I remember my comprehensive exams like they were yesterday. It was July of 2021, and I was exactly where I did not want to be. Instead of soaking in late summer in Virginia by hiking in the Shenandoah Valley or enjoying Charlottesville’s community firework display, I was inside, surrounded by more than thirty books and a mountain of notes. I was in my second year of the University of Virginia’s PhD program in history, and I was due to take the dreaded comprehensive exams in a month. These exams are always nerve-wracking, and maybe even a little frightening, but there were a few things that made my “mission impossible” task a little less daunting. Below you will find four tips for acing your own comprehensive exams.

Rule 1 to surviving (and thriving) during comprehensive exam season: Don’t Do It Alone. I still remember how grateful I was when one of my friends in the program a year above me emailed me a very hefty Word document. In the email, she cheerfully informed me that the comprehensive exam notes and outlines she had attached had been handed down from one cohort to the next at UVA for years. She was now passing it on to me. Those notes were a goldmine of helpful analysis and book reviews, and they were invaluable to me as I was preparing for my own exams.

When I completed my exams, I happily handed the notes down to a member of the cohort below me for the same reason: Comprehensive exams are a lot harder without community. My point is, reach out to other graduate students outside your cohort for guidance when it comes to comprehensive exams! Everyone goes through it and they will very likely have extremely valuable resources and advice that they will happily share with you. If your department doesn’t already have these magical crowd-sourced documents available, create your own! Trust me, future generations of stressed-out graduate students will thank you. Additionally, if your department’s History Graduate Student Association holds any workshops with graduate candidates who have already passed exams, make sure you attend! Trust me, the wisdom of your older peers will prove invaluable when it comes to preparing for comprehensive exams.

Rule 2 of surviving exams is obvious, but not always easy to follow: Start Early, Stay Organized, and Don’t Cram. This is something I wish I had followed more carefully myself during my second year of graduate school. It’s very easy to get overwhelmed by the massive amount of class notes, book reviews, and comprehensive exam prep lists you receive from your field examiners. If you’re not careful, it can feel like you are sitting on an overwhelming amount of information as your examination approaches, with little way to make sense of it all. The trick to avoiding this dismal fate is to start early and organize your notes often.

A pile of early American history books accompanied by a highlighter, pen, and Post-It notes. Image courtesy of the author.

In class, in conversations with members of your cohort, and in meetings with your advisors, be on the lookout for patterns that can help you to connect the books and historiographical trends that you will encounter throughout comprehensive exam prep. Create a schedule for when you will study each of your examination fields and try to stick to it. When you inevitably don’t succeed, change your study schedule to fit your evolving needs.

It’s so important to create an organizational system for your exam notes—whether that be the old-fashioned option, the Word document, flash cards, or an organizational program like Notion or Zotero. Use what works for you. If your notes never become disorganized, you will never have to get reorganized, which can be a very intimidating task. When it comes to comprehensive exams, take baby steps in your study. Don’t try to cram in the month before your exams. You will become a much better master of the knowledge if you give yourself time to acquaint yourself with each of your exam fields over the course of several months.

It’s also important to stress that you will never have enough time to master all of the material you are faced with during your exams. The key is to be able to let go of the idea of having to know everything and instead develop your own method of synthesizing broader historiographical trends and important interventions and arguments. Try to familiarize yourself with the larger contours of each historiographical field and don’t get caught up in trying to memorize everything you read. Knowing a few foundational texts really well and understanding how other books argue against or for those arguments will simplify the task for you. Don’t be surprised if you are not able to read every chapter of every book and remember, book reviews are your best friend.

Rule 3 of surviving comps is related to rule number 1: Practice with Peers in Your Cohort. The real key to the oral portion of comprehensive exams is to get comfortable talking about history out loud with other people. This sounds simple, but for many of us, especially introverts, this can be one of the most difficult parts of exams. I remember cringing every time I thought about discussing my analytical views on early America with my examiners—all impressive scholars whom I truly admired. The way to gain the confidence for this daunting task is to discuss history with friends first.

There are undoubtedly several other members of your cohort who are also facing the challenge of comprehensive exams the same semester as you are. Ask fellow students if they might be willing to form a study group with you that goes out for coffee a few times and discusses comprehensive exam prep. This, above all else, is one of the most important things you can do to prepare yourself for oral exams. The more you voice your opinions, the more comfortable and confident you will become in your voice as a scholar!

My final rule for surviving comprehensive exams is simple. Relax and Have Fun. By the time your examinations roll around, you will have studied, considered, and discussed your examination fields. You will have done the work. All that will be left is to gather your confidence, relax, and enjoy sharing your knowledge and viewpoints with other scholars who truly are experts in their fields.

It’s important to remember that your examiners want you to do well! They are not there to find your weak spots and point them out. They are there to help you shape and refine your knowledge and discover what kind of scholar you are on the road to becoming. They are there to help. Try to remember that as you face your oral exams. You can benefit from this experience, and you might even find yourself enjoying the conversation once your nerves wear off a bit!

Overall, comprehensive exams are a scary thing. But remember, we all went through it. In a way, it’s simply a rite of passage—one more hoop to jump through on your way to earning your PhD. But it’s also extremely helpful down the road. The knowledge that I gained through studying for my comprehensive exams has been invaluable to me—in my dissertation research, in teaching as a TA during the remaining years of my graduate program, and in creating new courses as an assistant professor. Although comps might feel impossible at first, I assure you that if you work hard, stay organized, and pool your resources with other students, you will do well. And most importantly, once your examinations are over, you will realize how valuable the experience really is.