Math 33A announcements

(Mar 27) Grades are available here.
(Mar 24) Final solutions are here. Grades will be available on Monday.
(Mar 21) Some more questions added to the multiple choice quizzes; be sure to check them out again.
(Mar 17) Due to illness I will not be holding my regular office hours today. However, I will be having office hours next Monday at 2-5.
(Mar 16) For those of you who are curious about more details as to how google works via SVD, you can try this link (lecture notes from a third year CS course at the University of New Mexico).
(Mar 15) Just a reminder that IDs will be required for the final. For finals week, my office hours will be Monday 2-5.
(Mar 9) A practice final is now available, with solutions. Bear in mind though that this is the final from last quarter, with a different instructor, and so the level and amount of material covered is somewhat different from what will be done here. In particular you will find Q4, Q9, Q10 to be tricky (but not impossible).
(Mar 8) The final will cover sections 5.1-5-3, 6.1-6.3, and 7.1-7.4. While material from Ch1-3 will not be examined directly, you should be very comfortable with that material as it will be needed to answer questions from Ch 5-7; for instance, you should know how to solve linear systems, row-reduce matrices, compute rank, nullity, range, kernel, dimension, and inverses, and determine whether a collection of vectors is linearly dependent, independent, spans a vector space, or is a basis. The topics of least squares and singular values are important, and you are likely to encounter them in later courses that build upon math 33A, but due to time constraints we will not be able to cover these important topics thoroughly in class (though I will try to spend some time on singular values next week), and they will not be examined on the final. Nor will we examine the topics of symmetric and positive definite matrices.
(Feb 23) The midterm solution link is now fixed; thanks to David Lieberman for pointing out the error. Some clarifications on grading: for multiple choice questions, no explanation is necessary. For short answer questions, no explanation is necessary if the answer is one that could only have been obtained by reasoning correctly and clearly. However, there are some answers which could have been obtained by guessing (e.g. an answer of “0”). In such cases, a minimal amount of explanation is expected in order to convince the grader that you knew what you were doing and were not simply a lucky guesser. (The grading evaluates not only whether you answered the current question correctly, but also whether you are likely to answer such questions correctly in the future. In general, the more you write on your exams, the better understanding we have of your line of reasoning, which will improve your grade, providing of course that your thinking is sound.)
(Feb 19) Midterm grades are now available. The median was 15, the mean was 14.3, and the standard deviation was 3.9. Midterm solutions are also available.
(Feb 18) I am announcing a slight change in the format for the final. It will not be comprehensive, instead it will cover all the material after the second midterm (chapters 5-8). There will be six short-answer questions and three multiple-choice questions. A single 5x7 index card and a scientific calculator will be permitted. As before, one of the questions from the last homework assignment will also appear on the final.
(Feb 15) There will be some photographers in the lecture hall on Wednesday Feb 16 to take some UCLA promotional material. This will only take a few minutes and you will not directly be photographed (except possibly from behind).
(Feb 12) The second midterm (on Friday Feb 18) will be similar in format to the first, and cover all of Chapter 3. Once again, a 4 x 6 index card and a scientific calculator are allowed in the midterm. No practice midterm is available, but you may wish to try the Multiple Choice Applet, as I have recently added a number of questions of relevance to that midterm.
(Feb 4) Midterm grades are now available. The exam seemed to be on the easy side; the median was 15 (out of 20), the mean was 14.7, and the standard deviation was 3.
(Feb 2) Midterm solutions are now available. The grades should be available on-line by Friday, or Saturday at the latest. The exams will be returned on Monday.
(Jan 26) The midterm will consist of five questions, three of which are short answer (and which are worth 5 points each), and two which are multiple choice (and which are worth 3 and 2 points each), for a total of 20 points. All questions should be attempted. The midterm covers all chapters up to 3.1 (but with an emphasis on Chapter 1 and the first half of Chapter 2). You are allowed one 4x6 index card and a scientific calculator to the midterm. Also, if you want your score posted on the web page, you may write a nickname on the cover sheet of the midterm.
(Jan 24) A sample first midterm has been placed on the web page, together with solutions. This is the midterm from last quarter; since every lecturer presents the material at a slightly different pace and in a slightly different way, this sample midterm is only an approximation as to what the actual midterm will look like. Still, it is good practice for the actual exam. You may also wish to practice some of the java applets, notably the Gaussian elimination, Matrix calculator, and Linear transformations on R^2 applets, as well as the Multiple Choice Applet (especially the quizzes on “Functions”, “Linear systems”, and “Elementary matrices”).
(Jan 5) Just a reminder that the Student Math Center (MS 3974) will reopen on January 10, and is open Mon-Thu 9am-3pm. The SMC offers free tutoring help for all lower-division math classes, including Math 33A, and it is perfectly acceptable to use this resource to help you understand your homework assignments (or any other aspect of the course).