STEP 1: REGISTER. First, when are you taking the GRE? I just looked up
the test dates: there's October 6 and November 3 (see website for current dates -- these are outdated). Register for it by
the end of August or September. I would recommend the November test
day, as it is later. Scores are reported by ~ December 14, which is
before the majority of deadlines. Test centers may fill up though,
because other people will likely have similar sentiments. If you're
sure you're taking it, really there's no reason why you can't do this
today. Except for maybe the $130 fee. Seriously though, if you can
afford it, register. (have i mentioned that it cost me over $1000 to
get into grad school?)  **Note from Sarah Garner: you should double check the 
GRE dates by visiting the website: www.gre.com.  Most institutions provide application
waivers so be sure to ask before you decide it is too expensive.**

STEP 2: Decide how well you want to do on this test. This involves
thinking about your application as a whole: grades, letters, research,
and possible scores. You should also be thinking about what kind of a
school you're looking to get into, looking at their admission sites.
Some of them are clear about the GRE expectations, others are
intentionally foggy. The test is out of 990. Which is funny, because
only foreigners and mega-geniuses score that high. For astro program
applications, a solid score is 600, or the ~40th percentile. That will
generally neither hurt nor help your application. Under a 550 is
getting into the range where your score is still ok for some schools,
but not all. If you want to compensate for a less than stellar GPA you
should aim for over a 700, which is ~60th percentile. Granted, you
don't yet know what score you'll get, but it's good to keep in mind.
(for this step, it's a good idea to ask people who are grad students
what their application looked like and where they got in. some of us
are willing to share, others aren't. i will share :-))

Anyway, get a handle on how much time you want to devote to studying,
and when. Set aside a time and place where you'll go every week and
actually work. I decided the GRE was really important to me (and that
i am a good test taker, so there was a point to studying), and I spent
about 8-10 hours a week studying, ramping up to 20-30 over the last
couple weeks. I was either in the physics library where no one bugged
me, or working with friends. My score improved 150-200 points between
my first practice test and the real thing.

STEP 3: Topic review. Combined with practice tests, this where the
actual studying comes in.

One of the first things to do is to look at the list of GRE topics.
Here is a short form of the list, the long form is at the bottom of
this email (it includes sub-topics from them, some references from me,
and additional advic).
1. CLASSICAL MECHANICS: 20%
2. ELECTROMAGNETISM: 18%
3. OPTICS AND WAVE PHENOMENA: 9%
4. THERMODYNAMICS AND STATISTICAL MECHANICS: 10%
5. QUANTUM MECHANICS: 12%
6. ATOMIC PHYSICS: 10%
7. SPECIAL RELATIVITY: 6%
8. LABORATORY METHODS: 6%
9. SPECIALIZED TOPICS: 9%

Break it down by week: (12 weeks total)
Aug 12 Mechanics
Aug 19 Mechanics again
Aug 26 E&M
Sept 2 E&M again PRACTICE TEST
Sept 9 Optics/waves
Sept 16 Thermodynamics PRACTICE TEST
Sept 23 Atomic physics
Sept 30 Quantum mechanics PRACTICE TEST
Oct 7 Special Relativity
Oct 14 Random Shit PRACTICE TEST
Oct 21 Review
Oct 29 REAL TEST this week

If you've got 10 weeks, only spend a week on mechanics and E&M. They
are a large part of the test, but it is likely that you understand
them relatively well already. You do want to leave at least the last
week before the test for going back through all the material you've
learned over the past 8-10 weeks and worrying about things that you
never understood the first time around. For every topic, you want to
have a) a reference text or set of notes, b) various sources of
practice problems, some with solutions and c) someone who can explain
questions that you don't understand.

a) text: In general, a comprehensive intro physics text should cover
~75% of the test. I used Halliday and Resnick, a shiny new version in
the columbia physics library. If you liked your intro phsyics text,
use it, but check it against the topics list to see what it doesn't
cover. For the other 25% - some of the chapters of advanced texts and
a little googling should do. You probably want to read through the
chapters relevant to your topic each week, or at least skim them and
take note of important equations.
b) problems: These can come from the text you're using, woohoo!
Additionally, you might want to time yourself doing practice questions
from the AP Physics prep book. They are on the level of easier
questions on the GRE, but they are closer in format than those in
texts. If you can, do practice problems without a calculator, and only
referring to the constants given. Take notes on the important
equations you use.
c) someone to explain: I can help with some things, but you want to
find a friend to go through questions with first, and also maybe a
friendly physicist (haha oxymoron) who has seen this stuff more
recently.

STEP 4: PRACTICE TESTS & TEST TAKING METHODS
There are 4. You should take all four of them under test conditions.
This is particularly helpful because it will give you an idea of how
you might score - a test you have never seen before, taken in 3 hours
with a pencil (and without a calculator) will be a good gauge of how
you can do on the real thing. It is likely that when you score them,
you'll realize how much time you really need to be spending on the
whole studying thing. I recommend taking them in date order, as the
most recently released one is closest to the real thing. I put them on
the schedule, two weeks apart, for good reason. After you take them,
you should spend time reviewing them. When you are done going through
them, you should understand how to do about 95/100 of the questions on
each exam. There will always be a couple questions where nearly anyone
is fucked. But the questions that you should have been able to
understand will help you find your weaknesses and attack them.

When taking the test (practice or real), you want to be able to go
through it a couple times. There will be 10-20 questions that are
easy. Answer them. Then there will be questions that are more
difficult - you think you can solve them but you need time. Answer
them the second time around. The work on the questions that you're
less sure about, do some elimination and guessing, etc. Your raw score
= correct - 4/wrong, which means you only guess if you can eliminate 3
of the 5 choices.

TOPICS + REFS - all the books i mention are the ones i own and used,
not always the best ones.

   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)
>> >> You'll notice that the majority of this is really basic, so review
it. The lagrangian and hamiltonian appear in 2-3 questions, one of
which relies on you knowing their definitions - i believe my ref was
wikipedia. The fluid dynamics i needed was in the intro phys book i
used and focused on three basic pressure density equations.
   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)
>> >> Ok, I think this was the one topic I kind of gave up on. Basic
circuit problems will get you a couple questions, as will simple
charge configurations and mirror problems. I do believe that a couple
chapters of Griffiths E&M would come in handy, but I have no idea
which ones.
   3. OPTICS AND WAVE PHENOMENA:      9%  (such as wave properties,
superposition, interference, diffraction, geometrical optics,
polarization, Doppler effect)
>> >> Basic ray tracing and lens equations and some diffraction problems
are a good idea. I don't think I went any farther than intro for this,
and it was fine.
   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)
>> >> This is a topic where you'll need more than intro. I do recommend
my Thermo book, which is: Schroeder, An Introduction to Thermal
Physics. Aside from the basics of thermo (the 1-3 laws, work, using an
eos) one thing to look into is the partition function and the
boltzmann factor. If you haven't learned it, learn it. It's pretty
simple and is always 1-2 questions on the GRE.
   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)
>> >> Griffiths Qunatum ch 1-6. If you haven't gotten to perturbation
theory, and end up not learning it, just guess 0.
   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)
>> >> This topic always seems fuzzy to me. You want to be familiar with
electron levels- s and p and that shit. You should know the basic
equations for electron energy transitions in hydrogen atoms and be
able to adapt them for hydrogen analogs (ie, mass or charge changes,
but there's only one electron). For this I used ch 1-2 of French &
Taylor, Introduction to Quantum Physics, and there's some overlap with
some of Griffiths QM.
   7. SPECIAL RELATIVITY:      6% (such as introductory concepts, time
dilation, length contraction, simultaneity, energy and momentum,
four-vectors and Lorentz transformation, velocity addition)
>> >> I used my intro physics text. Memorize the length and time
equations, the velocity addition equation, and don't worry too much
about four vectors unless you want to.
   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)
>> >> I think this is hit and miss, either you know it or you don't. I
don't actually have much useful to say beyond maybe glancing at old
labs.
   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)
>> >> I called this random stuff in the schedule. I'd say 5 of the
questions are nuclear and particle physics. I didn't have a class in
it or anything, but there were some things to know. I remember looking
at this chart and it helped me understand some of the particle
questions - i no longer can remember which questions or why.
http://www.weylmann.com/particlechart.jpg For the rest of the topics,
I mostly used the questions from the practice tests i'd taken and
looked up the topic and read more about it. Sorry, I don't have
anything more useful for that because I destroyed my old notes.


-- Sarah Jane Schmidt