btw, a guy who got a 84th percentile on the GRECS got into a PhD program at UIUC:
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For people, who are interested in apping for PhD, Subjective GRE is highly recommended. I scored 820 (84 percentile). Be careful while marking choices, even after you have eliminated 2 or 3 options (out of 5). I attempted 70/70 questions and got only 52 of them correct (thus getting 48/70). I learnt it the hard way that, all choices you think are not equally likey. A 95+ percentile at (54/70) in AGRE would certainly have made rejecting my application (by Stan and CMU) more difficult.
Coffee With Abhishek Verma - UIUC Phd Admit » Coffee With Sundar
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(The cool thing about the MS program at UIUC is they seem to usually offer aid. I have no idea though what their average profile is like. Again, I would suggest looking at Edulix's profile page.)
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I also wanted to know how to go about preparing for the CS Subject GRE exam.
Could anyone help me out?
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The first step is to take the practice test in the ETS booklet. Then find your weak areas and focus on studying in those areas the most.
Basically, you want to practice like crazy. Solve as many problems in CS textbooks, online CS final exams (from course websites), online homework assignments, etc. as possible.
The GRECS exam is much harder than other subject tests (like the easy psychology subject test) since you need to solve problems, and, furthermore, there are wide range of problems that can be asked. It's the combintion of breath and depth that makes the exam kindof like a
PhD qualifying exam.
To get an idea of what material to cover:
- Discrete Math by Rosen
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Introduction to Algorithms by Cormen, et. al. (Cormen's book is more like an encyclopedia than a textbook and it would be ineffective to read the whole book, so, for perspective, checkout free online textbooks like:
Book ,
http://www.math.upenn.edu/~wilf/AlgoComp.pdf , and
Sedgewick's lecture notes
Index of /~rs/cs226/2002/lectures in addition to course websites)
- Introduction to the Theory of Computation by Sipser
- Computer Organization & Design by Patterson & Hennessy
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Operating Systems by Silberschatz
- a textbook on programming language theory, e.g.
Concepts in Programming Languages,
Programming Language Pragmatics or
Essentials of Programming Languages, 2nd Edition, or
course websites
Of course, there are also other textbooks that cover some of this same material, like books and lecture notes by
Aho /
Hopcroft /
Ullman. For example, the
dragon book.
The important thing about textbooks, though, is to solve problems. Just reading textbooks and study guides can give a false sense of security, just like just reading a mathbook is not going to make one do well on the Math Subject Text. (Basically, everything can give a false sense of security about this exam.)
My favorite study guide for the GRECS:
http://www.geocities.com/gre_compute.../gre-notes.pdf
For more study advice:
http://www.urch.com/forums/gre-compu...ct-gre-cs.html (Subject GRE CS)
http://www.urch.com/forums/gre-compu...t-studies.html (Advice on Independent studies)