been required
course readings.
Scoring
Rubric:
Students taking the exam will receive higher scores by keeping in mind the aspects of their response on which the professors reading their exams will focus:
1. Does the response address the question asked?
2. Does the response demonstrate comprehension of the theories referred to in the question?
3. Does the response provide evidence of critical analysis of the theories?
4. Does the response reflect ability to relate/integrate the theories?
5. Does the response draw sufficiently on related literature/readings in the reading list?
6. Style: Is the essay written well – clearly, succinctly, with good grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc. and appropriate citation format?
7.
Bibliography and Citations: Are they complete, correctly
formatted and consistent with the selected style?