Hello - I don't think I met anyone in my graduate studies that was as scared of the viva as I was. I am not going to go into that now but honestly my fear was out of proportion - thinking about it now I should have seen a counsellor to get some help :-)

I passed my viva a few weeks ago with no corrections. One day before the viva I felt sick while reading it and intermittently cried a bit, I was convinced I was getting major corrections. I kept thinking of literature I hadn't discussed, of epistemological problems, of analysis issues etc. In my head there were major flaws. Noone bothered with them.

...Surprisingly enough I entered the room very calm, and it was way too easy - I was actually a bit disappointed as I was expecting an very challenging intellectual conversation. It was not that challenging.... They gave me strong hints I had done well at the very beginning (i.e. we really enjoyed it, great writing style, interesting and novel topic) so I felt more secure. They were friendly - nothing like the horror stories i had been reading! They did ask for a lot of clarifications, discussed things I didn't focus on and also focused on some broader issues, and it just lasted 70 minutes!

What they asked me in the end is whether I was expecting something different from the viva procedure I told them about those questions everyone prepares and they laughed - they said people overprepare sometimes and they fail to see this is a discussion where they basically defend their work, explain it better to other people, and get some helpful comments too. They only asked me about my original contributions btw.

I didn't do much before my viva as everything related to it was making me anxious. I read it 2-3 times - I love my topic but I found extremely boring to read it more than once. I then briefly practised speaking about some topics I thought they would ask about in the last evening and that was it. I too felt I could not handle speaking there but it all came naturally. Honestly, it's a cliche but you know your topic more than anyone else, and you'll be great!