Will’s Oral Exam Procedures and Policies

Students who miss an exam with good cause, are unable to take a synchronous or in-person exam for good cause, who are completing a class as an ‘incomplete’, or have other reason to require separate examination may be asked to sit an oral exam instead.

Please remember that my goal here is to give you an opportunity to show your knowledge, not to ‘catch you out’ or ‘be tricky’. I will be thrilled if you show strong knowledge, and want to give you every opportunity to do so while being fair to your classmates and keeping the difficulty in line with the conventional exam.

Oral Exam Procedure

Please plan to arrive 5 minutes or so before your scheduled time at the designated in-person location, generally my office
Bring whatever paper materials or notes you’d like, but know that you’ll have extremely limited time to examine them.
- It’s best to plan to take the exam mostly from memory, as reading through notes burns time you won’t have.
You’ll be asked direct questions about the course material which have been designed to test your knowledge of the material and your participation in the course.
- These may be from the study guide (if such exists), or they may be new questions
- A question might be something like “Why do we use the N’ (N-bar) element in syntax trees for this course?” or “Explain what goes on with your speech articulators when we produce a /t͡ʃ/.”
- You might also be asked a more open-ended question which covers a larger swath of the course material. Something like “Take me through the process of how sound is captured, stored and played by computers. As an example, describe what would happen if I said ‘kitten’ into a microphone for long-term storage, and what would have to happen for the resulting recording to be played back via your laptop’s speakers.”
- In some cases, you may be handed a dataset (e.g. for phonological analysis), or asked to produce an analysis (e.g. “draw a syntax tree for the sentence ‘Will tortures students with the IPA’” or “Transcribe the sentence ‘Will graded the oral exam’”).
You’ll be given the opportunity to respond to the question, with the goal to show depth of understanding, and I may follow up with questions or clarifications
- “Could you tell me a bit more about that?” or asking a followup does not mean you’re doing badly, it’s just me gauging your knowledge or prompting for more details.
For each question, I’ll gauge your response and make notes, and when I’ve seen enough, we’ll move onto the next question.
At the end, you’ll be given an opportunity to clarify or address any response, to any question, which you’re unhappy with, in case you missed something, you’re afraid you misspoke, or wanted to emphasize something you didn’t previously.
Once we’ve finished, I’ll let you know your earned grade, explaining where you lost any points, and you’ll be dismissed.

Oral Exam Grading

Each question will be graded out of ten. The rounded average score of all questions will be taken as the exam grade.

Each question will be graded roughly according to the following rubric:

9 or 10 point responses demonstrate superior knowledge and a strong understanding of the concept(s) at hand, addressing most or all of the relevant important information, at or beyond the expected level for students in the course.
7 or 8 point responses show substantial understanding and competence, but with one or two errors, some ‘foggier’ areas or inability to provide important missing details.
6 or 5 point responses show major gaps in knowledge, with several errors, showing only bare-bones understanding of the concepts in play.
3 or 4 point responses demonstrate very basic knowledge from the class, but show substantial confusion, confusing related concepts, or failing to fully understand the conceptual basis of the question.
2-0 point responses fail to sufficiently demonstrate having gained knowledge on the matter from the course, whether by producing an answer which is incomprehensible in context of the question, answering the question at a level which shows little evidence of having completed the course, an “I don’t know”, or silence/failure to answer.

Note that you are graded on knowledge, not on your precise manner of communicating it. No points will be deducted for your accent, register, for ‘grammatical errors’, or for nervousness. As long as you’re able to communicate that you understand the material to somebody who actively seeks to give you the benefit of the doubt, those factors are irrelevant.

Oral Exam Policies

Oral exams will be conducted in person unless there is an exceptional, good cause reason why it must happen virtually (e.g. quarantine with doctor’s note or a campus safety issue).
- Generally, I would prefer students with these kinds of good cause circumstances take an incomplete for the quarter and complete an in-person oral exam in the following quarter, rather than trying to administer a virtual oral exam.
- You can ask if you feel you have exceptional circumstances, but generally, requests for a virtual exam will not be granted.
Students arriving more than 15 minutes after the scheduled exam time without a documented good cause will not be allowed to sit the exam and will receive a zero without opportunity to make it up. Please plan to arrive early and/or check your internet ahead of time to prevent this.
Students may take a moment to compose their thoughts or consult their notes before answering, but if you are unable to begin a substantive answer after a full minute or after being asked a second time, you’ll be awarded a zero for that question and we’ll move on.
Students may request that questions be presented in writing during the exam, and may respond in a manner consistent with OSD accommodations.
In an in-person oral exam, you may consult your electronic notes on a laptop or tablet or phone, but I must have a clear view of the process, to prevent LLM use or communication with people outside the exam setting
Oral exams may be recorded by the instructor, although any recordings will be deleted at the completion of the term.
Although online exams will only be permitted in exceptional cases, students completing the exam online will be asked to turn on both voice and camera, and to stay unmuted and on video for the duration of the exam. This is to prevent academic integrity issues.
- Limited background noise is understandable, and will not be penalized.
- For Zoom-based exams, no electronic devices are allowed to be consulted, and no typing is permitted, without specific OSD accommodations, discussed ahead of time.
- Repeated muting, loss of video, or other disruption will result in an inability to complete the exam, and I reserve the right to, at any point and for any reason, end the virtual exam and request that we repeat the exam in person at a later date.
Your grade on a given question won’t be disclosed until the end of the exam
- This allows you the opportunity to revise your answer at the end of the exam
Students with extra time accommodations will be given additional time to respond to each question.
Assigned grades are not negotiable, and are not subject to ‘regrades’.
- By agreeing to take an oral exam, you agree that your assigned grade is final.
Students may not discuss specific questions from the oral exam with other students, and both sharing questions and taking advantage of shared questions is an academic integrity issue.