Steve Tippins Ph.D. recommends reviewing past exam questions over several years to identify recurring themes. Take-home exams are graded more strictly because you can use resources, while in-person exams test what you've memorized.
One of the things you want to do is ask about previous comprehensive exams. What are the questions that have been asked? You're not going to get the same questions again, most likely. But if you get 2, 3, 4, 5 years worth of these, you'll get to see there's questions on this topic and questions on this topic. So it's going to help you prepare for the exam. One thing I've heard people say is, "Oh, it's much better to have a take-home where you get to prepare and you know the question." You know, I don't know if that's much better because if I'm giving something to take home, I can expect perfection because you now get access to anything you want to answer it versus, hey, here's a question, answer it right now. I may not expect as much perfection because you don't have access to all the literature in the world. You just have access to what you prepared for to take this comprehensive exam.
