Has anyone taken the Comprehensive Exam at AMU for the MBA program?

I was wondering if anyone has taken the Comprehensive Exam at AMU for the MBA program? If you have, can you give some insight as to the test: suggestions for preparation, level of difficulty, and anything else you may deem helpful. I am about to take it and with the level of importance this exam has on graduation I am really nervous.

 

I took it earlier this year. When you enrolled in the class (The Comp Class) the instructor will give you sample questions that you can do. I did not do them and was glad I did not, it would have been a waste of time. Either you can write for six hours or you cannot, IMHO there is no practice for that. The questions on the actual exam are completely different from the ones you get for practice during class.

The one thing I would do is to have a Bibliography of all of your text books so you can reference them during the exam, and maybe even keep the books near where you will take the test. They give you six hours to answer the questions. I finished at about 5 hours and 55 minutes. All told when I added my answers to the qusetions up I had written over 23 pages of text and had 35 references.

I felt like one or two of my questions were not up to par but felt great about the rest. I passed with distinction and cannot remember my exact final grad, it was around 96 or 97 if I recall. It was stressful while I completed the exam. Not after and really not leading up to it. Do not stress out, it will be OK. All you need to do is make sure that you answer EVERY part of the question, site references, and show that you comprehend the concepts covered in your classes.

If you have any more questions let me know. In my opinion I do not think there is much preparation that you can do other than having participated in the courses for the degree. Schedule the test as soon as the Prof will let you.

Good luck!

Cory

 

That exam sounds absolutely frightening.

 

Thank you so much Cory. Well my one concern now is that I sold all of my books back once I completed the courses. I may just go through all of my classes and pull up the book just in case - I really don't want to buy them all just for the exam.

 

Hello,

I am also in the midst of preparing to take the Comprehensive Exam for AMU's MBA program. I have found the preparation course to be very fulfilling and it was surprising to hear that the practice questions given will not be found or relate to the questions given on the exam date. Any idea on what to expect, like you I also sold and recycled many of by text books used throughout the course. Do I really need them? Any information on how to prepare and what to expect would be great.

Thanks

 

Selling your books = A good financial idea, that I should have done too. However, I believe that it might make your tasks on the exam a bit more difficult. Since I actually referenced my books in the exam, I assumed that others did as well. Maybe they did not and just utilized internet sources. Searching for so many sources and then having to read them will take up valuable exam time.

I spent more time formulating answers to the questions than searching for sources. Since I had already read the books, I only needed to skim to find the key points for my answers. I think that was an advantage for me, and absolutely contributed to my graduating with distinction. The reason why the exam differs is that based on your concentration you will see a question related to that concentration on the exam. It really is a bear, will absolutely take all of the 6 hours, and IMHO cannot be prepared for other than getting a good nights rest.

Good luck again to both of you!

C