question about which book to use and another one.

[shikicat]

Hello,
I have a couple questions. First of all, I am using the 2nd Ed. Randall D. Knight book as my main book, and I was trying to find out if anyone else uses or used it, but it didn't come up in a search of the forum. What is your opinion? Is that a good book to use?

Second, I will be getting more time to take the GRE because of a learning disability. Does anyone know if that could cause a school to be more inclined to reject me? The SAT had a comment on my sent scores that I received extra time, so I am guessing the GRE scores will have the same comment. The thing is I think it will be nearly impossible for me to do well on the GRE without the extra time because my l.d. causes me to work much slower than normal and the GRE is all about solving everything fast. So I am trying to figure out what I should do.

Thank you for your opinions!

[grae313]

Hello,
I have a couple questions. First of all, I am using the 2nd Ed. Randall D. Knight book as my main book, and I was trying to find out if anyone else uses or used it, but it didn't come up in a search of the forum. What is your opinion? Is that a good book to use?

Second, I will be getting more time to take the GRE because of a learning disability. Does anyone know if that could cause a school to be more inclined to reject me? The SAT had a comment on my sent scores that I received extra time, so I am guessing the GRE scores will have the same comment. The thing is I think it will be nearly impossible for me to do well on the GRE without the extra time because my l.d. causes me to work much slower than normal and the GRE is all about solving everything fast. So I am trying to figure out what I should do.

Thank you for your opinions!

Any comprehensive introductory physics text should be fine. It is illegal for a university to discriminate against people with disabilities.

[mhazelm]

That's the book my school uses for freshman physics courses. I think it's good, but not as good as Halliday Resnick - maybe see if your library has a copy of that one. It's hard for me to gauge how much it helped me though, because I did terrible on the subject GRE, but I also didn't READ the book much or do problems when I studied (i.e., I really didn't study very hard/ at all). It's probably a fine book to use, in any case.

As for the extra time, I think I remember reading on the ETS website that they don't share the extra time info. with schools. See
the website under "Resources for Test Takers with Disabilities" (it's a link on ETS website under the disabilities tab)

which says

'ETS has discontinued flagging almost all scores for tests that are taken with accommodations. For example, if a test taker receives additional time or extra breaks, the score will no longer be flagged in the reporting. In rare instances, ETS will flag the score report as a "nonstandard administration" if the test is significantly altered.'

Good luck!

[Helio]

My school used that book for like 3 years and then decided to switch to university physics because people were complaining. I dunno you will have to decide what you prefer, but i would say Halliday and Resnick or University Physics may be better

[cato88]

I would do
AP Physics C/B books/multiple choice=> Halliday/Resnick Review=> Modern Physics Review =>
Extras(Books on error analysis/ Statisctics/Lab Methods/Math Methods) => Look up definition
of Lagrangian/Hamiltonian=> One or two practice PGRE => Back to beggining but only
for polishing => Anything to speed you up on arithmetic/algebra calculations => third Practice GRE
=> AP Physics C multiple choice Old Exams and any other multiple choice physics =>
Last Practice GRE.

[grae313]

H&R is better but if you don't have access to it, don't go spending $100 just use your introductory text. It won't make a huge difference.

[shikicat]

Wow that was fast! Thank you all for your input! I have HRW, that was actually the book I used for the freshman classes. My school switched to the Knight book because they said the problems were much better, plus the author spent a lot of time researching which methods best teach students the material. I compared between the two books and just decided to use this one, but I don't know if I'm a good judge of which book is better. Why do you think HRW is better?

[coreycwgriffin]

Why do you think HRW is better?

It's been around since 1960, and the longer a book has been around/revised the better you can expect it to be, in general.

[Helio]

I would do
AP Physics C/B books/multiple choice=> Halliday/Resnick Review=> Modern Physics Review =>
Extras(Books on error analysis/ Statisctics/Lab Methods/Math Methods) => Look up definition
of Lagrangian/Hamiltonian=> One or two practice PGRE => Back to beggining but only
for polishing => Anything to speed you up on arithmetic/algebra calculations => third Practice GRE
=> AP Physics C multiple choice Old Exams and any other multiple choice physics =>
Last Practice GRE.

i dunno why you would even bother with the lab stuff... as long as you got the mechanics, e&m and thermo down really good you can forget about those questions really... they are nearly impossible most of the time anyway

[shikicat]

I see, that makes sense. Thanks!

[cato88]

i dunno why you would even bother with the lab stuff... as long as you got the mechanics, e&m and thermo down really good you can forget about those questions really... they are nearly impossible most of the time anyway

They are pretty easy if youre familiar with lab techniques and error propagation, I recall the log plot questions or the question or the error of a poisson measurement being the square root of that value. Isnt the idea to do the best you can on the PGRE. I am not sure about the OP plans but the PGRE seem to become progressively more important as you go up school rankings and it never hurts to do well on them.

[Helio]

i dunno why you would even bother with the lab stuff... as long as you got the mechanics, e&m and thermo down really good you can forget about those questions really... they are nearly impossible most of the time anyway

They are pretty easy if youre familiar with lab techniques and error propagation, I recall the log plot questions or the question or the error of a poisson measurement being the square root of that value. Isnt the idea to do the best you can on the PGRE. I am not sure about the OP plans but the PGRE seem to become progressively more important as you go up school rankings and it never hurts to do well on them.

Well those were the easy ones... i remember the ones from the Oct test and they were no where near these type of questions. it mostly had to a with circuitry

[cato88]

The dumb logic gate problems are easy too if you remember the definition and notation for it. They are too EE based to be on the PGRE in my opnion. However I would suggest the art of electronics for developing lab background.

[Helio]

The dumb logic gate problems are easy too if you remember the definition and notation for it. They are too EE based to be on the PGRE in my opnion. However I would suggest the art of electronics for developing lab background.

if you haven't done logic gates for some 7 years you are at a disadvantage

[cato88]

Is there anyone in this forum who can explain to me why logic gates are as equally represented as Lagrangian and Hamiltonians on the PGRE?

My theory is they are there to make a grade distribution which supports my view that the success on the PGRE is heavily about catering to the exam.

[nathan12343]

Is there anyone in this forum who can explain to me why logic gates are as equally represented as Lagrangian and Hamiltonians on the PGRE?

My theory is they are there to make a grade distribution which supports my view that the success on the PGRE is heavily about catering to the exam.

This sort of thinking assumes that the physics GRE is somehow testing one's knowledge of undergraduate physics, not test-taking ability/formula memorization.

[quizivex]

Is there anyone in this forum who can explain to me why logic gates are as equally represented as Lagrangian and Hamiltonians on the PGRE?

The most plausible explanation is that GRE problems are intended to take a few minutes at the most.... Lots of appropriate problems can be made out of basic electronics. OTOH, formal Lagrangian and Hamiltonian problems are quite tedious/lengthy and thus not appropriate.

They have to throw these topics in somewhere, since the GRE is supposed to be comprehensive (which is a good thing). But all they can do is basically make sure you know what the Lagrangian is and how to write it for a particular system... actually finding equations of motion would take too long. So there can't be much variety in these problems and so Lagrangians may only show up once or twice whereas problems exploiting center of mass properties may show up 5 times.