Math 53 Spring 2020, Sections 202 and 204

Section 202 meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8am in 75 Evans.

Section 204 meets Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9:30am in 75 Evans.

Office hours: Monday 3-4pm and Thursday 11am-12pm in 869 Evans, as well as Tuesday 11am-12pm for challenge problems only.

I will also occasionally monitor Piazza.

We are currently having section and office hours exclusively via Zoom. I am posting more detailed notes and images on this page while we are doing remote classes.

Please see my bCourses announcement for the Zoom meeting ID or email me if you have difficulty calling in.

Important dates and deadlines

Quizzes will happen in section on some Thursdays, see the posted timetable (30 minutes long).

Midterm 1 will be Wednesday, February 19 during lecture.

Midterm 2 will be Wednesday, April 8 during lecture.

The final exam will be Tuesday, May 12 from 3-6pm (location TBD).

Helpful links and other notes

Student learning center drop-in tutoring in Cesar Chavez Atrium 12pm-4pm Monday through Thursday starting the third week of class.

Some useful trigonometric identities.

Desmos, a nice online 3D graphing tool.

My webpage from Fall 2018 in Math 53 (note that it was with a different professor).

My webpage from Spring 2018 in Math 53 (note that it was with a different professor).

My webpage from Summer 2018 in Math 53 (note that as a summer class, I was in charge of the entire course and not just leading discussion sections).

Various past Math 53 exams.

Even more past Math 53 exams and solutions.

Some study strategies I like using (your mileage may vary):

• Make sure you have a clear understanding of all the key definitions, theorems, and formulas.
• Often, the process of making a cheat sheet turns out to be more helpful than actually using it during the test.
• Try teaching the material to someone else. Even just talking through the material out loud without an audience can be useful. When you have to clearly explain something, it can often solidify your understanding or point out which parts of a concept you are having trouble with.
• After finishing a homework problem, especially one that gave you trouble, think for a minute or two about why your solution worked, any alternative approaches that might work (or why the way you did it really is the best way), and any similar problems you could solve with the same kinds of techniques.
• Try writing your own problems (for example, thinking up a true/false question about some conceptual subtlety that you were tripped up by once).

Further review materials

A review handout on chapter 13 I wrote for a previous semester (note that it covers a couple topics beyond what we have seen; in particular, the binormal vector and the topics from points 14, 15, 16, and 17 in the summary).

A practice quiz on chapter 14 material with solutions. You can submit solutions on gradescope for feedback.

A practice final exam and another practice final exam from last semester. True/false questions (k) through (o) and problems 6,7,15, and 16 on the first exam and true/false questions (k) through (o) and problems 7, 14, 15, and 16 on the second exam cover chapter 16 material. I'll post solutions Friday 5/8. Note that these are copyrighted materials used with permission. Do not repost them on other sites.

Section handouts