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GRE CS Subject Test Prep?
coaxial asks: "So it's that time again to consider taking the GRE. While there are many resources on the web about the general test (mostly vocabulary building), the computer science subject test seems to be lacking. This is a shame, since this test covers pretty much everything in the undergrad curriculum. So I ask the grad student readers of Slashdot: what resources, besides the one book I've found, did they use."
Oh bollocks, I didn't see that book available when I took the test ~1 year ago.
Didn't the practice test give you some idea of which subjects you need work in? (Yes, the practice test is on ETS' website, just look for it...)
[o]_O
The information may be somewhere, but what do I choose? Test takers? Educators? Message from the GRE Chair?
Bleh!
Have you looked into prospective graduate schools yet? When I started looking at entrance requirements, almost all of them said that GRE CS test scores wouldn't even be considered in the application. I just focused on the "plain old" GRE, made sure to do well on the math section, and had no trouble getting into the grad school I wanted.
Because you can't spell "slaughter" without "laughter"
My first thought was about GRE tunnels. Network admin mindset...
Brain is my second favorite organ.
You will need it if you are relying on a single review book to get you through. I will guarantee you that reading one review book will not help much if you are not ready for it on your own.
The only thing a review book will accomplish is to trigger some of the memories of subjects that you learned. Even if you manage to read all of the material on the subject, it is unlikely that you will remember the exact question that they will ask you.
My advice is to review what topics are covered, and what they involve. Do not bother learning details, you can do it for one topic and still remember all of them. Be ready to go from your general understanding to the specific instance of the question. It is not that hard if you had a nice university CS education.
My studying: Reviewed Many-one versus turing reduction (I kept forgetting which one was which), took the practice test in the booklet the evening before the exam.
My score: 880 (I guesstimated all of the networking questions, as I have never seen networking before, did not bother studying it either. Looking back, studying would not have helped either.)
badness 10000
and you took CS as a minor, then they don't trust your institution. They are giving a clear signal that they don't trust your grades, degree and accreditation of that degree to indicate your aptitude for their program. I would think twice.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I took the exam in '99.
Forget the test prep packets, there is simply too much material that can be asked. Did you keep your old books? Get the books you had for any data structures or algorithms classes. The ones for the class after the introductory classes (ACM CS2 in educator speak) and then the last algorithms class you took. Those topics are the core of the exam. The other big sections were digital circuits and computer organization (memory, disk, processor, networking). You should have had a class on basic electronics and a class on operating systems that covered these topics. There will be a few questions about NP-completeness and formal languages.
Mathematical calculation is required. Stuff beyond 1+2 will be asked. You need to know linear algebra, matrices, combinatorics, graph theory, and basic calculus. The math is integrated with the CS topics.
Make sure you know the material before signing up. You won't be able to cram everything in a month or two. If you couldn't take the test today, with no preparation, and at least do decently, you aren't going to be able to make up for it by the fall.
What you can improve on is speed of recall. There are a LOT of questions, I think around 60 or 70. You must answer quickly and get it correct the first time. Good pacing is essential.
It's on a curve. You can miss several questions and still do well. I got the maximum score despite getting at least 4 or 5 questions wrong.
I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science and none of the grad schools I looked at required a GRE Computer Science score.
Basically, when you're a counter-terrorist, you've got to remember to *guard the bomb site*. I know one guy who was passed over because, when the bomb was planted, he was jerking off over in T spawn. He had no idea which site to go to.
Also, practice with the Deagle/AWP combo until you've really got that down. All the high level comps are dominated by that crap.
Just keep practicing until the test. I'm sure that those [GRE] guys will let you join.
Good luck!
# (/.);;
- : float -> float -> float =
I can't imagine that the CS scores would be that different.
There are two types of people: those prepared for the zombie apocalypse and those who will be eaten.
This is not intended as a troll, but it will probably get modded that way :-)
Why do you want to get a graduate degree? You're going to devote a few years of your life to this, and unless you come from a rich family, it's going to cost a lot of money. So, why do you want to do it?
Is there a specific area of CS that you find especially interesting and want to explore further?
Do you enjoy the university environment, and want to stick around a while longer? Are you thinking of going all the way and getting your doctorate?
Do the job prospects in the "real world" just not look so hot right now?
I took the test this year, and I had a fairly good score (840/900, 91 percentile). A single test prep will *NOT* be able to cover all topics. Especially not to the depth that each needs to be covered. My suggestion- get a book on each topic. OS, graph theory (there is a *lot* of graph theory), complexity analysis, databases, compilers, etc. If you still have your undergrad books, you can use those. But do not expect to be able to study the test, like you can for the SAT or normal GRE. The number of topics, and the depth of knowledge needed in each, is just way too much.
This is not an easy test. I speak as someone who aced their SAT (1580), normal GRE (1510), and took almost 2 years worth of AP tests- this is the hardest test I've ever taken. If you aren't coming straight from undergrad (I wasn't), give yourself at least 3 months of intense studying. If you are, I'd still give yourself 2 months of targeted studying.
Best of luck to you. And on your school search as well.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
My prep (aside from 3.5 years of CS classes) consisted solely of getting the practice test [PDF] (it wasn't available online at the time {smile}) and making sure I understood the questions it asked. In particular I recall the regular expressions stuff puzzling me (I got the concept, but didn't grok their syntax), so I compared the questions with the answers and reverse-engineered it. If you can figure out the practice test, you'll probably do OK on the real one. And if you can't... maybe the exam should identify that? Sorry, but I'm just not a big fan of teaching-for-the-test education.
I only scored in the 92nd percentile (compared to 98-99th for the general test sections), so maybe more prep would've been helpful. But I prefer to blame the fact that I had traveled from Aberdeen to the wrong university in the wrong part of Glasgow (clueless American exchange student that I was) and didn't discover this mistake until late the night before the exam, after I'd gotten a room nearby and was trying to figure out where I had to go in the morning. So I had to get up early, catch the very first bus of the day, and finally sprint a couple blocks to get there before they closed the doors.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
No amount of studying will prepare you if you don't know the subject. On the other hand, due to the constraints of the test (length and multiple choice) and the breadth of the field, it can't go particularly deeply into any topic.
The really important thing is to know what you have a good, current grasp of and what you need to learn/relearn/refresh: Do you remember what LALR stands for? Can you calculate the cost of a pipeline bubble or a branch misprediction? What information would you need to do so? How is depth-first/breadth-first related to stacks/queues related to LIFO/FIFO? What is the stack pointer? What is the frame pointer? What is an interrupt? What are the three primary elements of OOP? What is modus ponens/tolens (sp)? What kinds of race conditions are there? What is a critical section? What is the difference between a monitor and a semaphore? Define NP-complete. And so on.
I recommend picking up some practice tests (from the library if possible). Don't worry about taking them, per se, but go through them and make sure you remember something about the topics the questions cover. Think of it as sort of a checklist. If there's anything in the practice tests (or the list above) that you can't bring to mind, or feel fuzzy about, or never learned, go look it up (on the web, in your old textbooks, whatever) and brush up on it. Don't expect to learn about compilers if you've never learned them, but you should be able to answer questions about different categories of languages with regard to parsing requirements, for example. Go through the practice tests with a pen and paper and write yourself a list of topics for which you need greater clarity, then brush up on it from whatever materials you have handy. (You *did* save all your old textbooks, right?)
A friend of mine (she is now finishing her MS CS, I have a MS Computer Eng) took the GRE CS. It has a lot of stuff not covered in most Computer Science curriculums, including VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration), basically how to design a computer chip. And of course you would also need to know Physical Electronics.
In summary, just take the general GRE unless the university you wish to attend asks you to take the GRE CS.
I'm not the type of person who has ever really felt the need to study and study for these standardized tests. I get good enough scores, and I'm lazy. Despite that, I decided to study (only a bit--don't want to harm my reputation here) for the GREs.
First, a lot of the schools I looked at either didn't want the GRE subject test, or would consider it, but it would be a tertiary level reason (compared to personal statement and grades on the primary level). My score in the GRE subject test wasn't going to make or break my acceptance, but I wanted to do well for me.
The best thing I can suggest (besides looking at that book) is the practice test. (Score:-1, Redundant) I really do recommend going over that. If nothing else, taking a look at the questions will help you understand the types of things that they will ask on the test, and let you figure out what subjects you're weak in so you can beef up on those a bit.
My weakness was in remembering the specifics of some algorithms and their big O, little O, and omega values. I was also weak in networking because my school had a sucky networking class, and I didn't know anything about operating systems yet because I hadn't taken that course yet. (Oh! Paging and threads! There were so many questions I couldn't answer!)
In any case, just figuring out the basic areas that they will cover and trying to identify what you are weak in will help. Just go through your old books, notes, Google searches to get the answers to any questions (or class of questions) that they may ask. They're pretty consistent with their questions, and it wasn't nearly as hard as I feared it would be.
I hope your joking.
If you don't know what link to click on, I think you'll have bigger problems when it comes time to take the test.
While it may be possible in the future that I make take a GME test, this test never came up in the 2 year college where I got an Associate's degree and I am currently merely curious about it.
From what I know, I can definitely say that if you are from a reputed school, and have a decent GPA, it's a complete waste of time and money taking the GRE CS subject test; most of the top US schools won't even care about them.
However, if you are not from a well-known school and/or your GPA is on the lower side, a very good subject test score may make your application stronger.
I've personally found Hunter Hogan's CS GRE Study Guide to be a fairly useful overview. You can download it for free here:
http://www.hunterthinks.com/studyguide/
I don't know what schools the poster was applying to, but all PhD students in the UCSB CS department are funded enough to net positive during their academic career (of course, it may mean living in campus housing or sharing a room). Even some MS students have funding enough to cover school.
Several companies exist around town that are willing to work around student hours, allowing anyone who is able to find work (sucks for student visas). I am sure that other University towns present similar options. In fact, it may be easier to find part time work as a student than a full time job in the ranks of the unemployed. You'll probably make less, but it should be enough to cover additional expenses you have.
Network Security: It always comes down to a big guy with a gun.
Try "All of the above"
How dare you actually answer the question! Where are your useless conjectures and obligatory points about how what the original poster wants to do is stupid?
Mod parent down!