This practice book contains

• one actual full-length GRE Physics Test
• test-taking strategies

Become familiar with

• test structure and content
• test instructions and answering procedures

Compare your practice test results with the performance of those who took the test at a GRE administration.

Purpose of the GRE Subject Tests
The GRE Subject Tests are designed to help graduate school admission committees and fellowship sponsors assess the qualifications of applicants in specific fields of study. The tests also provide you with an assessment of your own qualifications.

Scores on the tests are intended to indicate knowledge of the subject matter emphasized in many undergraduate programs as preparation for graduate study.

Because past achievement is usually a good indicator of future performance, the scores are helpful in predicting success in graduate study. Because the tests are standardized, the test scores permit comparison of students from different institutions with different undergraduate programs. For some Subject Tests, subscores are provided in addition to the total score; these subscores indicate the strengths and weaknesses of your preparation, and they may help you plan future studies.

The GRE Board recommends that scores on the Subject Tests be considered in conjunction with other relevant information about applicants. Because numerous factors influence success in graduate school, reliance on a single measure to predict success is not advisable.

Other indicators of competence typically include undergraduate transcripts showing courses taken and grades earned, letters of recommendation, the GRE Writing Assessment score, and GRE General Test scores.

For information about the appropriate use of GRE scores, write to GRE Program, Educational Testing Service, Mail Stop 57-L, Princeton, NJ 08541, or visit our Web site at www.gre.org/codelst.html.

Download GRE Physics Test Practice Book

PDF format, 2.9MB, 77Pages.

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Content of the Physics Test
The test consists of about 100 five-choice questions, some of which may be grouped in sets and based on such materials as diagrams, graphs, experimental data, and descriptions of physical situations.

The aim of the test is to determine the extent of the examinees’ grasp of fundamental principles and their ability to apply these principles in the solution of problems. Most test questions can be answered on the basis of a mastery of the first three years of undergraduate physics. The test questions are constructed to simplify mathematical manipulations. As a result, neither calculators nor tables of logarithms are needed.

If the solution to a problem requires the use of logarithms, the necessary values are included with the question. The International System (SI) of units is used predominantly in the test. A table of information (see page 10) representing various physical constants and a few conversion factors among SI units is presented in the test book. Whenever necessary, additional values of physical constants are printed with the text of the question.

The approximate percentages of the test on the major content topics have been set by the committee of examiners, with input from a nationwide survey of undergraduate physics curricula. The percentages reflect the committee’s determination of the relative emphasis placed on each topic in a typical undergraduate program. These percentages are given below along with the major subtopics included in each content category.

Nearly all the questions in the test will relate to material in this listing; however, there may be occasional questions on other topics not explicitly listed here

1. CLASSICAL MECHANICS 20% (such as  kinematics, Newton’s laws, work and energy, oscillatory motion, rotational motion about a fixed axis, dynamics of systems of particles, central forces and celestial mechanics, three-dimensional particle dynamics, Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formalism, noninertial reference frames, elementary topics in fluid dynamics)

2. ELECTROMAGNETISM 18% (such as electrostatics, currents and DC circuits, magnetic fields in free space, Lorentz force, induction, Maxwell’s equations and their applications, electromagnetic waves, AC circuits
magnetic and electric fields in matter)

3. OPTICS AND WAVE PHENOMENA 9% (such as wave properties, superposition, interference, diffraction, geometrical optics, polarization, Doppler effect)

4. THERMODYNAMICS AND STATISTICAL MECHANICS 10% (such as the laws of thermodynamics, thermodynamic processes, equations of state, ideal gases, kinetic theory, ensembles, statistical concepts and calculation of thermodynamic quantities, thermal expansion and heat transfer)

5. QUANTUM MECHANICS 12% (such as fundamental concepts, solutions of the Schrödinger equation (including square wells, harmonic oscillators, and hydrogenic atoms), spin, angular momentum, wave function symmetry, elementary perturbation theory)

6. ATOMIC PHYSICS 10% (such as properties of electrons, Bohr model, energy quantization, atomic structure, atomic spectra, selection rules, black-body radiation, x-rays, atoms in electric and magnetic fields)

7. SPECIAL RELATIVITY 6% (such as introductory concepts, time dilation, length contraction, simultaneity, energy and momentum, four-vectors and Lorentz transformation, velocity addition)

8. LABORATORY METHODS 6% (such as data and error analysis, electronics, instrumentation, radiation detection, counting statistics, interaction of charged particles with matter, lasers and optical interferometers, dimensional analysis, fundamental applications of probability and statistics)

9. SPECIALIZED TOPICS 9%: Nuclear and Particle physics (e.g., nuclear properties, radioactive decay, fission and fusion, reactions, fundamental properties of elementary particles), Condensed Matter (e.g., crystal structure, x-ray diffraction, thermal properties, electron theory of metals, semiconductors, superconductors), Miscellaneous (e.g., astrophysics, mathematical methods, computer applications)

Those taking the test should be familiar with certain mathematical methods and their applications in physics. Such mathematical methods include single and multivariate calculus, coordinate systems (rectangular, cylindrical, and spherical), vector algebra and vector differential operators, Fourier series, partial differential equations, boundary value problems, matrices and determinants, and functions of complex variables. T

hese methods may appear in the test in the context of various content categories as well as occasional questions concerning only mathematics in the specialized topics category above.

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