In the next few days, those who have completed all coursework for the Master of Arts in American History and Government (MAHG) program may begin writing their qualifying exams, so as to graduate with their degrees this December. The next iteration of the exam, which is offered three times a year, will be released on Friday, October 18.
For most teachers, the end of MAHG coursework brings a mixture of pride, relief, and wistfulness. Online coursework during the school year entailed many afterwork hours reading the assigned primary documents. Yet discussing these documents in the interactive online class sessions energized their teaching practice. Many speak of bringing into their classrooms excerpts of the primary documents they discussed in seminars the night before. “Everything I learned in the program has proved immediately useful to my teaching,” they often say.
Still, the final hurdle between coursework and the degree presents a new challenge. Teachers have three options: they may write a traditional master’s thesis, complete a capstone project, or take the qualifying exam. For those students—the majority—who choose the qualifying exam, we offer in this blog a preview of the exam’s structure and advice on how to perform well on it.
The Structure of the Exam
The exam is always released to students on a Friday, and students are allowed a little over two weeks to submit their final answers. It is an essay exam with two parts:
- The first part asks students to analyze a short text.
- The second part consists of four questions on a variety of topics, eras, or themes in American history and government. Students answer two of these questions.
The links above take you to sample exam questions, with successful responses, for both parts of the exam. You’ll see that both questions contain document excerpts that you are asked to analyze. To do well on the exam, you must understand that Part I is asking for a different, more focused, kind of document analysis than Part II is asking for.
How to Succeed on Part I
In the first part of the exam, all that is required is that you give an accurate and thorough account of the argument in the document. What program of action, view of a policy question, analysis of a social issue, or other claim is the author presenting? How does the author make his or her case? Focus on the steps in the author’s argument. Don’t try to explain the historical situation that caused the author to write. Don’t try to recount other arguments being made by other authors writing at the same time.
When teachers fail on this part of the exam, it is usually because they have tried to write about the historical context of the document and forgotten to provide this basic analysis. What you need to do is to walk the person reading your exam through what the document actually says. The prompt for Part I will ask specific questions that should guide you in your analysis.
How to Succeed on Part II
The questions on the second part of the exam vary. One question may present you with a single document excerpt, asking you to relate it to a larger issue in history or government. Another may present you with two document excerpts, asking you to compare and contrast them as you discuss the larger issue. In either case, your analysis should be broader than in Part I of the exam. Since your aim here is to comment on a topic or theme in American history or government, you will need to place the document excerpts into their historical contexts. You should explain:
- the purpose the document was written to serve;
- the document’s intended audience;
- the overall message of the document.
Then you might answer other questions:
- What effect did the document have on its intended audience?
- Did it achieve its author’s purpose?
Above all, be sure to do what you always tell your own students to do: Answer the question asked in the prompt!
Remember also that when we read primary sources, we try to understand their authors as they understood themselves. Their writings may not persuade us as we read them today. Even at the time they wrote, their writings may not have persuaded everyone. While you may mention these effects of the documents, be sure to explain what the authors hoped to accomplish.
Strategies for Success
Sometimes teachers run out of time to complete their essays. We encourage you to take full advantage of all three weekends between the release of the exam and its submission deadline. Start right away to give yourself time to proofread, revise, and edit.
Save your notes from class! If you’re not a pack rat and can’t save them all, consider saving notes from the core or required courses in our program (501, 502, 503, 505, 506, and 507). All of the qualifying exam questions are drawn from issues you discussed while taking the core courses. These courses lay an excellent foundation for a deep understanding of the history and government of America.
Take breaks in your writing; rest and revisit it later. It may feel like you don’t have time for this, but you’ll benefit from looking back over your work with a fresh set of eyes. If you start writing that first weekend after the exam is sent to you, you’ll have a chance to try out your first ideas. Later, after you’ve had time to reflect more on the document excerpts and what you’d like to say about them, you might decide to rewrite what you wrote before. You might open with a new thesis statement. Or you may want to add more analysis, give more examples of the points you want to make, or rewrite sentences that are not clear.
Get feedback from the friends you’ve made in the program. We always encourage our students to form study groups for their classes on campus, so as you work on the exam, continue to make use of the connections you’ve made. Someone familiar with our classes will help you see if you’ve strayed into irrelevance in your answer.
It can also be helpful to ask people with no knowledge of the topic to proofread your essay for you. English teachers you work with can offer valuable feedback on the coherence of your answers without getting lost in the technicalities of the content. Additional sets of eyes reading back through what you wrote will help you know whether you’ve fully addressed the prompt and thoroughly analyzed the document.
Take Pride in the Process!
The Qualifying Exam may seem intimidating, but it’s a rewarding way to finish your studies. It will remind you how much you learned over the years in our program. You’ll leave with a magnified sense of the pride you felt after finishing each course. You may push your brain to its limits, but you will synthesize much of what you’ve learned about the recurrent challenges of life in our self-governing nation.
