I am sitting listening to Jack Johnson and reading my book 'The Flying Circus of Physics'. It's a really interesting little book about the physics behind day-to-day phenomenon (such as mirages, tides, and why wintergreen lifesavers spark when bitten). I had a long and very stimulating conversation tonight with a good friend about physics, astronomy, the point behind both, why astronomy is a worthwhile science, life in general and green flashes, amongst other (non)related things. Astronomy is an endlessly fascinating subject (to me, of course).
Last weekend I took a practice physics GRE, which is a notoriously challenging and frustrating exam. I scored absolutely dreadfully, but to be honest, I'm not that upset. I had never seen quite a lot of the material, simply because I haven't taken the classes yet, or reached the material in current classes. And the majority of the material was based on previous classes I haven't thought about in... well, too long I guess. All in all, I'm not happy with my score, but I'm not unhappy either. Also, it was just a practice exam! The physics GRE is unlike any other exam a physics student has ever taken or will ever take again. This seems Just Plain Dumb to me, but just yesterday one of the astro profs explained her reasoning why the GRE is actually indicative of grad student success. It made a lot of sense at the time, especially for physics grad studnets, but much less for astronomy, and unfortunately there is no astronomy GRE... But yes, I scored pretty low- a 500 out of 999, which isn't
toooo bad for this test, but the GRE is very odd in the sense that it is (essentially) scored on a comparison scale of how others did on that
particular exam. On this certain one I took (from '91...), others scored fairly high, so I was only in the 13th percentile, which means I scored higher than only 13% of the test-takers for this particular test... Yeahhhhh. Not the best %, but my raw score wasn't horrendous. I've had to have this process of scoring explained to me a few times before I fully grasped it, so don't really worry about the details... Long story short- the physics GRE sucks.
This weekend is going to be crazy, but I will have a lot to say at the end. Until then, enjoy some photos from my recent(ish) life.
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| Jenny and I at the Rent show! |
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| Moka bein' cute |
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| One of the most legit meals I've ever made: Pan-fried tofu and veggies with thai noodles (after I ate some of it...) |
2 comments:
So, how is the GRE useful? Maybe for admission to a masters program, but certainly not for a PhD program.
I don't see how the test score would help an acceptance committee select good research candidates. To me, a standardize test score provides the same information that a transcript does.
For example, some schools don't have quals anymore, replacing them with some set level of publication or research progress.
So, what did your prof say about the GRE? :-)
Those noodles look really yummy!
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