Math 53: Section 2: Multivariable Calculus

UC Berkeley, Spring 2007

Your instructor is Michael Hutchings, [last name with the last letter deleted]@math.berkeley.edu, (510) 642-4329. My office hours are Wednesday 1-4 in 923 Evans. I am always happy to discuss math in office hours, so please come by.

Lectures take place on TuTh from 3:30 to 5:00 in F295 Haas. There are also the following discussion sections on MWF:

The textbook for this course is Stewart, Calculus: early transcendentals, fifth edition. Earlier editions have similar mathematical content, but the homework problems are different.

In addition, you will need a book of "worksheets" which can be purchased at Copy Central. The worksheets contain practice problems which you will work on in groups in the discussion sections.

Homework is assigned for each Tuesday/Thursday lecture, see the syllabus. Homework from a Tuesday lecture is due in the discussion section on Friday, three days later. Homework from a Thursday lecture is due in section on the following Monday. You can check your answers at the back of the book (if you get the wrong answer, try again!) but you need to turn in solutions, not just answers. You may work in groups but you must write your own solutions. Each assignment will be given a pass/fail grade based on completeness. The homework may be long at times; it is intended to give you lots of practice doing calculus, and should be good preparation for the exams.

Some homework solutions might be posted here after the assignments are due.

There will be a quiz each Wednesday in discussion section, except for the first week and the weeks of the midterms. There will be no makeup quizzes; however, your two lowest quiz scores will be dropped. One purpose of the quizzes is to help make sure that you keep up with the material. Later parts of this course depend heavily on the earlier parts, so it can be hard to catch up if you fall behind.

Exams. There will be two midterms, in class on 2/27 and 4/10. The final exam is on Friday 5/18 from 12:30-3:30.

Calculators and notes will NOT be allowed for the exams. Disabled students requiring accomodations for exams must submit to the instructor a "letter of accomodation" from the Disabled Students Program two weeks in advance.

It is not possible to give makeup exams. However, because of the grading scheme below, you can miss one midterm without penalty. Missing the final, on the other hand, will result in automatic failure of the course. Please check the date now to make sure that you can attend the final! Official university policy is that incomplete grades can be given only if an unanticipated medical or other emergency makes it impossible for you to complete the course, if you have documentation to prove it, and if you are otherwise passing (with a C or above).

Grades. To get full credit for an exam question, you must obtain the correct answer and show correct work or justification. Partial credit will be given somewhat sparingly. However we will make every effort to grade all exams according to the same standards. For this reason exam grades cannot be changed, unless there is an egregious error such as adding up the points incorrectly.

Course grades will be determined as follows, with the lowest 20% dropped:

More precisely, the above four grades will be individually curved into numbers (between 0 and 4.5) that represent letter grades. (For example, an A corresponds to a number between 4 - 1/6 and 4 + 1/6.) Section grades will be adjusted slightly to account for differences in grading standards between GSI's. To compute the course grade, first write down the following five numbers (each of which is between 0 and 4.5):

Section, Midterm1, Midterm2, Final, Final

Second, cross out one of these numbers, whichever is lowest. Third, average the remaining four numbers, to obtain a number between 0 and 4.5. Finally, convert this number back into a letter grade; that is your final course grade.

Syllabus and homework assignments

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