GRE Mathematics Subject Test

SilverEternity

Not to be confused with the Quantitative Reasoning section of the General GRE.

The masters program that I want to do requires that I submit "GRE Advanced Math" scores. I majored in mathematics in college and currently teach it at the high school level, but the test is over more advanced mathematics that I have not done in 5 years. I generally do pretty well on standardized tests, but I bombed the practice test I took.

So question...has anyone taken this test and if so how did you study for it? How much time did you spend studying for it? How was the test itself (as you expected or otherwise)?

http://www.ets.org/gre/subject/about/content/mathematics

Cowboy-Bebop

I'm not sure if this is universal but I also majored in math and knew a few people who took the test in their final year. From what I gathered it's just impossible- you need a working knowledge of all possible undergraduate math courses offered at schools across the country. I haven't taken it myself but one person in particular (who was very smart) took it and did poorly yet he also took the MCATs after studying for two weeks and got in the 93rd percentile.

lessthanpi

a) I'm really surprised that your school is even interested in the test. Nearly everyone has dropped it as a requirement.

b) I went to a pretty solid Pure Math Program and at the end of our first year of a Math PhD program 5 or 6 of us ended up discussing the test. The consensus was that you need about a year of grad school to be able to nail the thing.

c) Start here: http://www.amazon.com/All-Mathematics-You-Missed-Graduate/dp/0521797071/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1313330267&sr=8-1

SilverEternity

Thanks for the feedback and the book suggestion. I've tried to study for it using a Princeton Review book and it seems helpful, but it feels like a gigantic endeavor to re-learn all these concepts.

The program I want to do is a Masters in Industrial Mathematics. For the time being I want to continue teaching, but I want a Masters that will give me other options if I ever decide to change careers. Most teachers I know just get some generic "education masters" simply because they get a higher pay rate (and the state of Michigan essentially requires teachers to get a Masters, or approximately the equivalent number of credits).

http://www.math.msu.edu/Academic_Programs/graduate/msim//

musanman

SilverEternity wrote:

Thanks for the feedback and the book suggestion. I've tried to study for it using a Princeton Review book and it seems helpful, but it feels like a gigantic endeavor to re-learn all these concepts.

The program I want to do is a Masters in Industrial Mathematics. For the time being I want to continue teaching, but I want a Masters that will give me other options if I ever decide to change careers. Most teachers I know just get some generic "education masters" simply because they get a higher pay rate (and the state of Michigan essentially requires teachers to get a Masters, or approximately the equivalent number of credits).

http://www.math.msu.edu/Academic_Programs/graduate/msim//

Just to throw this out there I'm in a similar situation as you. I teach High School Math (Ohio), and haven't done that sort of stuff in more than 6 years. I find those education masters to be a complete waste of time, so I wanted to do something more interesting. I found a program called an MAT in Mathematics. It's a Masters of Teaching, which means all of the classes are through the math department with math professors (where we do math) but the content is basically the subjects that are taught in high school.

For example I took Calculus and Algebra this summer. They were hard as math classes, but focused on using algebra concepts to solve harder problems that could be introduced throughout high school and lead to a more advanced course of study down the road. The people taking the classes are math teachers, but more my speed of math teacher who actually think learning math is important as a teacher.

Kakodaimonos

That looks like a really, really tough Masters program. You're going to have to hit the ground running. They cover A LOT of material in their "summary" courses. Most of those topics could easily be a full 12 week graduate level course. I imagine that they want to make sure you're prepared to handle that work load and intensity.

I also notice that every applicant is automatically considered for support as a grad assistant. That's probably another reason why they require the subject test.

lessthanpi

That looks like a really solid program. If you haven't ever taken any kind of Real Analysis you are going to have to get a really good refresher before you try these courses. Beyond that, brush up on your Calc 2 material and maybe get the book "div, grad, curl and all that."

It looks like you get the dodge the messiest proof based courses like Algebra and Topology. This is good or bad depending on where you want to go with all of this.

SilverEternity

lessthanpi wrote:

It looks like you get the dodge the messiest proof based courses like Algebra and Topology. This is good or bad depending on where you want to go with all of this.

I'm not really looking for a "pure mathematics" masters. I was never the type of student that loved spending the whole weekend writing proofs (like some of my peers); building on mathematical theory is not really where my interest lies. Although I did find Abstract Algebra and Graph Theory interesting, my favorite undergrad class was linear programming/ optimization. I want to build on my skills in applied mathematics/ analysis. One of the things that really appeals to me about this program is that during the second semester you are presented with an actual industrial problem. It just seems like a masters where I can not only further my knowledge of the subject, but also gain real skills that would make me employable in a non-education field.

lessthanpi

I've got a "pure" masters and I did everything I could to just take applied classes.

I brought up the Real Analysis and Proofs aspect as I can tell from the descriptions and such that the electives are going to be more theory and less applied. The ODE and PDE is likely to be more proofs than you'd expect as well.

This looks like an amazing program for actually DOING mathematics instead of just having abstract discussions about topics that are only good for creating more abstract discussions. I'd have went through this had they had it or had I known about it back when I'd started. I turned down MSU for Iowa since UI had more applied available.