Prelim exam instructions for the committee chair

1. The Chair of the PhD Prelim Committee is responsible for verifying that the candidate follows the prelim instructions described here, and that the “Preliminary Exam Report” is completed following the exam and sent to the GPD (with an attached record of the exam Q/A session).
2. Within 2 weeks of the submission of the written component of the prelim, the Chair should collect any feedback about the prelim written report from the committee and forward this to the candidate. Resubmission of the written component is required only if the committee deems the level of the original submission is inadequate. It should be kept in mind that the goal of the prelim is to ensure that the student is ready to pursue their PhD research.
3. The oral presentation should be clear, and its concepts explained simply enough that the Chair, who is removed from the candidate's research field, can also understand and ask questions. The chair has the right to remind and emphasize this to the candidate upon sending the feedback and the scope of the oral examination.
4. After the oral presentation portion of the prelim exam, the committee will ask the candidate questions aimed to test the candidate's understanding of physics within the scope of topics agreed upon in the feedback sent to the candidate as described in section 1(b)i on the instructions to the prelim committee. The Chair should also ask questions. It is the responsibility of the Chair to keep a record of the exam, which includes the questions asked and comments on the quality of the responses. This record should be sent to the GPD along with the prelim exam report.