MH1802 CALCULUS FOR THE SCIENCES (4.0 AU)

Year taken: AY 2022/2023 Sem 1
Grade: A

Lecture notes are provided but he will write down stuff on like a whiteboard ipad thingy on screen to show how to process works. We also have lecture recordings due to covid dunno for nxt yr. I would say that at the first 2 weeks of the lectures, the pace is very slow and the concepts are basically refreshers and foundations such as trigo, polynomials, quadratic eqns, exponential, limits etc. But once they touch newton method and integration, you will see the pace start to catch up. Additionally, the lectures do not teach complex number topics (e.g. De Movire Thereom etc) and they are placed in videos. You are expected to look thru the videos. Sadly, complex numbers are also tested in the midterms because “professors have complained about students not having a foundation of complex numbers”. But regardless, I do not go for lectures, we literally have video recordings. Let’s be for real, who the hell decided to put the lectures at North Spine when their students are at South Spine? Plus, I can look thru the notes rather than sit in lecture while confused abt where to write on the notes.

If you are the kind that do not like proving, I would assure you that this course does not have any proving required but he does go through some proofs. Though, not tested. (E.g. Epsilon Delta will not be tested). I would say this mod is more of application based. Though, the most tedious would be Newton Method and Integration Applications.

Sadly, as we learn more stuff like integration, newton method and linear approx, it gets harder. The hardest part was understanding 2nd order ODEs. He speed thru that the fastest. Luckily, he does give review lectures at any pt we are approaching the exams. Ngl. It was not rlly helpful directly b4 the exam, more of useful as the exam approaches bc the LT is noisy as heck and no one listens. For me, it was pretty useful tho. Plus, I can add on stuff on my cheat sheet.

Weekly Assignments (20%)
Grade:99
Mean:93.09
Median:98.00
-They are using this software called “MyMathLab” whereby they will post weekly assignments of about 40 qns. I would say sometimes I get triggered but yea, you are given 2 tries per qn. Do be warned, sometimes the answers are wrong and you may need to contact the prof(w evidence) to resolve it. Overall, I hate it. Regardless, it is in a laptop.

Midterm 1 (20%)
Grade 102/100 (capped at 100)
Mean:83.412
Median:88.00

For midterm 1, it is a closed book exam. Fortunately, closed book exams tend to be easier. Also, for midterm 1 and 2, there will be bonus qns. Hence, you will see that the max score is 110/100 but is capped at 100. It tested mostly on Functions, Trigo, Limits and Continuity and how to get dy/dx. They also tested COMPLEX NUMBERS(which is not taught on lectures). Overall, the paper is much easier than expected and possibly functions topic is more secondary school level.(well, except hyperbolic)

Midterm 2 (20%): This is where depression kicks in.
Grade: 81 (moderation by prof to capped at 100)
Mean: 63 (moderation by prof to 79.16)
Median: ? (Moderation by prof to 82)

Midterm 2 was “ok but tedious”. He gave us 2 Newton Method qns. TWO?!?!?! And one of them was a function that was so complex I did not even start on any bonus qns. Usually, I thought bonus qns tend to be hard. No. He made them simple af. I DID NOT EVEN LOOK AT IT :(. Most of us were at the rate of jumping out of the bridge that Exam Hall C was located. During the lecture after the exam, he showed that it was actually much more simplier if we simplified it. I was stunned. But anyways. He also said that to ensure fairness of those who missed out on the exams(midtemr 1 or 2 due to MCs), he decided to increase the scores by 32.5%.

Oh and also, a double sided A4 cheatsheet was allowed, written or typed. You can still bring in GC but you still need to show intermediate steps. We were tested mostly until integration applications such as arc length and volume of revolutions.

Finals (60%):
Let’s be honest, this finals is flawed. There was actually one qn which every Physics student would have experienced. Like literally, we have kinematics. And ngl, this qn wqs like repeated multiple times in Physics. But regardless, it was easy to do. We were allowed to bring a double sided 1 page cheat sheet. And it covers the full syllabus. Complex numbers were not tested. Thankfully.

I would say this mod overall is easy to score if you have had a background knowledge of H2 Maths Calculus and Functions. (Series and sequences and vectors are not part of the syllabus for MH1802, saying this cus some do not know the difference btw MH1802 and Engineering Maths.). However, I would also say that this mod is quite beneficial for busy students like me as they tend to use technology a lot such as video recordings and My MathLab and the recordings are quite useful as revisions and esp for people who have social anxiety issues or sensitive to noise since the lecture theatre is pretty huge. I would say though the lecturer is quite muffled even during lecture, he is actually a nice person and you can email him for any help.

Another thing I would mention is that before uni started, we had Maths Prep Course tgt with the CNYang Scholars and it is not for the Engineering students. Would advise if you have never taken H2 Maths before, if not, I would just use the notes they give anyways.

Taken in: AY 21/22 Sem 1
Grade: B+

Mid-Term Test 1: 38/70
Mid-Term Test 2: 44/70

Coming from a polytechnic background, this module was extremely fast-paced and did not leave any time for practice. Students definitely need to be on their A-game for this module. My year was taught by Assoc Prof Yang Bo, and while I do applaud him for his passion in math and determination to help students, I felt that the course was taught at a pace that was not suited to my learning abilities. For JC students, this will be a refresher and will involve a couple of add-on concepts but for polytechnic students, you will need to cover many new topics, and hence you’re definitely going to need to put in more effort to make it work. I would also like to comment that the way of teaching for this Prof does not involve lecture notes, though he does upload past-year lecture notes from previous lecturers as pre-lecture notes. He very much handwrites everything he teaches on a whiteboard and uploads his notes after the lecture, hence there may be a lack of structure when it comes to his teaching but there are definitely students that can adapt to this sort of teaching, just not me.

Personally, I spent about 8H a day studying for this module, often staying up till 3am every single day just so I could aim for a pass. Clearly, I did not do well in my initial few tests, but my final paper must have pulled me up significantly to have gotten the final grade which I was not expecting. My advise would be to source for textbooks and practice, practice and practice. I’d recommend getting the textbook Calculus by James Stewart and the textbook that is recommended for this module which is Thomas Calculus in SI Units for extra practices.

Taken in: AY 18/19 Sem 1
Grade: A-

Midterm (35%): 29.9/35
5 tutorial assignment (15%): 14.93/15
Finals (50%)

Math, math, math. One of my least favourite subjects of all time just because I cannot do it since young LOL. But, I started improving drastically since I was in JC, I just practised and practised, which is key when it comes to math. This module teaches content similar to JC, but more in-depth. By that I mean, when we were in secondary school/JC, we were just given the formula and taught how to apply them, but in Uni, we were taught to prove the formula (though it is not necessarily tested but good to know). JC students should find it easy to grasp as we have learnt it before, but poly students need not worry, just more practice and consult your friends/TA when in doubt.

There were 5 assignments (to be done in a group of 2-3) that we needed to submit throughout the whole 13wks of school. Each worth 20marks. We are given the chance to do corrections during the tutorial itself if we did not get full marks for it. And your final score would be the average of both. So, let say during your first try you get 19/20, and after the corrections, you get 20 marks. Your score would be recorded as 19.5/20. Assignments are not difficult, just make sure to check your work thoroughly. What my group did was that all 3 of us did the assignment ourselves at home, then meet up during lunch, and spent about 45mins discussing the answers. And any questions we have, we ask and explain to one another. We took turns submitting our work. The person submitting either has to rewrite the whole assignment to the way we want to present the answers or just submit their current copy if little adjustments need to be made.

This midterm has a 35% weightage which is a lot compared to the other midterms we had. We were allowed to bring an A4 helpsheet (both sides). It lasted 1.5hr and had us writing till the very last minute (or maybe just my friends and I). I studied for this by looking through all the lecture slides and tutorials (attempting most but not all again). Since this module is only in its second year, we only had one PYP to do. The PYP was considerably easy which threw many of us off guard. We were stunned when we saw the paper, the difficulty in level soared. However, the helpsheet really helped. Tips when doing your helpsheet: do not just blindly copy from the slides (everyone has access to the slides so what difference does that make right). You should write steps of how to apply the formulas, very useful.

For the finals, we can bring 2 A4 helpsheets (both sides, 4pages). Again, I studied all lecture slides, but paying lesser attention to tutorials this time due to poor time management, as I spent way too long on CM1031. Also, the tutorial answers uploaded had quite a few errors which wasted some of my time. In the beginning, the lecturer said she would not be uploading the answers to the PYP, so I got my friend to do the paper and discussed our answers during the study break. On the day before our math paper, the professor suddenly changed her mind and sent us the model answers ._. Time management is important during the finals because the paper was a difficult one as compared to the PYP. Tougher questions are placed in front while the straightforward questions are at the back, so one must know how to skip the tougher questions and move on, otherwise, the consequences are “fatal”.

Points to note: I attended the lectures every week for slightly more than a month then started skipping them because, in my opinion, the professor teaches quite slowly so it would save me time if I watch recorded lectures at 2 times the speed(2hr lecture becomes 1hr!). I only recommend this to people who think they are quite good at math. But please attend the first few lectures to see if you find her teaching slow. Some of my friends actually said her teaching is really fast, so it really depends. Also, although attendance for tutorials is taken, I do not think it is not graded.

This review was reposted with the kind permission of Awesome NTU CBC Student. Originally published at https://awesomentucbcstudent.blogspot.com/2018/12/ay1819-y1s1-review.html

Year Taken: AY19/20, Sem 1
Grade: A

Basically JC math + more (like limits and calculus on drugs). This course was taught by Dr Geok, shes quite long-winded but she’s very experienced so if you miss you grandma, just listen to her. You get to use cheatsheets in the exams , which turned out to be useless anyways….

Mid-terms 1 | 20/20
Functions and Complex numbers. 1 or 2 tricky questions but if you’re cautious you should be fine. And this was literally my first time seeing Dr Geok because I’ve been attending lectures from hall….

Mid-terms 2 | 15.3/20
Limits, differentiation more complex numbers. Boys, you’re gonna be SO rusty (like that SAR-21 you held for 2 years), so you’d better practise more. Saying from experience because I forgot how to differentiate halfway through. 0.3 because I think I forgot to present my answer the “proper” way so I lost method marks.

Finals
Not surprising (ask the seniors) but MH1802 is notorious for its insanely difficult finals. I got to the end in 45min because I literally skipped questions. Shawn had the balls to go to the toilet halfway through but turns out he thought it was a 1.5 hr paper. Never got to the answer for the differentiation and integration questions, and worst thing was, everyone’s answer were vastly different when we discussed after the exam. Advice? Shut up after the paper and go back to your hall and cry HAHA. The silver lining though, is that because the paper is so hard, the bellcurve will perhaps be in your favour if you just try harder than the rest. The 2 A4-sized cheatsheets remained under my table 90% of the time.

This review was reposted with the kind permission of Roy. Originally published at https://djtangent.wordpress.com/2020/05/13/testing/