MS 2001: Week 4

To be honest with you I don’t think I will.

Firstly, by 1.30 at last Tuesday’s tutorial we ran out of questions. That suggests one of three things to me (I say “you” here but I just mean any student in the class, rather than you Fiachra):
1. You didn’t attempt any exercises and so have no questions
2. You did exercises but you had no problem with them and so have no questions
3. You’re shy/ afraid/ unwilling to ask too many questions.

Now you told me that ye were having difficulty with the sheets. That suggests to me that ye did indeed attempt exercises, so 1 is out. Clearly 2. is out and all that leaves is 3. You have a resource in tutorials and ye plainly didn’t use it.

Come to tomorrow’s tutorial with a list of specific questions, and, time-willing, we can get through all of them.

As it stands you have worked examples presented in lectures and, when questions are asked, at tutorials. Also Wills’ notes have many worked examples.

Finally at present there are no solutions to past papers online and I am loathe to put some up because students will then learn off how to do the few questions that do regularly occur. I would much rather ye sit down with a pen, and paper (and indeed your notes), and figure out for yourself these solutions – it would be far, far more beneficial.

I understand that ye are in the business of passing exams, but I am in the business of of sending on students with a solid grounding in MS 2001 for MS 2002 and MS 3003.

Learning off examples is not the way to go – if you do the work and figure out the solutions (even find similar examples in your notes, or Wills’ notes), then ‘learning off’ the examples wouldn’t be too bad because you’ve at least gone through the logic in your head.

Now if two weeks down the line you are asking questions at tutorials and ye are still having difficulties, please feel free to contact me again.

Also I am very open to answering questions put in comments on the webpage.