Comprehensive Exams are given at the beginning of Spring Quarter each year.  For 2008, the Exam will be given Monday April 7th at 5:00 pm in Dewing 103.

All majors in Economics and Business are required to pass a Comprehensive Examination as part of the College graduation requirements. The exam is given during the Spring Quarter of each academic year.  The exam is open to Seniors and Juniors who have completed the core courses. The purpose of this memo is to familiarize you with what is expected of you in the exam and with the exam format.  First, though, a word of encouragement.

There are two approaches to your Economics comprehensive exam: a negative approach and a positive approach.  The negative approach is to view the comp as yet another obstacle thrown between you and your degree by those nasty Economics professors.  With this approach, studying for your exam will become a chore and the exam itself a fearful experience.  The positive approach, which we recommend, is to view the exam as an opportunity to integrate, synthesize, and reflect upon what you have learned in your Economics major.  With this approach, you will find yourself more energized to study, and your performance on the exam will benefit from your attitude.  More importantly, your approach will be congruent with how we will write the exam, and this will positively affect your performance as well.

The Comprehensive Exam will cover material from the core economics courses: Principles of Economics, Intermediate Microeconomics, Intermediate Macroeconomics, and Quantitative Methods II.  To encourage you to make connections across and between courses, this year's exam will integrate questions from the subject areas into two parts:

Part I: Multiple Choice         Part II: Problems and Essays
    See Sample Questions

The material you are required to know for the microeconomics, macroeconomics, and statistics questions is outlined on the attached Economics Comprehensive Exam Guidelines .

Our assessment of your performance on the exam will be based on the extent to which your answers are:

 1. correct
 2. well written and
 3. concise and to the point (as in not too long).

In order to do well on the exam, it is important that you do not engage in the proverbial "mind dump" of an essay exam.  For each question, you need to compose your answers carefully, including well-chosen graphs or equations where appropriate.  Think before you write and make every sentence count.  Try to communicate the intuition of economic concepts instead of focusing solely on technical matters.

Please keep in mind that success in passing the comprehensive exam is not automatic.  For this reason, we strongly encourage you to start your preparation for the exam as soon as possible.  The Comprehensive exams are graded pass, fail, or honors.  Students who pass the exam in their Junior year are permitted to retake the exam as Seniors to attempt to earn Honors.

These exams are covered by the Kalamazoo College Honor Code.  Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated on the Comprehensive Exams.  If a student cheats on this exam, they will receive a failing grade on this test and they will not be allowed to re-take the exam.  (This will affect graduation.)  Violations of the honor code will also be referred to the Dean of Student's office and Judicial Council.