Physics 990
GRE Preparation
Useful
Texts:
Fundamentals of Physics by
Halliday, Resnick and Walker
Physics by
Ohanion
Physics for Scientists and
Engineers by Fishbane, Gasiorowicz and
Thornton
Quantum Physics by
Eisberg and Resnick
If you have not seen
Statistical Mechanics and Thermodynamics, there are some
good texts at roughly the
right level:
Fundamentals of Statistical and
Thermal Physics by Reif
Thermal Physics by Kittel
and Kroemer
Location &
Time: W 5:30-6:30 (tentative) in KPTC 105
First meeting October 6. Exam date: November 13.
Teaching Assistant: Jon Van Schelt
Mailing List
Although
the GRE Physics exam is not a good indicator of future success
in research, it can play an important role in the graduate admissions
decision at many Physics departments.
The goal of this very informal course will be to help you improve your
performance
on the exam. The exam primarily covers Freshman level physics and there
will
be some review of that material. Most of the review is your
responsibility and
we hope you will have already started serious review over the summer.
The course will cover a variety of techniques which are useful in test
taking
situations; for example, making quick estimates, taking limits, answer analysis
and
the critical skill of dimensional analysis! We will use earlier GRE exams to
demonstrate
these techniques.
In addition, a few practice exams will be administered under realistic
test taking
conditions before the actual exam.
Registration:
Make sure you register for the exam early!
There are a limited number of spaces available close to the University. You
want to minimize the need to travel for the test.
Additional
Information:
The official GRE website can be reached here.
Googling "physics GRE" will give you lots of websites including support
groups,
physics department web sites and access to various kinds of statistics on the
physics GRE.
Some of this might be useful or interesting.
Score Reporting: you will be asked to report the results of all three
practice
exams and your real GRE score. This information will be kept confidential.