J.P. McCarthy: Math Page

Mathematics Exam Advice

• The first piece of advice is to read questions carefully. Don’t glance at a question and go off writing: take a moment to understand what you have been asked to do.
• Don’t use tippex; instead draw a simple line(s) through work that you think is incorrect. 
• For equations, check your solution by substituting your solution into the original equation. If your answer is wrong and you know it is wrong: write that on your script.

If you do have time at the end of the exam, go through each of your answers and ask yourself:

1. have I answered the question that was asked?
2. does my answer make sense? If no, say so, and then try and fix your solution.
3. check your answer (e.g. if you are looking at a general true, look at a special case; substitute your solution into equations; check your answer against a rough estimate; or what a picture is telling you; etc). If your answer is wrong, say so, and then try and fix your solution.

Student Feedback

You are invited to give your feedback on my teaching and this module here.

Week 12

We will finish our study of Graph Theory by looking at Eulerian graphs, Hamiltonian graphs, and Dirac’s Theorem.

We had the test on Tuesday.

On Friday we had a look at this graph, a Chapter 4 question:

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Mathematics Exam Advice

• The first piece of advice is to read questions carefully. Don’t glance at a question and go off writing: take a moment to understand what you have been asked to do.
• Don’t use tippex; instead draw a simple line(s) through work that you think is incorrect. 
• For equations, check your solution by substituting your solution into the original equation. If your answer is wrong and you know it is wrong: write that on your script.

If you do have time at the end of the exam, go through each of your answers and ask yourself:

1. have I answered the question that was asked?
2. does my answer make sense? If no, say so, and then try and fix your solution.
3. check your answer (e.g. for a fitted curve or beam function, input values and see do they make sense; substitute your solution into equations; check your answer against a rough estimate; or what a picture is telling you; etc). If your answer is wrong, say so, and then try and fix your solution.

Student Feedback

You are invited to give your feedback on my teaching and this module here.

Tutorial Split

I am not sure what is going on with Leonard’s classes but I will be present this Friday, tomorrow 6 December for tutorials in A243L (11:00) and A213B (12:00).

Assessment 2 — Comments

Please see here.

Week 12

On Monday we finished off Chapter 4 by looking at Error Analysis. Better exercises than the book here (including corrections to the sheet handed out in class). We then had over two and a half hours of tutorial time for lectures, and another tutorial on Friday.

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Student Feedback

You are invited to give your feedback on my teaching and this module here.

Test 2

Test 2, worth 15% of your final grade, based on Chapter 3: Algebra, and will take place on Tuesday 3 December in the usual lecture venue of D160.

The sample is to give you an idea of the length of the test. You know from Test 1 the layout (i.e. you write your answers on the paper). You will be allowed use a calculator for all questions.

I strongly advise you that, for those who might have done poorly, or not particularly well, in Test 1, attending tutorials alone will not be sufficient preparation for this test, and you will have to devote extra time outside classes to study aka do exercises.

If you go into Canvas, and go into MATH6055 and the ‘Algebra’ unit, you might see online practise questions for Test 2.

Week 11

On Monday we half-finished the Examples of Functions (we will finish this off on Friday) mini-chapter before starting the final chapter, the easy chapter, on Network (Graph) Theory.

Week 12

We will finish our study of Graph Theory by looking at Eulerian graphs, Hamiltonian graphs, and Dirac’s Theorem.

The Test is on Tuesday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Student Feedback

You are invited to give your feedback on my teaching and this module here.

Tutorial Split

I am not sure what is going on with Leonard’s classes but I will be present this Friday and next Friday for tutorials in A243L (11:00) and A213B (12:00).

Assessment 2 — Results

These have been sent to you. Comments to follow.

Week 11

We had a tutorial dedicated to differentiation on Monday.

We tried to look at a Probability and Statistics Word Cloud on Wednesday. It was a disaster as my computer froze… anyway:

My answer: when and are independent.

My answer: Always

My answer: bell-shaped curve.

A difficult one. My answer: Every probability/area under a bell curve can be calculated by transforming the area to a curve, and calculating the area ‘there’.

My answer: To infer things about the population, e.g. the population mean.

My answer: An interval that we believe the population mean is in (with a certain confidence).

On Wednesday and Thursday we had a look at more general Taylor Series: not just near , before doing a revision of partial differentiation, and linking at error analysis.

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Transposition Project – Survey

With regard to TRANSPOSITION (pages 86-97 of the manual), please fill out this survey.

Transposition Project – Part II

October 14 you took a quiz as part of the Transposition Project that the Mathematics Department is undertaking in an effort to improve our teaching.

You will have another 15 minute quiz on Monday.

If you do not have an internet ready device, or did not do the first quiz, you may leave class early.

Thank you again for your participation.

Test 2

Test 2, worth 15% of your final grade, based on Chapter 3: Algebra, and will take place on Tuesday 3 December in the usual lecture venue of D160.

The sample is to give you an idea of the length of the test. You know from Test 1 the layout (i.e. you write your answers on the paper). You will be allowed use a calculator for all questions.

I strongly advise you that, for those who might have done poorly, or not particularly well, in Test 1, attending tutorials alone will not be sufficient preparation for this test, and you will have to devote extra time outside classes to study aka do exercises.

Exercises on Canvas

If you go into Canvas, and go into MATH6055 and the ‘Algebra’ unit, you might see online practise questions for Test 2.

Week 10

We worked with logarithms and started a quick look at Examples of Functions (which we needed Algebra to talk about).

Week 11

On Monday we will finish the Examples of Functions mini-chapter before starting the final chapter, the easy chapter, on Network (Graph) Theory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Tutorial Split

See my email of 12 November regarding the Friday tutorial split for the rest of the semester.

Tomorrow we go back to the normal room of A213B for the 12:00 tutorial.

Assessment 2 — Corrections

Hopefully I can get these to ye within the week. I have some ‘man flu’ at the moment but hopefully that goes away.

Week 10

We had an extra tutorial on Monday. Most people concentrated on the Sample Question 3s on Probability and Statistics.

We finished off Chapter 3 — and spoke about the Bad and Good and Bad News — before we began Chapter 4 with a Revision of Differentiation and had a look at Maclaurin Series.

Oh: one thing — I never told ye what a p-value was (Sample Paper I Q. 3 (c) B ii.). It is the same as the level of significance, the probability of making a Type I Error… the answer is 5%.

Week 11

We will have a tutorial dedicated to differentiation on Monday.

We might look at a Probability and Statistics Concept MCQ on Wednesday.

On Wednesday and Thursday we will have a quick look at more general Taylor Series: not just near , before doing a revision of partial differentiation.

Read the rest of this entry »

Test 2

Test 2, worth 15% of your final grade, based on Chapter 3: Algebra, and will take place on Tuesday 3 December in the usual lecture venue of D160.

The sample is to give you an idea of the length of the test. You know from Test 1 the layout (i.e. you write your answers on the paper). You will be allowed use a calculator for all questions.

I strongly advise you that, for those who might have done poorly, or not particularly well, in Test 1, attending tutorials alone will not be sufficient preparation for this test, and you will have to devote extra time outside classes to study aka do exercises.

Week 9

In Week 9 we finished talking about equations (and quadratic equations) and began studying exponents. We saw at the very end of Friday’s lecture that if we define a function:

,

by , then we define as an inverse function:

.

Week 10

We will introduce more and study the properties of uses of logarithms.

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