English language

Doctoral study at the Faculty of Pharmacy, CU is performed by the credit system according to an individual study plan created by the supervisor. According to this curriculum the student of the doctoral study programme is obliged to take in the first year of the study an examination of English for academic purposes. The examination date is the subject of an agreement between the student and the examiner. An approximate date by which the PhD student is to sit for an examination is stated in the PhD student´s individual study plan.

Preparation for the examination takes the form of individual or group consultations mostly on Friday at 10:30 to 12:00 hrs unless the teacher or the student/s agree on another date. Students are informed about consultation hours by e-mail. Thematically the preparation for the examination is based on the study materials used in daily master´s degree studies. In the consultations we focus on discussion of the selected topic and its extension by using the knowledge and information that the students have acquired in the course of their further studies or the information which the students have specifically prepared for the topic. At this stage of the study we pay great attention to professional translation with an emphasis on the most common grammatical specifics of English academic texts.

The examination consists of two parts, written and oral.

The written part includes:

a) test focused on grammar and language structures (the correct use of English tenses, transformation of sentences, word formation, correction of mistakes etc.)
b) translation of a scientific or popular scientific text from Slovak to English. When selecting the text we take into account the student´s professional orientation.


The oral part - Interview:
The theme of the interview comes out of the student´s dissertation thesis and has a form of a dialogue during which the examiner can ask variety of questions concerning the aim of the dissertation thesis, the current state of knowledge on the topic, theoretical fundamentals of its future solution, analysis of methodological approach to solving the given topic and the extent to which the thesis has been compiled so far, the student´s own contribution to the issue, topicality of the chosen issue , the possibility of cooperation with other academic and scientific workplaces and institutions both at home and abroad, etc.


Evaluation:
The examination is evaluated with the words : passed / not passed, unlike in the past when the grading scale: 1 - excellent, 2 - very good, 3 - good, 4 - failed was used and it still appears on the student´s examination report.
The number of credits given for the examination: 10