New Physics GRE sample exams and review material

[YF17A]

Hi all,

A couple months ago I posted that another grad student and I were writing a review book for the Physics GRE. While the book is not yet in final form, we wanted to make at least some of the material available to those who will be taking the exam this October and November. Our website, http://physicsgreprep.com, is now live and contains one sample exam with solutions for sale, as well as a good deal of review material available for free. Two more sample exams with solutions will be posted by Sunday or so, and the rest of the review material will follow incrementally over the next couple months.

As always, comments are welcome - we have contact information on the site, but feel free to post here as well.

Thanks for all of your support for this project, and best of luck studying!

A quick note about courtesy: this material represents a substantial effort on my and my co-author's part. We would greatly appreciate any efforts to avoid piracy of the sample exams. In particular, if I see any of them posted on this forum, I will ask a moderator to remove them. Consider it $8-12 to support two starving grad students

[llamacheez]

Hey everyone, just wanted to let you know I guinea pigged myself on this one and tried buying it. It was through paypal, and within a minute of the purchase going through, a link to the pdf was emailed to me, and it downloaded successfully. I'll probably take it tomorrow, and I'll post my thoughts. I didn't purchase the solutions yet, though it is very likely I will after I take it.

[Minovsky]

The review material looks pretty good so far. One thing I would add is what/when info for when you do updates. That will make it easier to tell if we're all caught up on everything you've posted. Also, is the review material always going to be free, or is it only free until you get the paper version up?

[YF17A]

Good idea about the update info. The review material is free now because it's far from polished form, and will be incorporated as part of a book which will include the exams and sell for $40 or so. But if you're taking the test in October or November, the reviews will all be free till then.

[InquilineKea]

Wow - so cool - thanks!

[ali8]

I have sent you an email but no reply.

Anyway:

Will the $40-book be available for buying as a pdf e-book?

Or it will only be a printed version? (Which is a bad idea, IMHO).

[YF17A]

The book will definitely be available in print, and will probably be available as an e-book as well. Piracy is a significant concern, as well as the fact that Amazon's Kindle publishing option is not compatible at all with documents with lots of graphics. We may try to go through the iTunes store or something like that, but the full book is at least a couple months away at this point.

[ali8]

Piracy is a an equally likely concern with e-book as it is with printed book.

Just surf the web and look at the thousands of printed book which was scanned

and uploaded online. So, you cannot counterfeit piracy by not providing a pdf version.

I am still waiting the full book in pdf version, and will be willing to pay even 25% more.

[llamacheez]

I took the first exam. I haven't gone through the solutions yet. Anyway, I did significantly worse than I did on the 0177 exam I took a week prior (80 raw score --> 60 raw score). Shows there's plenty to learn!

I would encourage the authors to get the other two exams out ASAP (like in the next week) if they want to capitalize on the October test-taker market (for example, me). I would also personally appreciate it .

Best of luck!

[Minovsky]

Piracy is a an equally likely concern with e-book as it is with printed book.

Just surf the web and look at the thousands of printed book which was scanned

and uploaded online. So, you cannot counterfeit piracy by not providing a pdf version.

I am still waiting the full book in pdf version, and will be willing to pay even 25% more.

Considering how pirating a pdf takes as much effort as uploading a single file to the internet and pirating a book means taking the time to cleanly scan 200+ pages and then combining each file into a single file or uploading 200+ individual files to the internet, a hard copy makes it much less likely to be pirated. Have you ever tried to copy an entire book onto the internet? Its a lot more work than you think it is.

Yes, it is possible to pirate a printed book, I would not say that it is an "equally likely concern" versus a pdf. I'm actually glad its available in hard print since I'm more comfortable with print than e-print.

[YF17A]

Sample Exams 2 and 3, and solutions, have now been posted. Enjoy!

[InquilineKea]

Are any updated subject reviews available?