J.P. McCarthy: Math Page

Week 6

Lectures

Very little by way of lectures this week, so that you can put the bulk of your time towards catching up on Chapter 2

• Matrix Determinants (22 minutes)
• Cramer’s Rule (27 minutes)

Exercises

How much time you put into homework is up to you: of course the more time you put in the better but we all have competing interests. Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises. 

Assuming you have a handle on the exercises from Week 4 and Week 5 you can try:

• p. 84, Q.1-3
• p.94, Q. 1-6

Additional Exercises: p. 96, Q. 1-10

Submit work for Canvas feedback by Sunday 7 March for video feedback after Monday 8 March. Ideally you don’t submit work that you are certain is correct, but instead submit work you need help and feedback with. Submit the images as a single pdf file. To do this, select all the images in a folder, right-click and press print. It will say something like How do you want to print your pictures? Press (Microsoft?) Print to PDF. If possible choose an orientation that has all the images in portrait.

Matrices Test — Week 8, 19:30 16 March

The open-book assessment will be designed to be done in about 45 minutes, however you will be given one hour to complete the assignment along with an additional 15 minutes to upload your work. 45 minutes means about one and a half exam questions (see MATH6040 matrices questions (Links to an external site.) ( (usually matrices are Q. 2, sometimes Q. 1)) to get an idea of how long one exam question is). Please contact me if the timing is an issue.

The assessment is based on Chapter 2. There will be five questions broken into parts (a), (b), and (c). Some/most of the part (c)s should be easier than in the Vectors Test. Some of the part (a)s will be a little harder.

Additional practise questions (beyond the manual) may be found by looking at past MATH6040 exam papers (Links to an external site.).

Academic Dishonesty will not be accepted and suspected breaches, such as communication with others during the assessment, will be pursued in line with this policy (Links to an external site.). 

We will have a Zoom Tuesday 8 March at 20:00 for any questions that ye would like to ask about this assessment. This tutorial will be recorded in the cloud.

Week 7

We will do a quick revision of differentiation.  If you want to look ahead here are two videos:

• Revision of Differentiation
• Operators

Then we will look at Parametric Differentiation.

Outlook

For most students, Chapters 1 and 2 are easier and you will want to do well on them. Things are going to get a little harder for the rest of the semester and you will want to try and do homework regularly.

Assessment Schedule

Week 5 – 25% Vectors Test

Week 8 – 25% Matrices Test (Zoom Tutorial in Week 7)

Week 11  – 25% Differentiation Test (Zoom Tutorial in Week 10)

Week 14 – 25% Integration Test (Zoom Tutorial in Week 13)

Study

Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises via email. I answer emails every morning seven days a week.

Student Resources

Please see Student Resources for information on the Academic Learning Centre, etc.

25% Vectors Test, 19.30 Tuesday 23 February

This is just repeating some the information from Week 4:

The open-book assessment will be designed to be done in about 45 minutes, but you have an hour and 15 minutes including time for uploading.

The assessment is based on Chapter 1. The questions into parts (a) (easy), (b) (medium), and (c) (hard). You might be advised to do all the parts (a) and (b) first, try and get as close to 70% as possible with those, and then leave the parts (c) to the end. Otherwise you might waste time doing parts (c) when there are easier and more marks available in parts (b) and particularly (a).

Academic Dishonesty will not be accepted and suspected breaches, such as communication with others during the assessment, will be pursued in line with this policy.

We had a Zoom tutorial: it is in the cloud.

Week 5

Lectures

As promised very few lectures so that if you have been a little behind on Chapter 2 already you can catch up after Test 1

• Linear Systems (26 minutes)

Exercises

How much time you put into homework is up to you: of course the more time you put in the better but we all have competing interests. Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises. 

Assuming you are ready for the Vector Assessment, and have a handle on the Week 4 exercises try

p.79, Q.1-4

Additional Exercises: p. 79, Q.5-6

Submit work for Canvas feedback by Sunday 28 February for video feedback after Monday 1 March. Ideally you don’t submit work that you are certain is correct, but instead submit work you need help and feedback with. Submit the images as a single pdf file. To do this, select all the images in a folder, right-click and press print. It will say something like How do you want to print your pictures? Press (Microsoft?) Print to PDF. If possible choose an orientation that has all the images in portrait.

Week 6

We will finish Chapter 2 by talking about determinants and Cramer’s Rule.

Outlook

In Week 7 we will start differentiation. For most students, Chapters 1 and 2 are easier and you will want to do well on them. Things are going to get a little harder for the rest of the semester and you will want to try and do homework regularly.

Assessment Schedule

Week 5 – 25% Vectors Test

Week 8 – 25% Matrices Test

Week 11  – 25% Differentiation Test

Week 14 – 25% Integration Test

Study

Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises via email. I answer emails every morning seven days a week.

Student Resources

Please see Student Resources for information on the Academic Learning Centre, etc.

In theory you are supposed to spend seven hours per week on MATH6040: my recommendation is that you watch the lecture material, then spend whatever other time you have for MATH6040 on exercises. It is up to you to decide when you complete learning tasks and timetable yourself. There are three hours of MATH6040 slots on your timetable that you can use if you want. Even with just three hours you should have at least one hour to try and submit exercises for video feedback.

25% Vectors Test, 19.30 Tuesday 23 February

The open-book assessment will be designed to be done in about 45 minutes, however you will be given one hour to complete the assignment along with an additional 15 minutes to upload your work. 45 minutes means about one and a half exam questions (see MATH6040 vectors questions (usually vectors are Q. 1, sometimes Q. 2) to get an idea of how long one exam question is). Please contact me if the timing (19.30 Tuesday 23 February) is an issue.

The assessment is based on Chapter 1. As it is an open book assessment, I have decided to split the questions into parts (a), (b), and (c).

The parts (a) are easy, and worth 40% of the total mark. The parts (b) are of medium difficulty, and are worth 30% of the total mark. The parts (c) are more difficult and worth 30% of the marks. You might be advised to do all the parts (a) and (b) first, try and get as close to 70% as possible with those, and then leave the parts (c) to the end. Otherwise you might waste time doing parts (c) when there are easier and more marks available in parts (b) and particularly (a).

Additional practise questions (beyond the manual) may be found by looking at past MATH6040 exam papers.

Academic Dishonesty will not be accepted and suspected breaches, such as communication with others during the assessment, will be pursued in line with this policy. To make life easier for me in this regard your assessment will be student-number-personalised. In addition by submitting you will be pledging that you will undertake the assessment in good faith.

We will have a Zoom Tuesday 16 February at 20:00 for any questions that ye would like to ask about this assessment. This tutorial will be recorded in the cloud.

Week 4

Lectures

There are 116 minutes of lectures here. You should need about three hours to watch these (I recommend 50% extra time for pausing/rewinding)

• Matrix Arithmetic Theory (34 minutes)
• Matrix Arithmetic Examples (27 minutes)
• Matrix Inverses (37 minutes)
• Matrix Equations (18 minutes)

Some deeper discussion here: Why do we multiply matrices like we do? Why can’t I divide by zero?

Exercises

How much time you put into homework is up to you: of course the more time you put in the better but we all have competing interests. Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises. 

Assuming you are ready for the Vector Assessment, try

• p.66, Q. 1-4
• p.70, Q.1-2
• p.73, Q.1-3
• Additional Exercises, p.66, Q.1, p.73, Q.4-5

Submit work for Canvas feedback by Sunday 21 February for video feedback after Monday 22 February. Ideally you don’t submit work that you are certain is correct, but instead submit work you need help and feedback with. Submit the images as a single pdf file. To do this, select all the images in a folder, right-click and press print. It will say something like How do you want to print your pictures? Press (Microsoft?) Print to PDF. If possible choose an orientation that has all the images in portrait.

Week 5

You will have your test. In lectures, we will look at Linear Systems. We won’t do too much so you have time to revise either Chapter 1 or Week 4 exercises.

Study

Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises via email. I answer emails every morning seven days a week.

Student Resources

Please see Student Resources for information on the Academic Learning Centre, etc.

In theory you are supposed to spend seven hours per week on MATH6040: my recommendation is that you watch the lecture material, then spend whatever other time you have for MATH6040 on exercises. It is up to you to decide when you complete learning tasks and timetable yourself. There are three hours of MATH6040 slots on your timetable that you can use if you want. Even with just three hours you should have at least one hour to try and submit exercises for video feedback.

25% Vectors Test, 19.30 Tuesday 23 February

The open-book assessment will be designed to be done in about 45 minutes, however you will be given one hour to complete the assignment along with an additional 15 minutes to upload your work. 45 minutes means about one and a half exam questions (see MATH6040 vectors questions ( (usually vectors are Q. 1, sometimes Q. 2)) to get an idea of how long one exam question is). Please contact me if the timing is an issue.

The assessment is based on Chapter 1. As it is an open book assessment, it is my intention to make the test a little on the hard side (in terms of the questions I can ask from Chapter 1). I hope to have about 40% of the marks going for straightforward/easier stuff, 30% of the marks for slightly harder stuff, and about 30% of the marks will be harder again. That is an intention not a promise.

Additional practise questions (beyond the manual) may be found by looking at past MATH6040 exam papers.

Academic Dishonesty will not be accepted and suspected breaches, such as communication with others during the assessment, will be pursued in line with this policy. To make life easier for me in this regard your assessment will be student-number-personalised. In addition you will be pledging that you

We will have a Zoom Tuesday 16 February at 20:00 for any questions that ye would like to ask about this assessment. This tutorial will be recorded in the cloud.

Week 3

Lectures

There are few lectures this week meaning that you should have time to do and submit exercises. You should need only about an hour and a half to watch these (I recommend 50% extra time for pausing/rewinding)

Work done by a Force (26 minutes)

Moment of a Force (29 minutes)

Vectors Short Summary (5 minutes)

Exercises

How much time you put into homework is up to you: of course the more time you put in the better but we all have competing interests. Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises. 

Assuming you have the Week 1 and Week 2 exercises done (maybe do these first), try

• p.44, Q. 1-6
• Additional Exercises, p.46, Q.7-13

Submit work for Canvas feedback by Sunday 14 February for video feedback after Monday 15 February. Ideally you don’t submit work that you are certain is correct, but instead submit work you need help and feedback with. Submit the images as a single pdf file. To do this, select all the images in a folder, right-click and press print. It will say something like How do you want to print your pictures? Press (Microsoft?) Print to PDF. If possible choose an orientation that has all the images in portrait.

Week 4

We will start looking at Chapter 2: Matrices. We will some examples of matrix arithmetic and look at Matrix Inverses — “dividing” for Matrices. This will allow us to solve matrix equations.

Study

Please feel free to ask me questions about the exercises via email. I answer emails every morning seven days a week.

Student Resources

Please see Student Resources for information on the Academic Learning Centre, etc.