Exams

General instructions

Sample exams:     The Waterloo engineering society has copies of exams from earlier offerings of the course. Please refer to their website for more details on how you can get them. Your exams may be different from these because of variations in emphasis and material covered.

Calculator policy:     Only non-programmable calculators with no data storage capability (preferably with a pink tie sticker) are allowed during exams. Please refer to the Math undegraduate office calculator policy regarding which calculators are allowed, and how you may get a pink tie sticker.

Final

The final exam was on Thursday, August 7, from 9 to 11:30 am.

Solutions:     The solutions are here: [ pdf ]

Rooms:     PAC 5 and PAC 6 (no assigned seating, pick either room).

Topics included:     All the material covered in class, however, emphasis will be on the material covered after June 11, 08 (see the lecture schedule).

Exam format:    There are eight questions in all, each of which is broken into smaller parts. They are similar to the questions that you have seen in the homeworks and the quizzes. Proofs make about 33% of the marks on the exam. There is a bonus question worth 10 marks.

Definitions, Theorems, and Proofs:     We may ask you to state any definition introduced in the course. You are expected to know all the results from class. We plan to ask you to prove at least one of the following results, with an emphasis on those covered after the midterm:

• Proposition 2.1.2, 2.1.3.
• Proposition 2.3.3.
• Theorem 2.3.12.
• Theorem 2.5.2.
• Theorem 3.1.7.
• Theorem 10.1.7.
• Theorem 10.2.4.
• Lemma 10.3.3.
• Theorem 10.3.4.
• Theorem 10.5.1.

In each of these cases, we would state the result and ask you to prove it. Please note that the results may not be stated using exactly the same notation as in the textbook, so memorizing the proofs symbol by symbol is not a good approach. You might be asked to prove only a specific part of one of these results, or a slight variation of one of these results.

Practice problems:     Have been posted here.

Extra help:     There is a review session on Wednesday, August 6, from 1--3:00 pm, in RCH 301. There are new office hours from Friday, August 1 onwards; check them out here. The first year engineering office organizes help sessions; these times are to be posted here as well.

Midterm

The midterm was on Wednesday, June 18 from 7 to 9 pm.

Solutions: The solutions are here: [ pdf ]

Common errors made by the students on the midterm exam are listed here for Question 1 and here for the rest.

Rooms:     Please go to the room indicated as per your last name:

Topics included:     All the material covered in class until Wednesday, June 11, i.e., up to and including the rule for divisibility by 9, and congruences and their basic properties (see the lecture schedule).

Practice problems:     Some are posted here.

Definitions, Theorems, and Proofs:     We may ask you to state any definition introduced in the course. You are expected to know all the results from class. We plan to ask you to prove at least one of the following results from class: (numbers correspond to the Spring 2008 edition of the course notes)

• Proposition 2.1.2, 2.1.3.
• Proposition 2.3.3.
• Theorem 2.3.12.
• Theorem 2.5.2.
• Theorem 3.1.7.