Expecting Questions

You can’t know for sure what questions you will get at your viva but there’s a lot you can expect.

• You can expect your examiners to have done their homework and come with questions.
• You can be certain that your examiners want to know more about what you did beyond what it is in your thesis.
• It’s reasonable to think they might want to dig deeper into methods, results and conclusions, however you’ve presented them.
• It’s unlikely they would miss a chapter out in their plans – but also unlikely they would have one or more questions in mind for every page.
• You can expect them to ask a lot of why questions.
• You can expect that you will be asked questions you’ve not anticipated at all.

There’s a lot you can expect even if you can’t know what questions you’ll get until you’re in your viva. You can have very good guesses because of your knowledge and experience: you know your work better than anyone else.

When it comes to expecting questions at your viva you can’t know it all but you can expect a lot. Make sure that you invest time in preparing to respond to your examiners’ questions.