Exam. The weighting of problems. (And one more piece of information.)

As indicated earlier, the weighting will not be as in previous years. 

  • Likely, the problem set will suggest uniform weighting over "problem numbers" (Problem 1, Problem 2, ...). 
  • Information will be given on the problem set (a line before Problem 1).
  • Weighting within each problem, that is, between the letters and the specific questions:
    There is at least one of the problems where some of you may want to solve "more than one letter at once", and it may be unfair to judge the letter parts independently. But thinking "equal weights" (so that 1a counts the same as 1b) would likely not be very wrong.

If you have taken Mathematics 2 here, the following should be well-known to you: You can use information stated in a previous letter-enumerated part even if you did not solve that one. E.g.:

  • If the parts are (a) Calculate [quantity X], (b) Show [property P], and (c) Calculate [quantity Y], then for part (c) you can use property P even if you did not even attempt at part (b).
  • You cannot use without proof property P (of part (b)) to calculate X (of part (a)).  
  • (Hope the following does not confuse: 
    If you did indeed show property P, it can be used even for part (a) - just like you could have done if there were no "part (b)" stated. Generally, everything you show from scratch is "yours" to use as you like - except when the problem text specifically prescribes a certain method or property.
    In particular, if X is a special case of Y, you can calculate X by means of proving P, calculating Y and extracting X. But if you did not prove P, only used it as stated, you can only use it for subsequent parts.)
Published June 6, 2016 12:08 PM