Advice from the Veterans

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dizie
Posts: 2
Joined: Sat Jul 12, 2008 5:31 pm

Advice from the Veterans

Post by dizie » Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:10 am

Hey Everyone,

I've not been successful in finding an answer to my question on the forums. If someone has already answered this question, please point me in the right direction and forgive me for my awful blunder.

At this point, I'm studying for the fall 2010 PGRE and would like some feedback on when to "use" the four available practice exams. I already have a stockpile of practice questions, namely those from Ohio State's website and a handful of others posted/linked on this website, but I keep reading how imperative it is to know the four practice exams like the alphabet. At the same time, I've seen many people say that one should wait until the final few weeks before taking the PGRE to "use" the practice exams. My concern/confusion: to understand the practice exams well requires time; to take the practice exams a few weeks before the official exam gives little time. So, for all you wicked-awesome veterans out there who know what's up, might you be able to guide me on when to take the practice exams, in what order to take them, etc, as in "1986 exam at four weeks out, 1992 exam at three weeks out," and so forth?

Now that I'm thinking about it, could someone confirm whether the PGRE is on computer or paper? Perhaps I'm just incredibly dense, but I didn't find anywhere that ETS specified.

Any help is much appreciated,
dizie

golick2000
Posts: 21
Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 3:21 pm

Re: Advice from the Veterans

Post by golick2000 » Sun Jul 18, 2010 2:57 pm

the test is paperback.
First I used 2 exams to understand what the test and topics are about. Then in the middle of the preparation process I used other two tests to find my weaknesses. I got 960, I spent about 1.5-2 month preparing for the test.

blackcat007
Posts: 378
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2008 9:14 am

Re: Advice from the Veterans

Post by blackcat007 » Sun Jul 18, 2010 4:17 pm

dizie wrote:Hey Everyone,

I've not been successful in finding an answer to my question on the forums. If someone has already answered this question, please point me in the right direction and forgive me for my awful blunder.

At this point, I'm studying for the fall 2010 PGRE and would like some feedback on when to "use" the four available practice exams. I already have a stockpile of practice questions, namely those from Ohio State's website and a handful of others posted/linked on this website, but I keep reading how imperative it is to know the four practice exams like the alphabet. At the same time, I've seen many people say that one should wait until the final few weeks before taking the PGRE to "use" the practice exams. My concern/confusion: to understand the practice exams well requires time; to take the practice exams a few weeks before the official exam gives little time. So, for all you wicked-awesome veterans out there who know what's up, might you be able to guide me on when to take the practice exams, in what order to take them, etc, as in "1986 exam at four weeks out, 1992 exam at three weeks out," and so forth?

Now that I'm thinking about it, could someone confirm whether the PGRE is on computer or paper? Perhaps I'm just incredibly dense, but I didn't find anywhere that ETS specified.

Any help is much appreciated,
dizie
The ohio state's questions are nothing more that the questions from the 4 PGRE papers arranged topic wise. In reality there are relatively fewer practice questions than one expects, given the popularity of Physics GRE :lol: . But look on the bright side, it reduces the total work :P. you can find some good practice questions here http://www.physicsgre.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=2492

My suggestion would be to first completely and comprehensively study the topics from the books (as much as you can) then start doing the 4 papers. Do the 2001 paper at the end, since the consensus is, it is the closest to the level of PGRE of today. Don't keep the papers for the end, since you will find many new topics they have covered which will be unfamiliar to you. So make sure you have time to go through those topics before the test. Many questions do get repeated, I remember my case, when I simply remembered the result of a pretty lengthy (lengthy means 4 lines of calculations) question, so that saved some time. If you are a physics major, then I don't think that I need to talk about "studying Resnick holistically".
PGRE is paper based



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