what to study?

Post Reply
s87
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:20 am

what to study?

Post by s87 » Wed Feb 18, 2009 9:44 pm

I'm trying to focus my study for the April PGRE test. Which chapters/sections of the following texts do you think are most important to review?

Quantum: Griffiths (I also have Shankar and AP French, but Griffiths seems to be at a more GRE level)
E&M: Purcell (I also have Griffiths, but once again, Purcell seems more GRE-relevant)
StatMech: Schroeder (I also have Reif and Finkelstein)
Classical: Marion & Thornton and Kleppner & Kolenkow

Thanks for the advice!!

User avatar
Helio
Posts: 809
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:11 pm

Re: what to study?

Post by Helio » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:03 pm

s87 wrote:I'm trying to focus my study for the April PGRE test. Which chapters/sections of the following texts do you think are most important to review?

Quantum: Griffiths (I also have Shankar and AP French, but Griffiths seems to be at a more GRE level)
E&M: Purcell (I also have Griffiths, but once again, Purcell seems more GRE-relevant)
StatMech: Schroeder (I also have Reif and Finkelstein)
Classical: Marion & Thornton and Kleppner & Kolenkow

Thanks for the advice!!
For Classical Mech: You only need to know the formular for Lagranian that is. Haliday and resnik is more important here
StatMech Schroeder is fine most of the stuff can be find in Haliday and resnik
QM: Griffiths is the book to use
E&M:v Haliday and resnik and some griffiths

s87
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:20 am

Re: what to study?

Post by s87 » Wed Feb 18, 2009 10:41 pm

Thanks for the input. I was kind of hoping for a narrowing-down of which chapters to focus on, though. (Clearly I can't re-read all of all those texts between now and early april). Also, I don't have Haliday&Resnik, so that's out (I suppose I could go use the reserve copy at the library, but to be realistic, I'm probably to lazy for that, so I want to stick with books I own to build my study plan)

User avatar
Helio
Posts: 809
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:11 pm

Re: what to study?

Post by Helio » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:04 pm

s87 wrote:Thanks for the input. I was kind of hoping for a narrowing-down of which chapters to focus on, though. (Clearly I can't re-read all of all those texts between now and early april). Also, I don't have Haliday&Resnik, so that's out (I suppose I could go use the reserve copy at the library, but to be realistic, I'm probably to lazy for that, so I want to stick with books I own to build my study plan)
s87 wrote:Thanks for the input. I was kind of hoping for a narrowing-down of which chapters to focus on, though. (Clearly I can't re-read all of all those texts between now and early april). Also, I don't have Haliday&Resnik, so that's out (I suppose I could go use the reserve copy at the library, but to be realistic, I'm probably to lazy for that, so I want to stick with books I own to build my study plan)

Haliday&Resnik can be substituted by any undergrad intro text... University Physics, Ohanian... whatever you used in your undergrad intro series

Griffiths... just skim over it form EM the rest should all be in the intro text

Griffiths QM... just read the basic formulas that would be everyting that you really need. maybe read over it again

User avatar
dlenmn
Posts: 578
Joined: Mon Dec 03, 2007 10:19 pm

Re: what to study?

Post by dlenmn » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:16 pm

You might also want to throw in an intro to modern physics book like Beiser (isbn=0072448482). It covers relativity, atomic physics, nuclear physics, stat mech, solid state, particle physics, and a lot more at an intro level -- just right for the GRE. Most of the topic take up one or two chapters, so look at the subjects ETS lists (p5) and read the relevant parts. Its QM isn't in quite enough depth for the GRE, and it doesn't cover thermo, but the book has a lot of stuff covered. I wish I had spent more time with Beiser and less time with the books you listed (I only noticed Beiser covered all this about a week before the exam...)

User avatar
Helio
Posts: 809
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:11 pm

Re: what to study?

Post by Helio » Wed Feb 18, 2009 11:37 pm

dlenmn wrote:You might also want to throw in an intro to modern physics book like Beiser (isbn=0072448482). It covers relativity, atomic physics, nuclear physics, stat mech, solid state, particle physics, and a lot more at an intro level -- just right for the GRE. Most of the topic take up one or two chapters, so look at the subjects ETS lists (p5) and read the relevant parts. Its QM isn't in quite enough depth for the GRE, and it doesn't cover thermo, but the book has a lot of stuff covered. I wish I had spent more time with Beiser and less time with the books you listed (I only noticed Beiser covered all this about a week before the exam...)
There is also the Eisberg & Resnik [isbn=9780471873730][/isbn]

cato88
Posts: 420
Joined: Wed Sep 03, 2008 12:46 am

Re: what to study?

Post by cato88 » Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:09 am

Both of your classical mech books are overkill.

s87
Posts: 10
Joined: Sat Jan 31, 2009 11:20 am

Re: what to study?

Post by s87 » Thu Feb 19, 2009 2:03 pm

Helio, Thanks for the info. University physics is a lot more basic than any text we used. I guess Kleppner & Kolenkow and Purcell are my equivalents there.

Dlenmn, I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy of Beiser. Sounds like a useful resource. Otherwise I've got Tipler & Llewellyn for Modern

Cato88, yeah I didn't intend to go through all of both books. I was thinking M&T for Hamiltonians and gravitation stuff, and then K&K for everything else, or something like that. I don't think either one is sufficient by itself, but I certainly wasn't thinking of going over all of both.

thanks for your thoughts, everyone

User avatar
metric
Posts: 64
Joined: Thu Apr 17, 2008 5:17 pm

Re: what to study?

Post by metric » Thu Feb 19, 2009 3:20 pm

Hi there! Take a look at Serway's Modern Physics. It's dumb as any Serway book but it has what you may need and it also covers some thermo stuff, the ordering of the topics is a bit chaotic though. Don't do the same stupid thing I did (I bought it), if you can try to get it from a library, it won't be good for anything else except for the PGRE, I can hardly imagine somebody learning something for the first time from this book, but it should be OK to review stuff.

User avatar
coreycwgriffin
Posts: 249
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2008 1:28 am

Re: what to study?

Post by coreycwgriffin » Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:14 pm

Helio wrote:
dlenmn wrote:You might also want to throw in an intro to modern physics book like Beiser (isbn=0072448482). It covers relativity, atomic physics, nuclear physics, stat mech, solid state, particle physics, and a lot more at an intro level -- just right for the GRE. Most of the topic take up one or two chapters, so look at the subjects ETS lists (p5) and read the relevant parts. Its QM isn't in quite enough depth for the GRE, and it doesn't cover thermo, but the book has a lot of stuff covered. I wish I had spent more time with Beiser and less time with the books you listed (I only noticed Beiser covered all this about a week before the exam...)
There is also the Eisberg & Resnik [isbn=9780471873730][/isbn]
I know I used Taylor and Zafiratos [isbn=013805715X][/isbn]

User avatar
Helio
Posts: 809
Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:11 pm

Re: what to study?

Post by Helio » Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:24 pm

s87 wrote:Helio, Thanks for the info. University physics is a lot more basic than any text we used. I guess Kleppner & Kolenkow and Purcell are my equivalents there.

Dlenmn, I'll have to see if I can get my hands on a copy of Beiser. Sounds like a useful resource. Otherwise I've got Tipler & Llewellyn for Modern

Cato88, yeah I didn't intend to go through all of both books. I was thinking M&T for Hamiltonians and gravitation stuff, and then K&K for everything else, or something like that. I don't think either one is sufficient by itself, but I certainly wasn't thinking of going over all of both.

thanks for your thoughts, everyone
Then use those... i mean they essentially have all the same stuff in it. and i said anything you used in your undergrad intro series....

astrosona
Posts: 5
Joined: Wed Jun 24, 2009 6:17 pm

Re: what to study?

Post by astrosona » Wed Jun 24, 2009 6:33 pm

Hi every one,

thank you for good suggestions about the books, this is what i needed. do you have any practice books in mind?

Btwestyo
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:13 am

Re: what to study?

Post by Btwestyo » Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:22 pm

Hey so I keep hearing that Fundamentals of Physics is a great book for the PGRE. However, Helio mentioned that any intro to physics books works. For my intro series we had Physics for Scientists and Engineers by Giancoli. Would you recommend Giancoli or Halliday and Resnik? I also heard University Physics is good too. I'm not sure which book I should pick, thanks.

nathan12343
Posts: 249
Joined: Sat Dec 20, 2008 9:34 am

Re: what to study?

Post by nathan12343 » Sun Jul 05, 2009 6:46 pm

Most introductory physics textbooks are really similar. I wouldn't spend the money on HRW if you don't think you can afford it.

I used Giancoli and had no problems.

Btwestyo
Posts: 9
Joined: Tue Mar 17, 2009 2:13 am

Re: what to study?

Post by Btwestyo » Sun Jul 05, 2009 8:49 pm

nathan12343 wrote:Most introductory physics textbooks are really similar. I wouldn't spend the money on HRW if you don't think you can afford it.

I used Giancoli and had no problems.
Alright so studying the concepts and doing review problems from one of these intro physics books should help me for the PGRE? Also, I'm not worried about the money so if HRW is really better than I'll definetly get that.



Post Reply