The student and examining committee generally meet for two hours in a conference room. First, the student is asked to make an oral presentation of his/her research, and to explain and defend the topic and conclusions. The presentation is usually about half an hour in length, not counting interruptions for questions. The duration of the presentation, as well as the material (slides, etc.) to be used for the presentation should be arranged some weeks in advance of the examination by consultation betwen the student and the chair of the examining committee.
The remaining time is devoted to questioning the student. Students should expect to be asked questions about their research, including technical questions, questions about the significance of the work, and questions about the relationship of the work to other work in the same research area.
Students should also expect to do some problem-solving at the blackboard and to explain their approaches orally as they attack problems. The problems to be solved will typically be based on material the student has learned in the three core areas in which he or she has qualified. Questions may be quite different from typical written examination questions in the same fields, however. The feedback available in an oral exam allows examiners to ask poorly-defined questions for which necessary data is not given.
Ability to refine a fuzzy question and to realize what data are required is a part of problem-solving ability. Take advantage of the feedback to ask for, or to suggest, assumptions or data required to make sense of the problem and to solve it.