DEPARTMENT OF LANGUAGES

Exams and Exam Acknowledgement

Exams for Foreigners before Starting their Doctoral Study Program

Foreign applicants who want to study within the Doctoral Study Program in the Czech language shall prove their Czech skills by either providing their secondary school-leaving examination report or successfully passing the Czech exam at the Department of Languages at FEE (subject to a fee of 2000 CZK – see Informace pro uchazeče o studium v českém jazyce – cizince – Czech only).

Candidates applying for the Doctoral Study Program in the English language shall prove their English skills by successfully passing the English exam at the Department of Languages at FEE, by providing an internationally recognized certificate of English at the C1 CEFR level (e.g. FCE, CAE, TOEFL), or by providing the State Language Examination report.

If English is the official language of the candidate’s country of origin, this fact shall be considered as sufficient proof of English knowledge and the Doctoral English Exam shall be acknowledged.

Mandatory Doctoral English Exam

The knowledge of English may be tested in the two following ways:

1. Writing the thesis proposal and defending it in the English language (code XP04MIN – see Směrnice děkana pro provádění odborné rozpravy v doktorském studiu – Czech only).
2. Taking an exam at the Department of Languages at FEE, if the thesis proposal is written in Czech or Slovak (code XP04AZK).

Students must prove their knowledge of English during the exam period half a year before taking their Doctoral State Examination at the latest.

 If the result of the exam is “failed”, the exam can be re-taken once. In case of repeated failure, the studies are terminated according to § 56 section 1 b) of the Act.n.

Exam Acknowledgement

Students can contact the Head of the Department of Languages for English exam acknowledgement provided that they have passed a Ph.D. English exam at a different university and they supply evidence that that the course’s contents and exam requirements are comparable with FEE requirements.

All acknowledgement applications will be assessed by the Head of the Department individually.

An exam may only be acknowledged if it has been passed no earlier than 5 years before the application.

Preparation for English Exam

Students can prepare either individually or in the seminars organized by the Department of Languages, FEE.

• Students are assumed to have at least a low-intermediate level of English knowledge.
• The faculty does not provide beginner level courses

Exam Preparation options:

It is possible to prepare for exams individually or at seminars organized by the Department of Languages (see Seminars).

Recommendations:

1. Students’ command of English is excellent, they prepare for the exam individually after one consultation at the Department of Languages.
2. Students’ command of English is satisfactory, but they feel the need to supplement their English knowledge with Academic/Professional English skills during seminars offered by the Department of Languages (see Seminars). They may choose higher level (XP04A2) or lower level courses (XP04A1).
3. Students are not confident about their command of English; they register for the preparatory seminar (XP04A1). Having fulfilled all seminar requirements, they may register for a higher level seminar (XP04A2) in the next term.
4. Should students be unsure about an appropriate course level choice, they may take a placement test upon agreement.
5. Completing the seminars is not a compulsory prerequisite for taking the exam.

English Exam Organisation

The exam mainly focuses on the knowledge of presentation methodology with emphasis on its stylistic properties. Further, the ability to analyse texts both for content and lexically, as well as general language skills, are examined.

The exam comprises two parts :

1. Written (dates may be set as collective),
2. Oral (dates shall be specified upon agreement).

Students may not take the oral part unless they have passed the written part.

The exam may be re-taken once; upon request, it may be taken in front of a committee (English teacher, supervisor, or other language department teacher).

Students shall prepare a presentation (in either written on spoken form) to be delivered during the exam.

The written part takes 120 minutes and contains:

• Text analysis: general and specific answers, information processing (formal stylistic methods are a must), text vocabulary
• Grammar:
  • Verbs: e.g. irregular verbs, passives, modality
  • Syntax: sentence structures (subject, relative, time, conditional, cause-effect, and concessive types of clauses), infinitive and gerund constructions
  • Nouns: irregular forms, particularly Latin-Greek plurals
  • Numerals plus reading mathematical expressions
  • Prepositions
  • Conjunctions
• Stylistics: argumentation language, definition, description, comparisons, recommendations, predictions

The oral part takes 30 – 45 minutes and comprises:

• Work with an unknown technical text
• Conversation on technical topics

Before the exam, a consultation is recommended well in advance – especially for students who did not take courses. Students will be provided with information about literature used, detailed information about the contents of both exam parts, and they can even see a sample written test.