Page 1 of 1
Be Careful When Using the REA GRE Physics Book
Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2004 1:24 am
by Imaginary_Friend
I wasted a lot of time working through problems in the REA book. It is full of errors and problems that are way too difficult for the physics GRE. I would be careful not to spend too much time on any one problem.
yea the purple book should be used in a discerning manner
Posted: Sat Jun 26, 2004 1:52 am
by Grant
Good point Imaginary_Friend. I wasted a lot of time with that book as well.
However, there are still lots of good problems in that book. I actually found that many of the difficult problems were quite easy to solve if I focused on eliminating answer choices. For example it would take 20 minutes to solve a problem completely but after further examination one could have eliminated 3 answer choices in a matter of seconds and then with some simplifications and approximations one could work it down to one remaining answer choice at least make a very good guess. These types of answer elimination skills and guesses are good to practice.
Posted: Sat Jul 17, 2004 3:36 am
by perihelion
Grant, are you talking to yourself? Silly rabbit, trix are for kids
Posted: Sat Oct 09, 2004 5:20 am
by Astro
this "purple book," as it seems to be affectionately named, is the only source that I have had until finding this site. I plan to take the test in november, but I don't feel all that confident... I feel like I have no way of learning all of the topics that will be covered on my own in a month. anyway, there were a few problems in that book that made it seem like calculators were necessary. There's no way that calculators are allowed or expected for the test, right?
P.S. Any help in general would also be appreciated!!!
Posted: Tue Oct 19, 2004 6:42 pm
by Miles
Hey, first of all you shouldn't need or use a calculator on the test. However, you will have to do some calculation. The calculations can usually be done, however, by rounding off physical constants and stuff like that. Question #91 (if I remember right) in GR8677 is typical of this kind of problem.
Also, you are right - you won't be able to learn all of the material on the exam in a month. In fact, you wouldn't be able to given a year. There's always some random questions that you can't predict. So, what you should do is get good at recognizing questions that are out of your league and then skipping them. It's an essential strategy.
Miles