Book Review: A Review of Undergraduate Physics

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Grant
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Posts: 193
Joined: Tue May 11, 2004 7:55 pm

Book Review: A Review of Undergraduate Physics

Post by Grant » Thu Jul 08, 2004 10:58 pm

During the past year, the book A Review of Undergraduate Physics (isbn=0471816841) was the second most popular book bought by visitors to PhysicsGRE.com and I have not even linked to it until now (Reference the thread Popular Books for PhysicsGRE.com Visitors). Perhaps its popularity is because the title makes the book sound like it would be a great benefit to students preparing for the Physics GRE.

It would be great to get other peoples opinions on this book.

My OPINION about the book A Review of Undergraduate Physics (isbn=0471816841) is that it is a bit advanced to help the typical student prepare for the Physics GRE. The difficulty level is geared towards a test that is somewhere between the difficulty level of the GRE in physics and a graduate physics qualifier exam. If you have a solid foundation with the fundamentals and are working to improve your score from something like an 80% to a 95% score on the Physics GRE then this book would be a good review. However, if you are trying to improve from a 25% to a 50% score on the Physics GRE then your time would probably be better spent studying from your introductory physics book.

I think the book has lot of great problems with nice solutions but they are not multiple-choice and they are more involved than the typical problems you might expect to find on the Physics GRE. However, I do like this book and welcome it in my collection of physics books. It is a good review of upper division undergraduate physics and it would be a worthwhile supplement to your class texts and could help with homework problems. It may also be a good book to read and work through as you begin to prepare for your physics qualifier exam.

Basically I think A Review of Undergraduate Physics (isbn=0471816841) is a very good book but I do not think it is as well tailored to Physics GRE preparation as the title might suggest. I am interested in what other people think about this book.

doom
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue Oct 23, 2007 6:42 pm

Re: Book Review: A Review of Undergraduate Physics

Post by doom » Wed Jul 09, 2008 10:41 pm

It was written by two professors from the University of Minnesota, and it is based on their qualifying exam. I might get the book to study for quals, so I would expect it would not be the right book for the GRE.



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