Programs

Careers · Self-serve

Exam Viva

Oral defence, including unprepared questions

Three simulations, each built around your field, your level and the work you are defending. Unlimited attempts.

3 rooms · about 35 min

Who it's for: Anyone facing an oral examination on their own work: a doctoral viva, a dissertation or a project defence, at any level of study.
Format: Self-serve
Program sessions: 3

Who it's for

Anyone facing an oral examination on their own work: a doctoral viva, a dissertation or a project defence, at any level of study.

Output

A scored report after every room, with the moment that earned each score and one recommended focus
A trajectory across every attempt
A record of the questions you found hardest and where your own notes needed fixing
Scored against published frameworks: the Minto Pyramid Principle, Aristotelian rhetoric, source monitoring, and relevant and sufficient answers

Program contents

Command of the material · Test your knowledge
Holding the argument · Presentation Under Pressure
Defending the record · Hearing Preparation

How the program works

A self-serve program for anyone defending their own thesis, dissertation or written work under oral examination, built on Renatus. Three simulation rooms · Three weeks, one room a week · Unlimited attempts · Ongoing thereafter.

The rooms

Test your knowledge

Simulation

Calibration: the confirmed topic and scope, the selected listener archetype and the selected challenge level.

Presentation Under Pressure

Simulation

Calibration: role title, audience, industry or sector, and a line of working context.

Hearing Preparation

Simulation

Calibration: your role as the candidate defending the position, the side or position you are rehearsing, the forum type (choose "other hearing setting" for a defence or viva panel), the challenge level (measured, firm or highly challenging, to match how hard your panel is expected to push), your field, and a line on the thesis.

Why this program exists

You have one chance to defend years of work to people whose only job that day is to find its weak points. A viva or oral defence asks you to explain your reasoning, apply it to a case you have not prepared for, say where a claim stops being true, and say "I don't know" cleanly rather than guess your way past it. This program prepares you through simulation. Ren builds each room from your own topic, your own argument and your own thesis, and plays the examiner, the audience or the panel in it, so every run moves with what you say.

What you'll achieve

Rehearsal of the moments that decide a defence: the question you did not prepare for, the boundary of what you know, the passage in your own thesis you must be able to point to
A scored report after every room: each dimension with the moment that earned its score, strengths, development areas, blind spots where the evidence shows them, and one recommended focus with a first step
Your thesis tested on its own terms: what you can defend from the record, where it stops being true, and what a panel could press
Unlimited attempts at every room, each a new run at the calibration you set, scored on the same dimensions and charted against every attempt before it

At a glance

Who it's for: Doctoral candidates before a viva, master's and final-year students before a dissertation or project defence, and anyone facing an oral examination on their own written work. Every room calibrates to your field, your level and the document you are defending, so it serves a first-time candidate and someone returning after a deferred defence. It assumes you have a finished or near-finished thesis, dissertation or piece of work, and a defence date in view.
Cadence: 3 weeks
1: Command of the material · Test your knowledge · Read Handling the Unknown and the evidence check; fix the gaps in your notes
2: Holding the argument · Presentation Under Pressure · Read Question Response and Poise; note the two hardest questions
3: Defending the record · Hearing Preparation · Read Knowledge boundaries and Controlled precision under challenge; note where the record and your memory did not agree

Session by session

Week 1: Command of the material

Establish how well you know your chosen topic: the mechanism behind it, its application to something you have not prepared for, and where it stops being true.

Test your knowledge

Week 2: Holding the argument

Deliver your lead argument to a demanding audience, use your evidence when they push back, and answer the question you were asked.

Presentation Under Pressure

Week 3: Defending the record

Answer directly and accurately from your own thesis: what it says, what it does not say, and what you know first-hand against what you read, were told, or worked out.

Hearing Preparation

Three rooms, run weekly, measured over time.

Start program

Whether a market is real, where it is growing, and where the opportunity sits

How an entire industry is structured, who controls it, and where it is heading

Who controls a market, how they compete, and where the real gaps are

Who buys in a market, what drives their decisions, and where the unmet needs are

What competitors charge in a market, how pricing is structured, and what customers will pay

Who supplies the critical inputs to a market, how concentrated it is, and what switching costs

The technology deployed in a sector, and where competitive advantage moves next

How product reaches the buyer in a market, and where channel power is shifting

Financials, leadership, strategy, and reputation on a company

Deep dive into how a company operates strategically, and where it is most exposed

Revenue, margins, cash, debt, and auditor signals on a company

How a company is perceived across customers, employees, media, and ESG

Discover a country's GDP, political environment, infrastructure, and outlook

Discover a city's GDP, economic drivers, workforce, and trajectory

Trade flows, tariffs, agreements, and friction points between two countries

Background, current state, key actors, evidence, and where an issue is heading

What a policy does, who wins and loses, and how it lands in practice

The specific risks facing a market — ranked, evidenced, and with the signals to watch

Single-source exposures, concentration, and trade-route risk for a market

Climate, governance, social, and controversy risk in a sector

Pending legislation, enforcement shifts, and where the rules are likely to change

Licensing, compliance, recent changes, and pending legislation in a jurisdiction

Government stability, policy direction, and the political risks facing a market

What a role pays — verified across named salary databases and job posting data

Whether to take a job at a company, with the evidence behind the answer

Who the credible candidates are, what they earn, and how the search will unfold

How a career in an industry works — entry, paths, pay, and prospects

The three things that will move a business forward this quarter

A 90-day plan that turns a strategy into something a team can act on Monday

Segment, positioning, channels, and pricing — tested against each other so the four hold together

A positioning the market can place — and a category claim worth defending

A pricing strategy that the market accepts and the business can defend in negotiation

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Dashboard, thresholds and owners

Targets, thresholds and cadence

Whether an opportunity is worth pursuing — with conditions or risks named

The real problem behind the surface one, with options and a recommended next step

How a business creates, delivers, and captures value — and where it is exposed

Where work is breaking, where capability is missing, and the one structural change worth making

Build, buy, partner, or wait — with the killer assumption named

Whether a specific partnership is worth pursuing — with the asymmetries named

The right financing structure for the opportunity — tested against fit, cost, and flexibility

A fundraise structured to close on terms worth living with

Every variance classified — structural, timing, one-off or noise — with the call the pattern demands

How long the cash lasts across three scenarios, with the killer assumption named

Whether the per-unit economics hold up — with the killer assumption named

Whether the pay set serves the talent strategy, with the cost of fixing it

A board report that lands the narrative, the KPIs, the exceptions, and the decisions requested

What metrics are missing, misleading, or quietly rewarding the wrong thing

A complete business plan ready to put in front of investors, partners, or a board

A career decision weighed against criteria that matter, with a pre-mortem and a verdict

What matters most, what you would give up, and what stays true under pressure

Which option holds up under income loss, rate moves, or a downturn

A relocation decision and plan, with the trade-offs each destination forces

What the culture is like — values in practice, leadership behaviour, and where the gap sits

Strategy clarity, alignment, talent density, ways of working, and trust in leadership

What's energising people, what's draining them, and the levers that would move engagement

The patterns in how a person handles pressure, conflict, collaboration, and decisions

PENDING — product being redesigned. See Replit brief.

How a person leads — defaults, strengths, blind spots, and development areas

Real strengths backed by evidence — and the cost each one carries when overplayed

The values revealed by what a person has held the line on, refused, or regretted

What every role owns, what's silently dropped, and which handoffs are breaking

Where the team is aligned on priorities and goals, and where dangerous gaps sit

Where trust, conflict handling, and accountability are strong — and where they break

Any subject explained to a real listener, scored on accuracy, depth, audience adaptation, and handling the unknown

A presentation rehearsal scored on lead argument, evidence, question response, and poise

A stakeholder-influence rehearsal scored on reading the room, framing, negotiation, and durability

A managing-up rehearsal scored on positioning, evidence, flexibility, and outcome

A meeting rehearsal scored on structure, air-time management, progress, and closure

The conversation that's been avoided, with an assessment of how the conversation went

A saying-no rehearsal scored on clarity, rationale, alternative, and relationship

A performance-conversation rehearsal scored on clarity, ownership, empathy, and path forward

A team-conflict rehearsal scored on directness, fairness, action, and aftercare

A hiring interview rehearsal scored on question design, follow-up, bias, and assessment integrity

A leadership crisis scored on decision quality, communication, strategy, and pressure response

A negotiation rehearsal scored on preparation, anchoring, concession pattern, and pressure response

A strategic-decision rehearsal scored on framing, information use, trade-off recognition, and time horizon

An ethics rehearsal where the right path is costly, scored on recognition and response

A prioritisation rehearsal scored on triage, trade-off recognition, communication, and revisability