2006 april 25 / e-mail me

Math 103-03, Spring 2006

News

Introduction

The textbook is Calculus, 6th edition, by Edwards and Penney. Here's how you get in contact with me:

Here are the key web pages:

Your final grade is determined as follows.

In borderline cases, class participation and progress made throughout the semester are also considered. The final exam is uniform across all sections of Math 103. Your semester letter grade (A, B, C, etc.) is assigned after the final, according to an approximate curving process.

Calculators are not permitted on any exams. You may use them while studying or doing your homework, but do not become dependent on them. Also, unless otherwise specified, we are always interested in exact answers (simplified as much as possible), and calculators rarely give the correct exact answers, so use them with care.

Daily obligations

You have work due every time we meet:

If you cannot make it to class, then you should check with a classmate or with me to see what was missed. If your absence is due to a serious, incapacitating illness, and you are willing to vouch for this under the Duke Community Standard, then you may do so at Short-Term Illness Notification; for then the absence is excused, and I won't penalize you for missing a class activity, such as handing in homework or taking a test.

Homework

On each Wednesday you submit the previous week's homework for grading. For example, on Wed Jan 18 you submit the homework assigned during the week of Mon Jan 9 - Fri Jan 13. This gives you a chance to ask questions on the homework in the period immediately after it is assigned, and then to work for two more days on it.

Your homework should be neat and complete, with the problems done in the order they were assigned, and clearly marked. Staple your assignment into a single packet to be graded. If your paper is messy from revisions, erasures, etc., then you may need to recopy it. Show your work, and give simplified, exact answers. If a classmate were to read one of your solutions, she or he should be able to understand what the problem was and how you solved it. In other words, your solution should be well-written and self-explanatory. At the top of the first page of your assignment, write your name and write and sign the short pledge: "I have adhered to the Duke Community Standard."

Keep in mind that, while you are encouraged to work with others on homework and when preparing for tests, the written work that you submit must be your own. In particular, you may not copy someone else's work or allow them to copy yours.

Depending on time constraints, perhaps only a subset of your homework problems may be graded. In order to ensure full credit, do all of the assigned problems. Also, if the grader cannot easily understand your paper, for example because it is messy or the problems are out of order, then you may lose credit.

Supplementary materials

Here are some handouts from the Math Department:

Prof. C. Bray has some useful material:

Over time I have written the following one-page summaries of basic topics; you may also find these useful.

How to succeed in this class

I want all of my students to work hard, learn a lot of math, and earn a good grade. Here are my recommendations:

Well, that's it. But if you find yourself needing more help, here are some resources, in roughly the order you should try them.

  1. Talk to your classmates, and talk to me in office hours. Every student is expected to visit me at least once in office hours this semester.
  2. Visit the Math 103 Help Room in the Carr Building. No appointment is necessary.
  3. Sign up for free Peer Tutoring.
  4. Try some other options, as suggested by the Math Department.

Exams

Here are the exams we've taken, both with and without answers, and some data about how the students performed. I want to stress that the letter grades here are approximate only. Letter grades are not really assigned until after the final exam, when all sections of Math 103 are compared against each other. Grades are listed here only to give you some idea of how you're performing; they do not constitute any guarantee of how your final grade might end up.

GradeExam 1Exam 2Exam 3
A100-56100-71100-90
B55-4870-5489-73
C47-3353-4272-60
D32-2341-3859-47
F22-037-046-0
Median485774
Exam (blank)exam1w.psexam2.pdfexam3.pdf
Exam (answers)exam1a.pdfexam2a.pdfexam3a.pdf