text: The preliminary examination is a significant milestone in a graduate student's academic career. It is a written exam to assess knowledge of areas within the academic discipline. Below you'll find workshop and exam dates, as well as info on how to prepare for these exams.
  The preparation of the preliminary exams is overseen by the Graduate Program Committee (GPC) (for the Analysis, Algebra, Topology exams) or Applied Math Graduate Group Executive Committee (GGAM exec) (for the Applied exam). The committee solicits problems from instructors who most recently taught the corresponding courses, suggests revisions, and selects appropriate problems for the exams. The instructors who most recently taught the corresponding courses are responsible for grading the exams. The GPC/GGAM exec reviews the scores and determines passing cut-off scores. Differences in cut-off scores from year to year and on different exams, allow the committees to account for differences between grading styles and difficulty levels of the exam problems, and to ensure passing scores are a reasonably accurate reflection of whether students have demonstrated sufficient mastery of the material. There is no requirement that some students fail the exam for others to pass, and there is not any distribution of passing scores imposed in setting the cut-offs.