Prelims

Here you will find past preliminary exams dating back to 1974. Because of the 2020 revision of the prelim content and format, we recommend focusing your initial study on exams post-revision (fall 2020 onward). These are easy to distinguish from the old format, since the exam sheets will be two days of five questions each, and the exam folder will include whether it was held in fall or spring.

There is also a folder of prelim questions by topic in case you wish to focus your study on a particular area, but note that these question compilations were last updated in 2009 and do not include year information (i.e. no quick way to look up the solutions), so you'll want to have a study partner to check your answers with if you use them.

Prelim statistics on the distribution of topics were collected for exams from 1995-2011; new statistics for the revised exam may be available eventually.

Written exams from other schools may be helpful as you study for your own prelims. However, these are likely to contain graduate-level content, whereas the UC Davis prelim no longer contains graduate-level material as of 2020.

Also included is a selection of final exams from Prof. Cebra's 200C (graduate electromagnetism) course and their solutions, as questions from these exams have previously appeared on the prelim.

The 1979 syllabus is included only for historical reference and has been superceded by an updated syllabus in 2020 (also copied in the Drive above as 2020PrelimSyllabus.xlsx).

UCSD Qualifying Exams - UCSD has a wiki for qualifying exams (their written exams) which appears to be fairly well organized if you're looking for more exams and solutions. While the original site itself has not been updated since 2010, the creator of the site also hosts post-2010 exams on his personal website.