Urgent Help Needed!

Hi everyone, I'm taking the PGRE on October 9 and so far I solved the 9677 and 0177 tests under test conditions and got 530 and 450 respectively. This means Homer Simpson knows more about physics than me!! I read both griffiths books and some chapters from serway, and I still feel like I'm not prepared enough. I'm freaking out! I'll register for the november test but I think the score then won't be so much higher. I'll even settle for a score in the 600s. Why is this exam so darn hard? Is it me, or are the two tests I solved extremely difficult for the PGRE? I had a look at 8677 and 9277 and noticed the questions are more user-friendly. Am I the only one who sees this?

Yup. Good luck.

This thread has a bunch of useful links:
viewtopic.php?f=18&t=2559

When I took them, I found the 0177 to be the easiest content wise, but that's just me.

Also, maybe you should go through and try to understand all the problems you couldn't solve:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2444

The general consensus is that 0177 is the easiest of the 4, though not everyone agrees. Make sure you use GREphysics.net (solutions to all practice exam problems) to help prepare. Learning to use tricks like limits and units is probably the easiest (effort wise) way to improve your score. Focus on the introductory physics like HRW, and don't spend too much time on Griffiths. A mastery of the simple stuff is all you need to get a solid score. Focus on the freshman and sophomore-level physics because that's the bulk of the test content and the easiest to get better at. Good luck.

Thanks guys I just returned from the test, I think I did far better than on the sample tests. But I only solved 51 questions. I think my score will be in the 700s if I'm lucky...

I really appreciate the advice

That's great!

But don't forget that results are normalized by exam difficulty, so a high raw score could mean a low final score if the exam was relatively easy (on the other hand, if it was hard it could be very high)