Area Tested High Pass Pass Fail
Critical analytical skill applied to interpretation of audiovisual text
  • Extensive and insightful taxonomy of formal audiovisual elements
  • Extensive and insightful causal connections between media aesthetics and rhetoric in relation to social and historical context
  • Insightful, persuasive expression of reading
  • Correct and perceptive taxonomy of formal audiovisual elements
  • Causal connections between media aesthetics and rhetoric in relation to social and historical context
  • Competent expression of reading
  • Incorrect taxonomy of formal audiovisual elements
  • Few clear causal connections between media aesthetics and rhetoric in relation to social and historical context
  • Incompetent expression of reading
Knowledge of critical and production terminology
  • Highly fluent in critical and production terminology
  • Extensive mastery of audiovisual narrative conventions
  • Proficient in critical and production terminology
  • Good working knowledge of audiovisual narrative conventions
  • Weak or flawed grasp of critical and production terminology
  • Weak or flawed knowledge of audiovisual narrative conventions
Ability to demonstrate, via essay, comprehension of and engagement with scholarship
  • Clear, insightful thesis
  • Evidence always supports arguments
  • Strong grasp of work's relation to field
  • Organization fully supports thesis
  • Effective, graceful style abetting meaning, free of grammatical error
  • Clear thesis
  • Evidence generally supports arguments
  • Grasps work's relation to field
  • Organization generally supports thesis
  • No significant style or grammar problems interfering with meaning
  • No clear thesis
  • Evidence fails to support arguments
  • Weak grasp of work's relation to field
  • Unclear organization
  • Persistent style and grammar problems interfering with comprehension

Nota bene: To pass the examination, students must earn a "pass" for all three sections of the exam. The honorific "Pass with Distinction" is awarded to students earning "High Pass" on at least two sections of the exam, and not failing any portion on the first attempt; "Pass with Distinction" is recorded on the student's academic transcript.  Students who fail any part of the exam in January will be required to re-take all three parts of the exam in April.  Any student who does not pass the exam after two attempts in 2014 will have to defer graduation until 2015, after passing the exam when it is next offered (January 2015).