Preview: M.A. Comprehensive Exam page 1
M.A. Comprehensive Examination
The following pages will familiarize you with an important event in your efforts to
attain a Master of Arts degree in English at La Sierra: the M.A. Comprehensive Exam.
Exam Description:
At the end of your program, you must satisfactorily complete a
comprehensive examination over English and American literature. The
material covered on the exam is not limited to texts, authors, or periods
covered during your course work. Instead, the exam is comprised of material
deemed essential to a broad knowledge of the discipline at the graduate level
by the current faculty members of the department.
Your faculty encourage you to read outside of your class assignments on a
regular basis, and more intensively during breaks between quarters, in order
to augment your knowledge of the cannon of English and American literature
in preparation for taking the exam. Your exam responses may reflect both in-
class and out-of-class reading
Exam Format:
The format of the exam is regularly adjusted by the graduate advisor, in
consultation with the entire department, to better reflect the goals of the MA
in English program. Any information provided to you about previous tests
should not be assumed to indicate precisely how future exams will be written.
The following three pages, however, will provide a sense of how the exam
operated last year, which will likely parallel this year’s exam.
Exam Grading
The English Department faculty will each read all sections of your exam,
marking each with a tentative grade. Faculty then meet to discuss the exams
and collectively determine section grades using the following scale:
HP = High Pass
