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Computational Linguistics Module Exam

This page provides information for students interested in taking one of their BSc Module Exams ("modulübergreifende Prüfung") in Computational Linguistics.

The CL exam is an oral examination of 30 minutes, administered by two examiners from the CL faculty. The function of this exam is to assess the student's understanding of the field of Computational Linguistics and the relationship of CL to Cognitive Science in general.

Candidates for the exam must propose four examination topics when they register for the exam. An exam topic is typically a subfield of linguistics or computational linguistics, such as parsing, regular languages and finite state automata, binding theory, anaphora, quantification, language acquisition, or any of the topics of the seminars the candidate followed. Each exam topic should be more precisely defined by approximately 50 pages of textual material (from text book chapters, journal articles, or any books or papers studied in the course of lectures or seminars that the candidate attended. Sets of lecture slides are not suited for this purpose). The set of topics chosen should be both broad, covering a range of different areas in the field, and deep, including not only material from the basic courses, but also material from the intermediate or advanced seminars.

Typically, only three of the four topics will actually be examined. The best preparation for the exam is that candidates study the proposed material very thoroughly and make sure that they are able to give a short five minutes oral presentation (no slides, no notes!) of the core points of each topic to the examiners and can answer questions for more detail.

Students may register for the CL module exam only after they have successfully completed the obligatory Introduction to Computational Linguistics and have acquired at least 12 further credit points in CL, completing three courses that carry the qualifications "BSc: optional compulsory (Wahlpflichtbereich)" and "BSc examination field: Computational Linguistics". These qualifications are given for each class both in the online lecture list CogSci site and on the Schein that attests the successful completion of the class.

Examinations should be registered for and examination topics selected at least 4 weeks before the examination date. Registration for a particular exam date is binding and can be withdrawn only in the case of sickness or similar extraordinary circumstances.

The registration for the exam is a one step process: Candidates must fill in two registration forms, one for the examiners (download here) and one for the examination office (more info here), and  send both to the CL Secretary,  Tatjana Ahrends, tahrends@uos.de).

Normally candidates will then, within a week or so, receive a confirmation of their exam date, the names of the proposed examiners, and their proposed exam topics. But it may also happen that modifications will be suggested: Particular examiners may not be available or examiners may not approve the proposed topics. In such cases candidates will be contacted. The actual time of the examination will only be confirmed a week before the exam date.

In case of any further questions please get in touch with Dr. Peter Uhrig or Dr. Mingya Liu.