Where can I find phd qualifying exams questions.Is there any website that keeps a collection of such problems?
I need it for doing some revision of the basic topics. I know of a book but that do not have the full collection.
phd qualifying exams
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6Checking the links in the two first answers I remember what I was told during the presentation of my M.Sc. final exam: you must know what your thesis is about (really?!) and also the general stuff from *undergraduate* studies. This was funny since in graduate school they killed us with super year-long courses in topology, algebra or functional analysis (at least two of these three), plus some other optional courses, yet they remarked: it's your level in stuff of undergraduate level that'll decide whether you continue to PhD or not (with a mark of at least 85)...the same as Harvard and TAMU – 2012-12-30
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0UFL link above is broken. Here is the right link: http://gma.math.ufl.edu/past-exams/ – 2014-06-17
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These are the sets of qualifying/preliminary examinations of US universities that I collected some time ago for the same purposes as you. (Dave L. Renfro points out in a commentary below that he compiled a similar list a decade ago, the following includes new departments, updated old broken links and removes unavailable sources). These exams are of much help and some even include solutions!:
- Arizona State University Qualifying Examinations
- University of Alabama Qualifying Exams.
- SUNY Albany Ph.D. Preliminary Examinations.
- University of California-Berkeley Preliminary Examinations.
- Boston University Preliminary Exams.
- University of Colorado-Boulder Prelim Exams.
- Columbia University Qualifying Exams.
- University of Connecticut Prelim Exams.
- University of California-Davis Exams.
- University of Florida Graduate Exams.
- University of Georgia-Athens Qualifying Exams.
- Harvard University Qualifying Exams.
- University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Comprehensive Exams.
- Indiana University-Bloomington Tier I Examinations.
- University of Iowa Qualifying Exams.
- Johns Hopkins University Qualifying Exams.
- Kansas State University Qualifying Exams.
- University of California-Los Angeles Qualifying Exams.
- Louisiana State University Comprehensive Exams.
- University of Maryland Qualifying Exams.
- University of Massachussetts-Amherst Qualifying Exams.
- University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Qualifying Review Examinations.
- University of Minnesota Prelim Exams.
- University of Missouri-Columbia Qualifying Exams.
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln Qualifying Exams.
- University of New Mexico Qualifying Exams.
- University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Comprehensive Ph.D. Exams.
- Northeastern University Qualifying Examinations.
- Northwestern University Preliminary Examinations.
- Ohio State University Qualifying Exams.
- Oklahoma State University Comprehensive Exams.
- University of Oklahoma Qualifying Exams.
- Pennsylvania State University Qualifying Exams.
- University of Pittsburgh Preliminary Exams.
- Purdue University Qualifying Exams.
- University of Rochester Preliminary Exams.
- Rutgers University-New Brunswick Qualifying Exams and oral exams.
- Stanford University Qualifying Exams.
- Syracuse University Prelim and Qualifying Exams.
- Temple University PhD. Exams.
- University of Texas at Austin Preliminary Exams.
- Texas A & M University Qualifying Examinations.
- University of Utah Qualifying Examinations.
- University of Washington Preliminary Examinations.
- University of Wisconsin-Madison Qualifying Exams.
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6@ Javier Álvarez: I don't know how much time it took you to assemble this list, but you might be amused at how long it took me to do this back in May 2000 (probably over 15 hours). See my comment at the StackExchange question [Qual question archives?](http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/81138/qual-question-archives), where I incorrectly said there that it was in 1999. There still seem to be a few (legitimate) [webpages](https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Dave+L.+Renfro%22+%22qualifying+exams) carrying my list, despite the fact that I last updated it in December 2001. – 2013-01-04
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1@DaveL.Renfro: I had the list already assembled some months ago and was unaware of your list. What I did was merely keeping a bookmarks folder of the departments which had copies of old exams as I was visiting every single one of them to look for their research interests. It grew slowly as I was surveying webs to make a suitable list of graduate schools I would apply to. To put it here was just copy and paste after a text script to change the bookmarks to StackExchange format. I hope you do not see my post as an illegitimate one... as there are a few more items and no broken links. – 2013-01-04
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0Javier Álvarez: Oh no, I had no intention that your list was "illegitimate", if by that you mean copying my list. I haven't checked my links, but I imagine many no longer work (perhaps this is what you meant by "broken links") and surely many more departments have such a list now. Indeed, I'd be surprised if more than a handful of all U.S. Ph.D. institutions didn't have such a list now. I was merely commenting on how much easier it is to find such things now than it used to be. Some of the ones I found were on faculty webpages and were not announced/linked on the main departmental webpages. – 2013-01-04
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0@DaveL.Renfro: ah, ok! Indeed, nowadays it is pretty straightforward to collect such a list of bookmarks. Most departments now have a section on "resources for graduate students" or similar, where they directly link samples or complete collections of official old exams (some even with solutions!). They have realized the usefulness of this so there is no need to dive in the personal webs of faculty (many of which are now "not found", that is what I called "broken links"), hence collecting this list was pretty easy after surfing through the graduate program sections to get the info I needed :D. – 2013-01-04
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1thanks for your huge effort – 2013-01-05
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0@K.Ghosh: you are welcome! – 2013-01-05
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0@Javier A truly remarkable list and a Herculean effort! May I post a link to this list-with full authorship credit-at my in-construction website of free online mathematics source material? This will be a gift to graduate students everywhere fearing thier exams. – 2014-03-20
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0@Mathemagician1234 Sure! you may copy and paste the list of links as they are freely available! just mention a link to this forum's answer. – 2014-03-20
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Some old qualifying exams from Harvard: http://www.math.harvard.edu/quals/index.html
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Try the collection at Texas A&M University. Although I am not a student of the university, I used the collection to practice for my own qualifying exams. Here is the link: http://www.math.tamu.edu/graduate/phd/quals.html.