MA180-2/MA190/MA186 (2020/21) Mathematics - Semester 2 Calculus

News SUMS Course notes Exam Advice Assignments Weekly problems Links and FAQ

Welcome

Welcome to MA180/186/190 Calculus/Analysis, Semester 2 2020-21. Due to the ongoing public health crisis, this module will be run online. Our lectures will run via Zoom, on Wednesdays and Thursdays at 10.00. They will be recorded as podcasts and available via links from these pages. Students are encouraged to participate on Wednesday and Thursday mornings by joining the Zoom sessions, but anyone who is not in a position to do that can participate via the recording.
February 11 The first homework assignment for Semester 2 is now live, with a deadline of February 25.
March 1 The second homework assignment for Semester 2 is now live, with a deadline of March 12.
Course Information

Course codes: MA180 (Science), MA186 (Arts) and MA190 (Computer Science and Information Technology).
Lecturer: Dr Rachel Quinlan Email: rachel.quinlan@nuigalway.ie
Lectures: Wednesday 10:00--11:00
Thursday 10:00--11:00, via Zoom
First Lecture: Wednesday, February 10 2021
Tutorials/Workshops: TBA
Course Content: Integral calculus, the real numbers, sequences and convergence.
Recommended texts: Calculus by James Stewart (for Chapters 1 and 3 in particular), and the lecture notes.
Course website: Information and course documents will be posted to this site, which is linked from the Blackboard pages for MA180, MA186 and MA190. Blackboard will also be used for announcements and for posting grades.
Assessment: There will be 6 online homeworks (covering algebra and calculus) during the semester, as well as a 2-hour exam at the end of the semester.
Here is a short welcome video.

Content week by week

The content will be organised week by week, with separate links from this page for each week. The content for each week will consist of the following items:
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4
Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8
Week 9 Week 10 Week 11 Week 12

Course and Lecture Notes

The course content is divided into three Chapters. Lecture notes for each vhapter will be posted here as we proceed. The lecture notes are the "text" for the course and contain more detailed information and more examples than we will beable to discuss in the Zoom lectures. Students are expected to study the notes carefully as well as participate in the lectures; neither of these is a substitute for the other. The notes are posted in substantial blocks, one for each chapter, but please do not think that you are expected to read them all together or that you will be hit with this much content every week - the weekly updates will highlight which sections of the lecture notes are relevant for each week. You are welcome to read ahead if you want to of course, but it is not expected.

Exam and Assessment Advice

For students registered in programmes in the College of Science and Engineering, the continuous assessment accounts for 40% of the Semester 2 mark, and the final exam accounts for 60% of the Semester 2 mark. For student in programmes in the College of Arts, the continuous assessment and exam account respectively for one-third and two-thirds of the Semester 2 mark. The exan nark is recrded under the module code MA186 and the homework contributes half of the MA187 mark (the other half is from the Semester 1 contribution). This difference is due to different regulations in the two Colleges.
In keeping with the Semester 1 practice, full marks will be awarded on the continuous assessment component for correct answers to 5/6 of all questions.
The final exam will be a two-hour exam on the Semester 2 content only, conducted remotely via Blackboard.
The calculus part of it will have three questions, similar in format and style to exam papers in recent years. Students must answer all questions for full marks.
The last section of each chapter of the lecture notes is devoted to advice about the relevant exam question and includes some sample "exam-type" problems for practice.