final scores

The Review Session

The review section will take place on Sunday at 4:00pm in Nobel Library room 280.

Coverage of the final exam

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Hello Professor Taylor

I have a question regarding the final exam on May 5. Is it a cumulative exam? Or just the sections covered after Test 2? Can you please tell me what all sections to focus on?

Thank You,

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The final exam will be comprehensive, however the material covered since midterm#2 will receive more detailed emphasis.

webwork questions

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1) (section 8.2 #3) Hello,
I was trying to solve the problem, but I am having issues trying to reach
the quadratic formula form.
In the book, it outlines a way using theorem 1, but it does not explain how
to find it.
I've found -2 = a1 + a2 from C = a1(r1)^0 + a2(r1)^0, and -4 = a1 + a2 from
C = a1(r1)^0 + a2(r1)^0, but I am stuck on how to approach the problem
next.Thanks,

2) number 8.2 problem 4 is completely unsolveable with the r that webwork
claims is correct. please help me!

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1) Interestingly, problem 4, which is copied above describes pretty carefully how to do this, except that you would change the right hand side to 9r^{n-2} instead of -4r^{n-1}-4r^{n-2}.  Also, since -4 is the initial condition corresponding to n=1, so you would need the equation -4 = a_1r_1 + a_2r_2 instead of -4 = a1 + a2; it's important for you to understand this, because the final exam will be an unhappy experience otherwise!

2)  I'm a little confused by what you mean by "completely unsolvable", the problem basically takes you by the hand and leads you to the solution, which it looks like you've found.  Please clarify.

HW next week

Webwork section 9.1 due Monday April 28@8am

Bookwork section 9.1 and section 9.5 due Wednesday April 30 @8am

HW! This week!

Webwork section 8.2. Due Midnight on Friday

Bookwork Section 8.2. Due Friday April 25 @10:30am

Course Evaluations

This is your chance to grade your instructor:  you can access the Course Evaluation participant portal on MyASU through the 'Course Evaluations' link under under 'My Classes.'

webwork questions

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just got 2 of them. first is 6.3 problem 18:

How many 6-letter words that have the letter 'x' are possible? Letters may be repeated, and the words don't have to be meaningful. (Hint: First count the words without 'x' .)

this one I just don't know what to do and have 1 try left :S

2nd is 6.3 problem 7:

In how many ways can 4 different novels, 2 different mathematics books, and 1 biology book be arranged on a bookshelf if:

(a) The books can be arranged in any order? 

(b) The mathematics books must be together and the novels must be together? 

(c) The novels must be together but the other books can be arranged in any order?

for the 2nd one I got a.)7! b.)288 c.)144 I have 2 right but not the 3rd. forgot which is wrong but I got all the others done. 

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1) Well, first of all, you know that you can login as "Guest" and work this problem as many times as you like--this might help lower the stress about this question and help you think more clearly.

Second, you need to understand that the use of the word "word" here is different than the words that appear in the dictionary.  Here it just means any six character string from the given character set-it doesn't have to make sense in any language; e.g. zzzzzz is a perfectly fine word, as is yzchkk.

Now, supposing that only lower case characters are allowed, so that there are only 26 letters you have to worry about, you need to answer two questions: 1) how many six letter words are there with characters taken from the whole alphabet, and 2) how many six letter words are there without the character "x".  Then you need to keep in mind that that the words you want are all of those not in the second class.

2) as for part a), since the type of book doesn't matter, this is the basic ordered counting problem.  For Part b) you get to count the orders of each type of book, and then count the ordering of types. When you count the orders of books and types together, keep in mind that the two operations can be done independently.  Part c) is like part b) except that you count the mathematics books and the biology book as just one type. 

Webwork Question

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I am a little confused on the WebWork problem which states

"A computer is printing out subsets of a 4 element set (possibly including
the empty set).

(a) At least how many sets must be printed to be sure of having at least 2
identical subsets on the list?

(b) At least how many identical subsets are printed if there are 49 subsets
on the list? "

what are you considering elements in the set? I am having a hard time
visualizing what the problem is asking for. If you could clarify this for
me I would be very grateful.

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This problem is designed to confuse, especially for those who never had a firm grasp on the notion of the power set  P(S), which has elements that are subsets of S.  In your case, the subsets of a four element set like {a,b,c,d} are the elements of the power set P({a,b,c,d}).  A critical first step for you is to understand how many elements does this power set have?  Now how many of these elements chosen at random (with repetition allowed) do you need to write down, before you are *guaranteed* that you have written down at least one element (i.e. some subset of {a,b,c,d}) twice?  If you write down 49 subsets (49 elements of P({a,b,c,d}), what is the smallest number of elements that must be duplicates? (For instance if you got to pick the elements, you could choose all 49 the same and would have 49 duplicates--but this question is asking about a lower bound, not an upper bound)

homework due next week

We've gotten a bit behind on the homework, so I'm going to pace the webwork a little more closely;

Webwork section 6.1 and section 6.2 are now open due next Monday at 6pm.
Webwork section 6.3 and section 6.4 are now open due next Wednesday at 6pm

Book homework for chapter 6 is due Next Friday at the beginning of class.

The exam on monday...

will cover sections 3.2-6.2

A practice exam

The practice exam can be accessed through this link.

Homework assignment this week

None!  :c)

Email

7:16 PM (43 minutes ago)
to Thomas 

Good afternoon Professor Taylor,
I was wondering if you had a rough estimate when our next exam and the covered sections and what the current status of our grades are in the course? 

Enjoy the rest of your evening, 

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1) Yep, below, thanks for everybody's patience with this

2) This will be as listed on the syllabus; we're right on schedule for the sections covered.

Updated Scores&Estimated Current Grade

Attendance as of 3/7/14

Homework Due March 21

Webwork Section 5.3

Bookwork Section 5.3

Homework Due 3/7/14

Webwork section 4.2 and section 4.3 due at 9:30am

Bookwork sections 4.2 and 4.3.

Email RE: Grading Natural Numbers

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11:46 AM (1 hour ago)
to ######, Thomas, ######

Hi,

As I am grading all of the 243 homework for this semester, I noticed 0 is in the set of natural numbers according to this semester's MAT 243 book. I just want to confirm what your definition of a natural number is, since this book apparently uses 0 in this set. I personally don't agree with this, but I want you to let me know what I should do when grading. Some students assume this while others may be confused in the homework. Some students give functions that don't map to 0, but can be onto if 0 wasn't defined and so on. I know the "how to prove it book" did this to me as well... Just let me know how you think that I should grade this. Thank you and have a great day.

************************************

Hi #### (and ####### and #####), I tell them that the definition of the natural numbers is contested, they can assume the book's definition which includes zero, but if they want they use the definition that excludes zero they can as long as they specify precisely the definition they mean.  I expect that few people paid attention--and if they use or seem like they could be using the natural numbers excluding zero without so specifying, please feel free to knock off points.

best,

Tom

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webwork question

Hello,
I am trying to do the division problems, and WW says the answer is wrong
for example, when it asks for 23/3, I input 7.6666, but they say the answer
is wrong.

*********************************************************************

Webwork is using the symbol "÷" to mean what the section 4.1 of the text book calls "div",  n÷m does not mean the quotient n/m, it means the number k in the unique expansion n=km+r where the remainder r satisfies 0≤r<m, i.e. n÷m  means the number of times m fits in n.  For example, 40÷3=13.

Homework Due February 28

Webwork section 3.2 and section 4.1

Bookwork sections 3.2 and 4.1.

Test Review Wednesday Night

Hi All, there will be a test review tomorrow night, here is the info:

Hello Professor Taylor,

I am informing you that there is a review session on Wednesday, February 19^th at 7PM for MAT 243. The location of the review is in Hayden L-60. The room is in the basement of Hayden Library; there should be an elevator just to the right of the Hayden Library entrance that should bring them to the bottom floor.  L-60 should be the room directly in front of them when they reach the lower level.  In order to have a productive review session, please tell them to bring their books, notes, and any specific questions they might have. The tutor scheduled for the review is John Jacobson (jrjacob1@asu.edu). Feel free to contact him if you have any suggestions for the review. Thank you and have a great day!

Sincerely,

question RE exam

Hi Professor Taylor

I have a few questions regarding the upcoming test. What all sections will be covered on the test this Friday? Are there any test reviews I can refer as I'm not sure what kind of questions will be there? Can I bring a cheat sheet to the test?

Thanks

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OK, to answer your questions in order.

1)We've covered seven sections from chapter 1, four sections from chapter 1 and one section from chapter 3, for a total of twelve sections.  Typically each section will have covered multiple topics--I haven't counted, and sometimes it's hard to tell if you've got two different topics or two examples of the same topic, but let's guess a total of 40 topics.  You are responsible for learning all of these topics. It would take much longer than the 50 minutes of the exam you were tested on all of these topics.  The test will instead be comprised of a selection of these topics. Any of the topics we've covered are fair game.

2) Here's a review session from last semester.  Same material.

3) OK. Let's say that you get one 3x5 card for notes, written by your hand. (Copied and 4x6 cards will be confiscated)

homework due Feb 21

Webwork section 2.3 and section 2.4.
Book homework sections 2.3 and 2.4.

OK.....I am told that webwork actually works on the web

Just to recap: this week's webwork is due Monday at 8:00AM, next week's webwork is due Friday at 9:00AM.

The due date...

Since there's still a problem with the webwork, and nobody is telling me that it is fixed, let's push the due date for this week's webwork back to Monday 8:00AM

Homework Due February 14

Webwork section 2.1 & section 2.2
Bookwork sections 1.7, 2.1 & 2.2

Webwork resolution, gradually by degree....

From the server admin:

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Tom:

webwork2 has a new IP# and now things work again.

BUT it takes some time till all name servers flush and pick up the new IP#.

I hope that by tonight that's done.

The new IP# is 129.219.51.87

if you go to 129.219.51.87/webwork2

you can see your class and login as guest. 

But as soon as you login with your asurite id it will bring you back to webwork2 (the name and not the #)

So, we need to wait till the name servers are ready.

********************

Anyway, at the moment you need to know that the webwork is NOT due tomorrow.

webwork due date/time

The webwork due date/time has been extended by 24 hours

webwork problems

Today webwork has been behaving strangely and not well.  The server&network people have been working on the problem, but have not solved it so far.  I will reschedule the due date for your assignment, as soon as webwork will let me.

Current Grades

Click on the image below for an enlarged version:

Question on homework grading policy

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Good afternoon Professor Taylor, 

I hate to bug you before the weekend however I wanted to get some feedback from you regarding the homework assignment. From my what I could gather there were over 40 problems for the first homework assignment and I received **/10 even after completing all the problems with over 2 hours invested as well. If the graders are only selecting a few problems from the assignment how does this reflect on my grade and the overall assignment? I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend and I look forward to class on Monday. 

Thanks again!

Sincerely, 

#############

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OK,  some comments on how the homework is graded and why.  

The reason homework is assigned is because people learn the material they get from the lectures and textbook much better if they actually have experience using it. We encourage that by assigning homework and making the homework scores a small part of the course grade, but the real payoff comes from the improvement of your exam scores.

Providing corrected homework is useful for those students who study the corrections.  However, grading homework requires investment of human effort, which requires investment of money.  The grader is hired to spend 3 hrs per week on grading your homework.  While I would prefer all the homework problems be graded, that would require a good deal more money than we have.  Given these constraints, the homework problems to be graded are chosen randomly within each homework assignment, but spread between all the sections in a given homework assignment.  Since they are random, over the semester they will evenly sample the spectrum of difficulty, usually of intermediate difficulty, but occasionally being the more difficult or easy.  The same selection of problems is graded for everyone's homework--everyone gets the same treatment.  Everyone also has a number of other resources for getting feedback on the homework, including in-class questions, my office hours and the various engineering and mathematics tutoring opportunities.

Now as far as the effort that you should spend on homework and study for this course, by googling around you can find various answers. One common rule (e.g. here) is that for every hour in class, outside of class you should spend two hours if the class is easy, three hours for an average class and four hours for a difficult class.  Since MAT 243 is three hours per week and most students seem agree that it's not an easy class, that would mean your should be spending nine to twelve hours weekly outside of class.  If you spent just two hours doing your homework, it sounds like you've seriously underestimate the level of effort required for this course.

Homework Due February 7

Book work section 1.6

Webwork section 1.6

Current grades

The Office Hours are posted on the syllabus...

...and here: M 3:30-4:30pm, TuTh Noon-1:00pm and by appointment.

Homework Due January 31

Book homework Sections 1.4 and 1.5 from the course syllabus.
Webwork section 1.4 and section 1.5.

question

hey I have a question

11000∧(01011∨11011)

how do I evaluate something like that???

This refers to a mapping of propositional logic to binary 
operations in whichF->0, T->1.  
In this set up p∧q=1 iff p=q=1,  p∨q=0 iff p=q=0 and
 -p=0 iff p=1.  These operations extend to binary strings
 pointwise, so that e.g. pqr∧stu=(p∧s)(q∧t)(r∧u), and
101∨011=(1∨0)(0∨1)(1∨1)=111.

Your grades so far...

From this page:
Posting ID:

Your Posting ID is a seven-digit number composed of the last four digits of your ASU ID number plus the last three digits of your Campus ID number, separated by a hyphen. Your Posting ID is printed on the class rosters and grade rosters your professors work with. You can also view your Posting ID on the My Profile  tab in My ASU.

Many faculty use Posting IDs to post incremental grades like mid-term exam scores, lab results, etc., in public places such as the departmental bulletin board, or the wall in the classroom. The Posting ID is used to permit your professors to get your incremental grades out to you quickly and efficiently while at the same time protecting your privacy."

Course Fee?

 I was wondering what exactly is the $30 class fee for this class is for?

Ehrrr.....I don't know--I just teach what they tell me.   I can tell you for sure that I'm not getting any of it though.

Welcome & First Homework Assignment

Welcome!

The written homework assignment for next week are the section 1.1 and 1.3 problems from the textbook listed on the syllabus.

Webwork Sections 1.1 and 1.3 will open on Friday 1/17/2014 after class and will close on Friday 1/24/2014 at 8:00AM.