One month to go, what's the best way to spend it?

[uhurulol]

So I'm sure others are in the same boat, and I'm wondering at this point what the best thing to do to ensure a decent score on the PGRE is? Formulas to have memorized, important concepts to understand, etc. I have the "White Book" and I'm going through parts that I'm iffy on, and it seems to help. Comparing it to the practice GREs it seems to be a bit harder in comparison, so that's a plus in a way. Handling GRE type problems seems easier.

My school doesn't offer a lot of the courses that teach some of the material on the PGRE. Should I make sure to learn the basis of these subjects, or polish up my knowledge of E&M/Classical and the other bulkier subjects?

Thanks in advance, and good luck future test takers

[Catria]

So I'm sure others are in the same boat, and I'm wondering at this point what the best thing to do to ensure a decent score on the PGRE is? Formulas to have memorized, important concepts to understand, etc. I have the "White Book" and I'm going through parts that I'm iffy on, and it seems to help. Comparing it to the practice GREs it seems to be a bit harder in comparison, so that's a plus in a way. Handling GRE type problems seems easier.

My school doesn't offer a lot of the courses that teach some of the material on the PGRE. Should I make sure to learn the basis of these subjects, or polish up my knowledge of E&M/Classical and the other bulkier subjects?

Thanks in advance, and good luck future test takers

If you take the PGRE with little knowledge of the advanced topics, you can still go up to the 60-70th percentile or so. And, as you said in the other post, you want to pursue an astronomy PhD, where even a 50th percentile won't kill you.

[uhurulol]

That's good to hear. Other than E&M and Classical Mechanics, what would you say would be the best PGRE subjects to study in the coming month?

[djh101]

One month? Mine is tomorrow!

For me, it was the collision and Newton's law problems, actually, that I would get stuck on, so I've been doing lots of problems out of Young & Freedman on momentum, energy, collisions, torque, etc. Sign conventions for optics also get me a lot, so I've been reviewing that. Fluid flow came up on the most recent practice test, so know a little bit about that. I actually have six pages of equations written out: statistical mechanics and thermo (I actually saved this from the class), E&M, Classical Mechanics, Optics, Relativity, and Atomic.

[djh101]

In addition to the above, be sure to know a little bit about solid state and particle physics. Lepton number has to be conserved except in weak interactions, protons and neutrons are baryons, electrons are leptons; p-doped are doped with an element with less valence electrons, n-doped with more, resistivity of a conductor increases with temperature except with a semiconductor (which is the opposite), BCS theory says that electrons interact with cooper pairs.

[wompwomp]

Tomorrow for me too! Will make or break my applications this year.

I had a disastrous application cycle last year - completely effed up my time management during the PGRE, and couldn't even get to 20+ questions. Terrible score, obviously.

There's a warning lesson to y'all. Do not, ever, get bogged down in a question. You might feel that you're SO CLOSE to the answer, but you have to realize that you can always come back to it. I'm setting a personal goal of 2.5 minutes for a question, tops, but it so hard to follow!

Good luck everyone!