MATH 135 @ Waterloo

[Spock311]

I'm having a lot of trouble with this course. I expected it to be easy but it is brutal. I was wondering if any waterloo students can give tips on handling this class? I have a lot of trouble with proofs. I'm also having a hard time *understanding* some of the concepts. For example I can usually do a proof by induction correctly about 80% of the time but I have no idea why it works or what does it even mean for that matter. Tried reading the textbook and the lecture notes but I'm finding the ideas way to abstract to wrap my head around. So to anyone who has taken this class what is the best way of going about it? And what does one need to do to get a decent mark?

[thefleet]

algebra 1? first half is like geometry/discrete math 12

when in doubt just wiki lol
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathematical_induction

[quantifinance]

there is no more discrete math for highschool students haha..XD. i guess the new 1st years are having trouble with math 135 now eh? ;P.

Well..its basically an introduction to proof course so all the midterms + final gonna be mostly proofs. Only way to succeed in this course is practice, practice, practice!. Make sure you understand the theorems + proofs perfectly because its not a calculus course where you plug in and ur done. Many 1st year math students do fail this course tho since they don't do enough practice.
Just go ask your TA and professor whenever you dont understand the theorems (most important!)

I think I spent most time on this course, and I ended up with 89.. I was pretty happy about that.

[waterlookid]

this course scared me shitless about how university would be, but it didn't turn out so bad. after a while, I found that many of the calculations and proofs become very repetitive. Induction is pretty confusing at first but really its the same concept from question to question and even if you struggle with the inductive step on a midterm/exam, you can till get more than half the marks. Also, as you go further along into the course, it becomes a bit easier i think with more weighting towards calculations and less proofs (as you get into chinese remainder theorem, gcd stuff, etc)

But as above poster said, practice, practice, practice. The repetitive nature of many of the problems will make them somewhat easy for you with practice (except for maybe the last 1-2 problems on midterm/exam which are usually tough). I remember class average for first midterm was very low, like low 60s, but 2nd midterm ppl did very good on. final was easy

[pepsi_dude]

i never thought i would say it but im actually enjoying this course!

btw how did u find the midterm?

and as for succeeding, so far attending lectures and doing the assignments has worked really well i would say.

[wagthesam]

This is meant to be a really easy course.

If you are having trouble it means you do not understand logic. Review the basics ie (what it means for x=>y).

Don't worry though, proofs are fairly minor in lin alg 1 and 2, and the rest of your university career should be proofs free (unless you are doing combinatorics/pmath)

[Spock311]

i never thought i would say it but im actually enjoying this course!

btw how did u find the midterm?

and as for succeeding, so far attending lectures and doing the assignments has worked really well i would say.


I got owned by the mid-term. There was one question (the proof which involved the binomial theorem) which I did not even understand what it meant.

Before school started, someone told this was a bird course, but it is far from bird. The assignments are ridiculously hard and pretty much every assignment has atleast one question which is damn near impossible to do. I think understand logic it's just that the stuff we do is too abstract.

[pepsi_dude]

I got owned by the mid-term. There was one question (the proof which involved the binomial theorem) which I did not even understand what it meant.

Before school started, someone told this was a bird course, but it is far from bird. The assignments are ridiculously hard and pretty much every assignment has atleast one question which is damn near impossible to do. I think understand logic it's just that the stuff we do is too abstract.


The proof involving binomial theorem, are u talking about 3b? For that one, I found the closed form to be 4^n, but failed to prove it lol

Right about the assignments, they do take some time to complete.

[PureReborn]

for Math 135 the main thing is to KNOW THE THEOREMS! Read them, understand them, learn to use them, and know the methods to prove them. I TAed this course last year and the main difference between the students who found it easy and those who found it hard was understanding the theorems.

If you dont understand a theorem then ask a frd, or go to the tutorial office when theres a TA present. Visiting a prof during office hours can be time consuming as most profs are busy and you will have to wait for a while.

[damnos]

Wow ... it feels like it's been forever since I took MATH 135.

Like the above post said, just know the theorem. You need to get your head around proving stuff, I think this is the biggest difference between math in high school and uni (esp Waterloo), u need to know how to prove and understand how the mechanism works. Once you understand it, proving becomes a lot easier.

Also, you might want to make sure u get your head around this stuff before you take MATH 239 - now that's an interesting course

[andrew2good4u]

Wow ... it feels like it's been forever since I took MATH 135.

Like the above post said, just know the theorem. You need to get your head around proving stuff, I think this is the biggest difference between math in high school and uni (esp Waterloo), u need to know how to prove and understand how the mechanism works. Once you understand it, proving becomes a lot easier.

Also, you might want to make sure u get your head around this stuff before you take MATH 239 - now that's an interesting course

combinatorics :@:@:@
lmao

[DesignW]

135 =.= My God.