midterm

Today we have returned the marked midterms. (If you have not picked it up, please do so in tomorrow's tutorial or the TA office hours.)

The average is 47.5 and the median is 45, while the highest is 100. It seems that the results are not quite satisfactory. We have discussed about the difficulty of this course, and the objective of this course, and I won't repeat here.

As discussed in the class, the remaining 65% of this course will mostly depend on the second half of this course (e.g. at least 70% of the final exam will be starting from lecture 12). I will try to cut off some more difficult topics, and spend more time in explaining. There are many things you can do to do better in the second half.

1. Buy the textbook. Read it as suggested by the course homepage. Do the exercises inside; there are solutions for half of the exercises. No matter how hard I try to made the slides self-contained and put as much details as possible. Slides are NOT a substitute for the textbook. (Only very few students bought the textbook. Why do you suddenly think that textbooks are not important? As a student I bought most of the textbooks.)
   
2. More practice. There is no other way to learn mathematics. You need to try to solve problems and make mistakes. Only then you can gain the experience to solving problems. It is impossible to learn mathematics by just listening. The TAs are putting much effort in coming up with relevant supplementary exercises and providing solutions. You should spend more time in solving these problems and the problems in the textbook.
3. Come to classes and tutorials. Ask questions in classes. Some responses like "I do not understand what you just said", "could you repeat?" are much appreciated.
4. No talking in class. I will ask the students who talk to leave the classroom. Many students have complained that they could not focus because of the noise in classroom. Please be considerate to others.
5. Ask questions outside class. We do care about you, and are willing to offer help. My office hour is in every Tuesday 10am-5pm. You could come and I will try to answer every question of you. The TAs also have office hours on Friday. And, of course, you can always come and ask questions after classes and tutorials. Also, you can discuss the lectures (e.g. if you don't understand some slides, if you find typos, etc) and the homework in the course blog and newsgroup. We will try to reply as soon as possible.
   

I hope the quick return of the midterms will give you some extra time to do well in the second half. I also hope you could be more active in learning.