Customer Reviews

GRE Physics (REA) - The Best Test Prep for the GRE (GRE Test Preparation)

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2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(30)

 

 

I have a couple of serious criticisms for this book.

First, the review is not terribly helpful. If you know *everything* in the review section, you would probably be alright for the Physics GRE. But generally people retain less than what they actually read, so it's unlikely that you'd learn it all. The review essentially consists of a series of key equations without much to help you understand the underlying physics. You'd be much better off working problems in text books and ETS practice exams, as others have suggested.

Second, also as others have argued, the problems in this book are inordinately difficult. It's not that these problems are in and of themselves too difficult -- given enough time, most future physicists could work most of these problems. The issue is that by and large, these questions would *not* be asked on a GRE, simply because many of them take far too long to solve. It's difficult for me to believe that most people who did well on the GRE would be able to solve the majority of these problems in a 170 minute time frame. The problems in the ETS text are much more realistic.

But as general advice to those taking the test, you should know that working problems on the test itself is a very different "game" from working general physics problems. It's a multiple choice test by construction, so of course there are techniques for getting the right answer that don't exist in real life. Therefore, taking tests that are accurate to the real thing is most helpful. In that regard, this book really comes up short.

Something to also consider is that the questions in the ETS tests have been rigorously checked for clarity and correctness (they are actual former tests, after all), so it's virtually impossible that a question would contain errors. This book has maybe been looked at by a few people, but not nearly to the extent as the ETS questions.

In sum: get the ETS book, and read a lot of textbooks and work the problems.

I started reviewing for the Physics GRE 6 months before I took it and it gave me very false impressions of what the test would be like. Based on the book I studied many obscure fields of physics as well as advanced vector and tensor manipulations. But when I got the practice test ETS gives out, I realized I wasn't prepared for the test. This test, like every other ETS test ever made, tests you on subject material 2 years beneath you and separtes 990s from 700s with dirty tricks as well as problems that you basically have to had memorized coming into the test. Here are my complaints:

1. Questions did not reflect real test.
2. Practice tests requires a calculator to do, real test does not and in fact a calculator is not allowed on it. Sets bad habits.
3. Review looks like someone cut and pasted it. Explanations are poor and incomplete.
4. There were no actual test taking strategies, just the review of material and the practice tests.

End result: It's not good for test, it not a good reference, I might recommend it to teachers as a source of problems, but other than that, it is worthless.

Rather than write another review here, I will instead include the letter I was compelled to write to REA when I purchased this book:

I am writing to express my deep disappointment in your Physics Subject test GRE study guide. I found its review section inconsistent and incomplete, and the sample tests utterly failed to match the tone or content of the real exam itself.

As for the review section, it was disappointing enough itself. Your Temperature section spends its entirety discussing the different units used to measure the property. THIS IS NOT GRE MATERIAL. If a senior year physics student cannot change between Celsius and Kelvin in his sleep, I assure you, he has no aspirations of continuing study in the field. Frankly, he does not even have any business doing so. The rest of the Thermodynamics section suffers the same failing. The three laws of thermodynamics are the starting point for any college level thermodynamics coarse, yet they close your discussion of the topic. This book fails to purvey any of the complexities of this broad, interesting, and very difficult field. There is no mention at all of statistical physics, which is an entire branch of physics which is on the test. While this thermodynamics section was the worst part, there are many problems in the rest of the book. Optics ray traces are ambiguously and inconsistently labeled. The book does a poor job of differentiating equations that are part of a derivation from those which will be encountered on the test. There is no mention of inductance in the electromagnetism section, though I encountered this topic several times in actual tests (both practice and real). Impedance is also not mentioned in the circuits section. The quantum mechanics section is cut short with no mention of any of the kind of material that would be encountered in a second course, such as spin, angular momentum, and electron transition rules. Again, these are on the test.

Further, your sample tests did not match up well with my experience of the actual content of the test. The GRE is not designed to be a test of student's algebra. Numerical values are very rarely given for the relevant properties in a question. As such, students are tested based on knowledge of equations and unit analysis kinds of rules-of-thumb. However, your sample tests included numerical substitutions in most problems, and thus tested algebra abilities heavily. Students are not allowed calculators at the test, so time spent on calculation is wasted. In fact, I found that ability to test formulaic answer choices by unit analysis was one of the best approaches to novel or difficult problems. Had I relied heavily on your book, I would not have learned this.

I'm sure I could catalogue more important subjects that were missed, and find more confusing notation. Frankly, though, I do not have the time to waste with this book. Please realize that I understand that compiling the entire subject of physics in a single volume is a very difficult task. However, in order for a book to be worthwhile for GRE preparation, it must be much more complete and better organized. I consider this book a waste of my $28.95 and the valuable time I could have been studying more useful resources.

I write not to ridicule or be combative. There are not many physics GRE study guides available, and a good one would be tremendously helpful to those preparing for this difficult and stressful test. The inclusion of practice tests with explained answers is a great idea. This book does have potential, but it is not a good resource as of right now. It most certainly not "The Best Test Preparation for the GRE." I suggest a full review and rewrite of this book. I trust that, with some work, the REA can put out a study guide that is truly helpful to physics students. Please consider my encouragement to do so.

Thank you for your time.

I read all the scathing reviews of this book, and I believed them, which was too bad for me, because I never bought this book, and it would have helped me a lot. But a friend gave me her old copy, and I tucked it on the shelf believing the Amazon reviewers who proclaimed it useless. A year later, I'm preparing for the Physics GRE using all the standard methods, studying old GRE Physics tests, looking at undergraduate texts, etc..

But then I noticed that this book has a fairly decent (very concise) review section in the front, so I figured it might make interesting reading. There are some mistakes, but for the most part it is decent. Then I started working on the problems, not rigourously, just doing order-of-magnitude estimates of them in my head when I could find a few minutes of time here and there.

It is true that the problems are a bit different from the Physics GRE, but mainly in that they are harder, not easier. Another difference is that to solve the problems in this book you either need a calculator, a few minutes to do the calculations by hand, or you'll need to make rough estimates of the calculations. I chose the latter. The physics GRE usually poses the problems in such a way that you don't need to do much 'cipherin.

And of course there are typographical errors and such in the book, which are annoying.

But none of these problems kill the book. If you have enough time before the test, this is a good workout tool. Of course you'll still need the old ETS tests, and www.physicsgre.com, but this is a good place to hone the skills before you jump into the old tests. This book gives the answers to each problem, which allows for faster preparation until you're ready for the old ETS tests.

Like all of REA's books, this one requires some adjustment. REA is the kind of publisher that is not too rigorous with their production and editing methods. But they do seem to have a knack for hiring people that understand the subjects. This book was written by people that know how to focus on the essential points of physics.

It's useful. And considering the physics GRE costs $130 to take, spending a few bucks on this book is not out of line.

I can understand all of the bad reviews of the books. But given the fact that this is only one of two books to prepare for the physics GRE, the complaints are not really justified. If you believe the anti-hype, then you'll miss out on an effective way to add a few points to your score.Two friends who scored in the 90th percentile used this book as a rough intro to the tests.

I borrowed this book from a friend who had used it to study for the GREs the year before. I had always thought that REA was a good company for test prep books, but when I started going over the review sections, I found them far too simplistic for what I imagined the GRE would be like (as it turned out, I was right), and I also found them riddled with typos. e gets replaced with c, h with b, and funniest of all, pi gets replaced with n, very frequently. Plus, the practice tests do not mirror the actual exam.

However, the book I had been using had been passed down from year to year, and it had been printed in 1992. I thought that surely the typoes must have been corrected (and at least, the book must have been rewritten in Latex with better graphs -- although I got a good laugh at the jagged sine waves). So, I bought a new copy of the book, took it home, and immediately took it back. It hadn't changed! Every typo was still there, and the practice tests hadn't been modified in the least. Same bad book, prettier packaging. What have the people at REA been doing with their time for the last 8 years? It's an utter waste of $30.

This book is both overpriced (compared to ETS's GRE prep book) and fantastically worthless. I took the GRE Physics test a few years ago and there was nothing about this book that was worth looking at. I was further reminded of its glorious wastefulness when I co-taught a GRE-prep seminar for our astronomy majors this past fall. All of the instructors had the same low opinion of this volume. To teach the seminar, we turned either to the ETS volume or we made up our own problems. To review the physics, we went back to the basic texts. (Griffiths, Marion and Thornton, etc.) We went so far as to specifically warn our students against this book.

To extol it's lack of virtues:
* The review is too short to be of any use on a test as involved and carefully crafted at the GRE. Worse than short, it's shallow to boot. Memorizing a few equations will get you slaughtered on the GRE. You need understanding in addition to being able to marshall the basic equations.
* The problems are horrible. They're actually harder than the GRE problems, for a start. They test memorization rather than understanding. (Many GRE problems are actually pretty easy if you understand the underlying physics. Equations are frequently even unnecessary.)

In short, don't buy this book. You'll waste your money (the ETS book, which you can order when you register for the GRE, is a lot cheaper) and your time. And that's optimistic as you might set youself up to *fail* the GRE if you trust this waste of paper. So leave this page now!

Having gone through the rigors of being a Physics undergrad required to take the Physics GRE to get to grad school, I would not reccomend this book as a good study aid. With all due respect to the author(s?), the tests are simply not on the same level as the actual Physics GRE - the problems are way too involved (too many steps and too many numbers) and require memorization of some facts that need not be memorized for the real exam.

A much better course of action would be to purchase the book published by the ETS. I would also get the newest edition of Halliday, Resnick, Walker as well as a good modern physics book to use as study materials. A complete mastery of the content of those texts, coupled with a VERY rudimentary understanding of higher-level E&M, classical mechanics, and quantum mechanics can get a student into the 70th-80th percentile.

This book is not that effective in studying for the physics GRE. Most of the problems would NEVER be asked on a GRE (~70%). Only about 30% of the problems are useful, and I would say that the physics review is not even that good. To put things in perspective, I found the ETS book to be FAR more helpful, even though it contains no solutions and 3 tests. (As opposed to Molitoris which contains 4 tests with solutions.) Also, the solutions are filled with mistakes.

Contains a lot of misprintings and mistakes. Solutions are often not economical enough for GRE test. Overview of material is bulky on simple points and does not cover a minimal scope. I would certainly recommend not to waste money on such a book.

There are many other reviews saying exactly the same thing, so I'll keep this short and to the point. This is useless as a preparation for the GRE Physics subject test. Many of the questions require a calculator, which of course means they aren't very close to questions you can expect on the actual test. Some have argued that the book is still nice because it gives a concise summary of major topics which will be on the test, but really all it gives is lists of formulae. Assuming you've taken physics courses, you should have all this material in your textbooks and course notes anyway. There is absolutely no reason to spend your money on this book.