Math 304-03 Announcements

Review session

Tests

Test I

Test I was on Monday, 2/22. It covered everything up to Section 2.4 (inclusive) except Section 1.9. The guidelines for interpreting your grade are these:

	A	B	C	D	F
	80-100	65-798	50-64	42-59	0-41

Test II

	A	B	C	D	F
	75-100	61-74	46-60	39-45	0-38

Test III

	A	B	C	D	F
	85-100	73-84	61-72	52-60	0-51

Note the slight reduction in A, B, C guidelines (May 9).

Final Exam

	A	B	C	D	F
	171-200	135-170	98-134	82-97	0-81

Notice that there were 200 points on the final exam, not 150. I'm using this to give extra weight to the final exam, which will help you slightly if you did better on the final than on the class tests.

The grades will not be posted -- sorry, I forgot that the system has been changed. Watch this site for the announcement that grades are ready. That will be not before Saturday. (Sorry.) School rules forbid me to give out grades over the telephone. The best way to get your grades from me (that will include your final exam grade) is to leave a self-addressed, stamped postcard or envelope.

Advice for effective study

Do the practice problems of the section before doing the regular assignment. Don't look at their solutions until after you've done your best to solve all the practice problems. When you do look at the solutions, the main thing is to try to understand why the author did what he did. Just seeing what he did is not very useful; you need to understand it. If you don't understand something, that will make a very good question to ask in class or in my office hour.

You'll need to spend at least 12 hours a week on the homework. If you fall behind by more than a day or so, you'll find it is almost impossible to catch up. If you do have a time crunch due to another course, make sure you set aside at least a half hour every day just to keep in practice, or you'll suddenly find you're lost. I'm not just saying this; I'm telling you what I've seen happen, too often, to students in this course.

When solving a linear system, always put it into reduced row echelon form unless the instructions say otherwise. I will not give full credit for echelon form with back substitution unless the problem asks for it. (Other methods like substitution get no credit; you already know these, there's no point in studying them now.)

Hand-in Homework

General rules

• Your work should:
  • be stapled; no paper clips or folded corners, please;
  • be neat: a clean, legible copy with no scribbles, no crossing out;
  • have all stubs from spiral-notebook paper neatly cut off;
  • have only one problem on each page (the back of a sheet counts as a new page);
  • be written so "up" is the same way, front and back;
  • show all the work necessary to solve the problem, with enough explanation that I can easily tell what you are doing at each step, and with the reasons that justify your work clearly stated. (This is essential! I'm more interested in the methods you know than in your answers. I deduct points for missing explanations; if there is no explanation, I deduct all the points.)
  • REVISED RULE OF "IT" If you use the word "it" or any pronoun in your work, make sure it is completely clear exactly what the pronoun means. If I don't understand you, I won't be able to give you credit.
  
  
  
• Rules for linear systems (in scalar or matrix form):
  • Substitution for solving a linear system is not allowed. This you already know; I want you to use the new methods so you'll learn them very well.
  • If you are solving a linear system, you must do it by reducing the coefficient or augmented matrix (as appropriate) to reduced echelon form.
  • If you are only deciding consistency or whether there are multiple solutions, you must do it by reducing the coefficient or augmented matrix (as appropriate) but you may reduce the matrix to any echelon form.
  • If the linear system consists of only one scalar equation, you don't need to set up a matrix. This is the only exception.
  
  
  
• I will not accept any problem that has gross algebra errors, such as dividing by zero, calculating an inverse by (A+B)^-1 = A^-1 + B^-1, and so on. These will get an automatic zero. (Same on quizzes and tests.)

Quizzes

There will be quizzes, possibly unannounced. They will cover recent material for the most part.