The Qualifying Exam samples on this page are for the old Qualifying Exam. Students who joined the department prior to autumn 2017 can still take the old Qualifying Exam, but students who joined the department in autumn 2017 or later must take the new Qualifying Exam.
The following PDF files provide old qualifying exam problems for reference. Please be aware that:
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A UW NetID is required to open the files.
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Materials to be covered in the upcoming qualifying exam are not limited to and may look very different from those shown in the previous exams.
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The qualifying exam problems are designed to test a student's understanding of a subject matter at the graduate level, although the subject matter is from undergraduate courses. (In other words, we expect our graduate students to have a more in-depth understanding of the subject matter than an undergraduate student.)