Category Archives: Undergrad. Adv. Math.

Exam howlers

Posted on May 24, 2012 by

I’ve just emerged from the cave of slightly grubby paper that I inhabit during the marking season. As ever, most of the idiocies with which I’ve been vexing my spirit are sad rather than amusing — or even vaguely sweet, … Continue reading →

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Some functions are less equal than others

Posted on April 22, 2012 by

Further evidence, among the piles of assignments I’ve been marking this week, for the suggestion that inequalities can reveal a lot about the depth of students’ understanding: Presumably this is just the old fallacy of treating  as an equals sign with a … Continue reading →

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Indeterminate determinants

Posted on December 9, 2011 by

I was marking the work of an otherwise quite able student today, and came across an offering that can be summarised thus: We need to calculate . Therefore we need to find the eigenvalues of Therefore we need to solve … Continue reading →

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Aggravating factorials

Posted on October 30, 2011 by

This week, fool that I am, I’ve been marking a homework question that involves factorials. The question was intended to identify weaknesses in the students’ understanding, and in that sense it’s been a success.

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UAM again

Posted on August 15, 2011 by

[Note: following advice from a friend who possesses more common sense than I do, I've removed my initial reaction to the anti-mockery article. I think there's a different case from the usual one to be made in favour of sharing (some) idiocies; hopefully I'll … Continue reading →

Posted in Teaching, Undergrad. Adv. Math. | 1 Comment