Min Wu
wumin at math.washington.edu
sections CA, CB
Ying Zhou
yzhou at amath.washington.edu
sections CC, CD
Xingting Wang
xingtin at math.washington.edu
section CEi
Midterm 1:
Thursday, October 22
Midterm 2:
Thursday, November 19
Final Exam:
Saturday, December 12
5-8 PM, Guggenheim 220
Grading of the final has commenced. I will update the Catalyst grade book with scores and course grades once I have them. I will hold an office hour on Friday, from 1 PM to 2 PM, if you would like to stop by to see your final exam. You are also welcome to stop by during any of my office hours during Winter quarter to see your final exam.
Have a good break!
CLUE will be holding a final exam review for Math 120 tomorrow (Thursday, December 10) from 8:00 to 10:00 pm in Mary Gates Hall (MGH), room 234.
There will be no lecture on Friday. Instead, I will be holding office hours from 10:30 to 4:00 in my office, Padelford C-544. You are welcome to come by during any or all of this time.
In lecture today, we discussed the Winter 2009 final exam. We discovered a few problems with the posted answers, and I made a few mistakes myself. Problem 6 has an incorrect answer. The answers to problem 7 were correct, but I made a mistake somewhere in the solution to part (a) during lecture; I have expanded the solution in the answers in the archive to correct this.
Also, in 7(b), I suggested the answer was incorrect, but it was not. In the newly posted answers, I explain a better, more reliable way to determine which of two solutions given by the quadratic formula is the right one.
Sorry about those errors. Let me know if you find anything else fishy, and I will work to remedy it as soon as I can.
Here is a review sheet for the final exam.
Although the course content has changed, you should be prepared to use the methods needed to solve every problem on all past final exams in the test archive back through Autumn 2006. On finals older than Autumn 2006, you may find a problem which involves the sum or difference of multi-part functions. You are not responsible for knowing how to solve such problems.
Here is an applet I wrote to help you get a feel for sinusoidal functions. You will need to have Java enabled in your browser.
Answers to the second midterm are now on the exam archive.
The grade record is now available. This link should take you to your scores in the 120C grade book (you will need your MyUW login). Please check that your scores have been recorded correctly. Please let your TA know of any errors you find there: you will need to present them with the homework or exam with the improperly recorded score in order to have it corrected.
Also, the grade book now has an estimated course grade. This includes the dropping of your lowest homework score, and obviously does not include the final exam. The final exam is 35% of your grade, so it can make quite a difference in your course grade. This estimated course grade is just to give you a sense of how you are doing and what grade you can expect if your performance continues at the same level.
Here are the statistics for the second midterm: n=174; min=7; 1st quartile=30.25; median=36; 3rd quartile=38; max=40.
Rather than give a translation table for this exam in isolation, I will soon be making available your grade record which will include a current estimated course grade which takes both exams, midterms and test-prep scores into consideration. This should be available by the end of the week.
I have been informed that the math department web server will be rebooted tonight at 10 PM. As the result, this site and the 120 Materials Site and test archive will be unavailable for a short period of time, hopefully no more than 10 minutes.
CLUE is holding a review session this Tuesday, November 17, 2009, in Mary Gates Hall (MGH) from 7:00 to 9:00 pm in room 238.
Exams in the exam archive are not wholly useful for studying for the upcoming midterm exam due to the significant changes in the course content this year. Here are problems in the exam archive that are worth looking at.
Spring 2009 MT2 problem 1
Spring 2009 MT1 problems 3 and 4
Winter 2009 MT1 problem 2
Winter 2009 MT2 problems 1 and 2
Autumn 2008 MT2 problems 1 and 2
Spring 2008 MT1 problem 3
Spring 2008 MT2 problem 1
Winter 2008 MT1 problems 1 and 4
Winter 2008 MT2 problem 2
Autumn 2007 MT1 problem 4
Autumn 2007 MT1 problem 1
Final exams:
Winter 2009 problems 3, 5, and 7
Autumn 2008 problems 2, 3, and 7
Spring 2008 problems 2, 7, and 8
Winter 2008 problems 2 and 6
Autumn 2007 problems 2, 3, 4, and 9
Spring 2007 problems 1, 3, and 6
Winter 2007 problems 2, 3, 5, and 6
Autumn 2006 problems 1, 4, and 7
In general, when looking at second midterm exams in the archive, you can ignore any problems involving trigonometry or the word "sinusoidal".
Here is a review sheet for the second midterm exam.
There will be a review session for Math 120 on Monday night, Nov. 8, at Mary Gates Hall, from 7 to 9 PM. The room should be listed on the CLUE website.
I made a small error during lecture on Wednesday. The procedure used in one example was fine, but there were some of computational errors (i.e., some of the numbers are wrong). I've written up this example to correct this error. It is available here.
There have been a couple of changes to the homework. Chapter 13 has been postponed until next week. Also, problem 10.1 has been changed to now only include parts (a) through (f) (i.e., don't worry about parts (g) and (h)).
In lecture today, I mentioned that I might modify the homework schedule. However, I decided there was no need to. So the assignment for Friday is unchanged.
Answers to the first midterm exam are now available.
Answers to the first midterm exam will be posted this afternoon.
Here are some statistics on the first midterm exam: n=181; min=4; first quartile=17; median=24.5; third quartile=30; max=40 (3 people).
Here is a table to give you an idea how your score would translate to a 4.0 scale. I do not use this table for any purpose: this is just for you to gauge how you are doing so far in the course.
| score | approximate 4.0 scale equivalent |
| <16 | 0 |
| 16 | 0.7 |
| 17 | 0.9 |
| 18 | 1.2 |
| 19 | 1.4 |
| 20 | 1.7 |
| 21 | 1.9 |
| 22 | 2.2 |
| 23 | 2.4 |
| 24 | 2.7 |
| 25 | 2.8 |
| 26 | 2.9 |
| 27 | 3.0 |
| 28 | 3.1 |
| 29 | 3.2 |
| 30 | 3.3 |
| 31 | 3.4 |
| 32 | 3.5 |
| 33 | 3.6 |
| 34 | 3.7 |
| 35 | 3.8 |
| ≥36 | 4.0 |
The midterm on Thursday will be in your usual quiz section location at your usual quiz section time.
There will be a CLUE review session for Math 120 tonight from 7 to 9 PM in Mary Gates Hall, room 288.
Here is a review sheet for the first midterm.
The exam archive (available via the 120 Materials Website (link at right)) is a great resource of old exams for you to take a look at. However, every quarter is a little different, and this quarter particularly will be a lot different from past quarters in the ordering of chapters and topics. As a result, using the archive is more complex than it used to be.
Here are some tips for using the archive while studying for the first midterm exam:
Please read this collection of important information about homework in this course.
Welcome to Math 120 C, Autumn quarter 2009.
Announcements and other useful things will be posted here during the quarter, so check this site frequently.
Textbook: The textbook for this course is Precalculus, by Collingwood and Prince, the 2009-10 edition. The book can be purchased at Professional Copy and Print, located at 1414 NE 42nd St. It is not available at the UW bookstore.
You do not have to purchase the textbook. It is available electronically on the Math 120 Materials Website (link at right).
It is necessary that you use the 2009-10 edition. Many changes were made from the 2008-9 to the 2009-10 edition, and there will be much confusion if you try to use the 2008-9 or earlier editions.