Past Biology Masters Comprehensive and
Ph.D. Qualifying Examinations (Profex)

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The Biology Profex is held each year in October and March, generally on a Saturday from 10:00 AM until 1:00 PM. Distance students (including, particularly, those in the PSM program) can schedule the exam at convenient times near the date of the on-site exam through IIT/online in the same way that regular class exams are handled. The exam doubles as the PhD qualifying exam and as the comprehensive exam for both the MS and Professional Masters (PSM) programs. The Profex should be taken as soon as possible after students have taken (or have knowledge equivalent to) the courses listed in the following paragraph. Students get at most four chances to pass the Profex. Full time students must pass the Profex within the first two years of beginning their programs.

The exam consists of two parts, the general part, which covers material from Biol 504 and Biol 515, and one of three discipline specific parts [Biochemistry (material from Biol 504, 513); Microbiology (material from Biol 542, 550); or Cell and Molecular Biology (material from Biol 445 for the professional masters exam and Biol 445 and Biol 533 for the MS and PhD exams). Masters students should take the discipline specific part in their area of specialization; PhD students can take any of the three discipline specific parts. Passing scores are 50% for Professional Masters students and 52.5 % for MS students (this represents the overall score, that is, with both parts considered together as a single score). PhD students must score at least 60 % on each of the two parts in order to pass.

The following are recent examinations for Biology Graduate Students. These exams are provided for IIT students to use in their preparation. All of the documents are in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF).

October 2003		Microbiology		Biochemistry
March 2004				Biochemistry
March 2005	General Biology		Cell & Molecular Biology
March 2006	General Biology	Microbiology	Cell & Molecular Biology
October 2006	General Biology	Microbiology	Cell & Molecular Biology

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