[Borodog]

FWIW, the test that I am most proud of was the physics Ph.D. qualifying exam. 24 hours of testing over 5 days (MWF, two 4 hour sessions each day, mornings were undergrad level, afternoons were graduate level, classical mechanics, quantum, and E&M one day each). Each test was composed of 6 questions, of which you could omit one.

Other people began studying for the quals 3 months or more out. I started 3 weeks out, one week per subject. While it was not officially disclosed what your exact score was beyond pass or fail for each of the 3 sections, I was told unofficially by my advisor (after the faculty retreat where the senior faculty collectively grades the quals) that I "blew it out of the water."

That meant more to me than any other test score, and even if I had an official IQ score that was particularly high, I would still be more proud of the quals.

Since I took them the quals in my department have been significantly "dumbed down", in order to compete with other schools that had much easier quals, and because younger research faculty were frustrated that their minions were "wasting" their time preparing to take and retake the quals rather than slaving in their labs for them. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

I am extremely lucky that, while it was a "core" class, there was no statistical mechanics section on the quals. By far my weakest subject of any I took in physics. Everything else came naturally to me, but stat mech was always completely alien to the way that I think. When I review it now, it makes much more sense, but at the time I absolutely hated it. This might have had something to do with my professor at the time, but I really think it was a fundamental disconnect between me and the material.