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How to prepare for a viva

L

Anyone got any tips on how to prepare for the viva? Am I allowed to take anything in with me? If I know they are likely to ask me a question can I pre-prepare a diagram or something - or is that classed as cheating? What did other people do to prepare. (its a science thesis)

K

If you're in the UK you can take whatever supporting documents you like into the viva. Not sure about other countries...

I prepared a sheet that had line numbers on it, each line representing a page, and put about three key words on each line so that I could locate things easily in the thesis. I found it useful as I could respond to challenging questions like "Ah, but you see here on page X and Y that I've done Z". I also took in small printouts of conference posters I'd done which went down well.

When is it? All the best!

A

Search this forum, lots of advice and past experiences. Good luck

L

I don't have a date yet - should be before Christmas. It is in the UK.

R

I have only had my transfer viva, but I found that when it came around I had been working on fine details of coding and analysis the few months before so I wasn't really looking at the big picture. Remember that your examiners will know less than you about your project, so will not be asinterested as you in the fine details.

I would make an effort to take a step back, try to be able to sum up what results you have in a few sentences (Hard I know!) and have a good idea in your head as to why you are using the particular techniques you used, what you are doing that is different to what others have done before.

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