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Math 300 |
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| Math
300: Preparation for Senior Comprehensive Exams (Comps) |
Comps Part 1: An Exam on the Five Fundamental Courses of Calculus 1, Calculus 2, Multivariable Calculus, Linear Systems and Discrete Math.
Copies of Comps Exams from 2004 to 2009 are available.
How students will prepare in 2016: Each week you will have 35 minutes in class to do a practice exam on one of the first 5 fundamental topics, and then we will discuss those questions and the other ideas in that fundamental course. On Tuesday March 1 we will go over all five fundamental topics as a whole, and the actual Comps Exam will be Tuesday March 15th.
2016 Comps Practice Exams
How students prepared in 2009: We had the students in groups (each student assigned to at least two courses) develop lists of the Top 10 fundamental concepts in the Fundamental Courses. We then spent a day going over the concepts and problems from Calculus (one day), Linear Algebra (1 day), Multivariable (1 day) and Discrete (1-day). We also had the students take the Calculus Concept Inventory, a multiple choice exam. The students took the 2008 Comps Exam as a Practice Test (Solutions available here).
How students prepared in 2007: We had the students in groups (each student assigned to two courses) develop lists of the Top 10 fundamental concepts in the Fundamental Courses. Each student also had to write a 5+ page paper summarizing the central ideas in the fundamental course of their choice. Each student chose a specific question from a Comps 1 Exam and wrote up a solution to that question, then TYPED up a revised solution to the problem and then later gave an 8 minute talk to the class explaining their solution to the problem. In addition, in groups the students in groups wrote up solutions to all the solutions to Comps Part 1 problems from the 2004 and 2005 Exams which corresponded to the two fundamental courses that they were assigned. These solutions were scanned in and are made available below.
Students took Sections of the 2006 Comps Part 1 Exam as practice
Comps Exams in Discrete, Linear and Multivariable.
In class we reviewed the single variable Calculus section together.
How students prepared in 2004: We spent a class day devoted to each of the fundamental courses and then had each student write 2 questions which could appear on the Comps Part 1 Exam. Here is a full listing of the questions:
We also compiled a List of Important Topics for each of the Fundamental Courses from Spring 2004.
Comps Part 2: A paper and 30-minute talk about a topic of mathematical significance.
How we prepared: Each student in the class gave a 3 minute talk generally related to the concept of "infinity" on Tuesday April 27th. Here is a listing of the talk titles and abstracts.
Last Updated January 2, 2016