Mathematics 1B, Spring 2022

MW 5-6:30, Wheeler 150


Syllabus:  Techniques of integration; applications of integration. Infinite sequences and series. First-order ordinary differential equations. Second-order ordinary differential equations; oscillation and damping; series solutions of ordinary differential equations.


Professor  John Lott
Telephone: (510) 642-1299
email: lott@math.berkeley.edu
Office: 897 Evans Hall
Office hours: M2-3, W3-4
Course webpage:
/~lott/math1B.html

Course postings:

Lecture recordings, along with any lecture notes, homework solutions or test solutions, will be posted on the class bCourses page.


Enrollment questions: You MUST attend the section for which you are registered.

I have no control over enrollment issues. Information about enrollment is at
https://math.berkeley.edu/courses/enrollment/enrollment-scheduling


Prerequisites: 1A or N1A.

Textbook: Math 1A/1B, Single Variable Calculus, Custom Edition, University of California, Berkeley, CEngage Publishing

This consists of selected chapters from
``Single Variable Calculus, Early Transcendentals'', 8th edition, by Stewart

The custom edition mentioned above is at a reduced price. If you already bought an earlier edition of the book then you're probably OK, but you should be aware that some of the exercise numbers may be different.

Class meetings and sections: The class meets in Wheeler 150 during 5-6:30pm on Mondays and Wednesdays. If you take this course you are expected to attend lectures, enroll in and attend one of the discussion sections listed below, do the homework each week, and take quizzes, the two midterms and the final. All discussion sections meet TuTh.

Section Time Place Instructor
101
 8am
 75   Evans
E. Sandine
102
 8am
 6   Evans
A. Bardalai
103
 8am
 106 Wheeler
 I. Broudy
125
 8am
 87 Evans
A. Subramanian
104
 9:30am
 87   Evans
A. Bardalai
105
 9:30am
 81  Evans
 V. Cheekala
106
 9:30am
 71   Evans
E. Sandine
107
 11am
 9   Evans
 A. Subramanian
 108
 11am
 85   Evans
V. Cheekala
   109
  11am
 87    Evans
P. Mysorekar
   110
  12:30pm
 B56   Hildebrand
S. Palit
   111
  12:30pm
 201   Giannini
I. Broudy
   112
  12:30pm
 5   Evans
P. Mysorekar
   127
  2pm
 2   Evans
S. Palit
   113
  2pm
 70   Evans
H. Powers
   114
  2pm
 285   Cory
Q. Zhu
   115
  3:30pm
 121   Latimer
Z. Jiang
   116
  3:30pm
 110   Barker
Q. Zhu
   117
  3:30pm
 5   Evans
H. Powers
   118
  3:30pm
 201   Giannini
H. Mandel
   119
  5pm
 87   Evans
M. Li
   120
  5pm
 85   Evans
Y. Feng
   126
  5pm
 141   Giannini
H. Mandel
   124
  5pm
 3105   Etcheverry
Z. Jiang
   121
  6:30pm
 5   Evans
M. Li
   122
  6:30pm
 70   Evans
Y. Feng
   128
  2pm
 736   Evans
E. Bajo
You can attend the office hours of any of the GSIs, although priority will be given to students in one of their given sections.
A. Subramanian M9-10, 781 Evans
E. Bajo M1-2, 1041 Evans
I. Broudy M1-2, 781 Evans
H. Powers M2-4, 868 Evans
H. Mandel Tu1-3, 1065 Evans
P. Mysorekar Tu2-3:30, 868 Evans
Z. Jiang Tu2:30-3:30, 1037 Evans
S. Palit W8-9:30, 868 Evans
A. Bardalai W8:30-10:30, 850 Evans
A. Subramanian W9-10, 781 Evans
V. Cheekala W3-5, 868 Evans
M. Li Th2-4, 937 Evans
Y. Feng Th3-5, 834 Evans
Q. Zhu Th5-7, 789 Evans
I. Broudy F1-3, 781 Evans
E. Sandine F1-3, 844 Evans
E. Bajo F2-3, 1041 Evans

Exams:

For each midterm, you can bring a 3"x5" card with notes handwritten on both sides in a normal size. (No magnifying glasses.) For the final, you can bring an 8"x11" sheet of paper with notes handwritten on both sides in a normal size. No other notes, books or electronic devices are permitted. For midterm and final exams, bring pencils/pens/erasers. Exam books and blank scratch paper are NOT needed or permitted. All work will be done in booklets provided by me. Scratchwork can be done in that booklet, either on a blank page provided at the end of the booklet, or on backs of any pages.

In general, you are not required to simplify arithmetic expressions which arise on exams. Do not multiply out or divide out expressions involving decimals. 7/9 is a better answer than 0.77777... with infinitely many dots, while a rounded approximation such as 0.77 is not equal to 7/9 and thus would not be completely correct. Expressions such as pi, e, and the square root of two should be left as is, not approximated by decimals. Expressions which can obviously simplified, such as 32/64 or the square root of 9, should be simplied. Algebraic expressions should be simplified where possible.

You should understand the statements of any theorems. You do not have to memorize the proofs.

For some exam problems, boxes will be provided in which answers are to be written. This is done in order to eliminate miscommunication and facilitate grading. Please write your final answer in the box in order to receive full credit.

Partial credit will be given where appropriate.

Grades for exams or quizzes can only be changed if there is a clear error on the part of the grader, such as adding up marks incorrectly or forgetting to grade a question. If you write a correct answer for a (non-T/F) problem but your reasoning is incorrect or nonexistent then you will not get credit for it.               

Exam Date Material covered
Midterm # 1  February  23, 5-6:30PM, 150 Wheeler
 up to and including 11.4
Midterm # 2   April 6, 5-6:30PM, 150 Wheeler
 up to and including 9.2
Final Exam   May 13, 3-6pm
  Everything




GSI Location of Final
  Broudy, Subramanian
  10 Evans
  Cheekala, Sandine
  245 Li Ka Shing
  Li, Powers
 105 Stanley
  Bajo, Bardalai, Feng, Jiang, Mandel, Mysorekar, Palit, Zhu
 150 Wheeler


Grading:

  At the end of the term you will have five subscores, one for each of the following: homework, quizzes, the two midterms and the final exam.

Homework: 10%, no scores dropped.
Quizzes: 15%, 2 lowest scores dropped.
2 Midterms: 20% each
Final: 35%
Your quiz score, your homework score, your first midterm score, your second midterm score and your final score will be individually curved. After that, you can replace your lowest midterm score with your final score. I will do this for you automatically.

The grading will be based on a curve. However, I retain the right to determine what grade corresponds to the middle of the curve. (This can be to your advantage; if everyone does perfectly then I will be very happy to give everyone an A+.) As a guideline, in recent years the average grade for Math 1B was a B. The grade distribution was roughly as follows: 35% A, 30% B, 25% C and 10% D/F.

Very important:

In computing the total quiz subscore, the lowest two quizzes will be dropped.

You can replace your lowest midterm score with your final score.

There will be no makeup exams or quizzes.

Before computing the grades, each exam (the two midterms and the final) will be separately curved. In addition, the total quiz scores will be curved within each section, so that all of the sections have the same average quiz scores. This will be done to ensure fairness, as some GSIs may grade more easily or more harshly than others, and may give easier or harder quizzes.

Grades of I (incomplete) are permitted only in exceptional circumstances such as serious illness, and are subject to university regulations, which require that one have kept up with coursework until such circumstances had arisen, and maintained a passing grade on work completed. Incompletes will rarely be given for nonmedical reasons. To make up an incomplete, one ordinarily takes the final exam for another Math 1B class, taught by a different instructor, at the end of a subsequent semester.

Homework:

The homework will be on WeBWorK. More information on WeBWorK is below. The assignments for the material covered in class on given Mondays and Wednesdays will be due at 11:59PM of the following Sunday. Please do the first "orientation" WeBWorK assignment HW1 as soon as possible.

You may collaborate with other students on the homework, provided that you work on each problem and enter it into WeBWorK yourself. If you do work together you will notice that WeBWorK creates different versions of the problems for each student.

Copying homework solutions done by another student or by an automated system such as Wolfram Alpha is not allowed. Although I have no way to enforce this rule, I can assure you that copying solutions you have not worked out yourself will end up costing you more in the form of poor preparation for exams than whatever few extra homework points you might gain.

There will be optional additional WeBWorK problems, which will not count towards the homework score. There will also be optional additional problems from the book posted below. These will not be graded; unfortunately, we do not have the resources to hire graders.

Quizzes:

There will be a quiz each Tuesday in the discussion section, except for January 18, January 25, February 22 and April 5. Quizzes will be written by your GSI. Most of the quiz questions will be on material covered the previous week in class. Up to one quiz question may be drawn from earlier assignments, to make sure that you are remembering what you've learned. The lowest two quiz scores will be dropped.

Getting help:

Do you have a question that might be useful for other students to hear? Ask it on Piazza! You will be enrolled automatically, but the signup link is
http://piazza.com/berkeley/spring2022/math1b24788

More information on Piazza is below. Your use of Piazza for this class is completely voluntary. No important announcements will be made through Piazza. Postings can be anonymous to your classmates (but not to me). Posting homework answers is not allowed.

Additional help:

I encourage you to check out the Student Learning Center (SLC). They have resources for Math 1B students including adjunct courses, study groups and drop-in tutoring.

Office hours:

When lectures and discussion sections are online, my office hours will be, too. They will start at :10 after. If there is a span of ten minutes with no visitors then I will log off.

General information concerning the syllabus:

  1. You are requested to do the assigned reading before each lecture. Note that mathematical texts are not meant to be read like novels: very often you will come across passages that must be read many times before they make sense to you. In fact, you may find yourself stuck on one sentence for 30 minutes or longer. This does not happen often, but when it does, don't be unduly alarmed. Being stuck means that there is probably a gap in your understanding. Just be glad you find this out now instead of during an exam.
  2. Never fall behind in this course, either in the reading assignments or in the homework assignments. Mathematics has the peculiar characteristic that each step is built on the preceding one, so the failure to understand one step would likely mean the failure to understand all the steps that follow.
  3. Problem sets get rather heavy at times. This is intentional. Sometimes there is simply no substitute for repetitive drills.
  4. Any necessary announcements will be made in class and/or on bspace.

Things to know:

  • Do not take this class if you have a conflict in the final exam schedule (check the ``exam group numbers'' of your classes in the Final Exam Schedule). This class is in exam group 19: Friday, May 13, 3-6pm.
  • The last day to drop the class is February 9.
  • This is a very large class, so your best resources for most math questions will be your discussion section instructors and the Piazza discussion forum, where you can post questions to be answered by the instructors and your fellow students.
  • Lecture recordings and notes will be posted on bCourses.

    Weekly lecture schedule and homework:

    Following is the list of weekly topics and additional optional homework assignments. The lectures do not cover all the course material, so you also need to read and understand the sections from the book. Reading ahead of the lectures should help a lot.

    I cannot promise that I am going to cover all topics with the same level of detail. You are responsible for all of the material in the sections listed below, unless otherwise stated.

    Reading the book CAREFULLY (there is no other way to read mathematics or science) is necessary to master this material. A good approach is to try to explain the material to your friends: only then will you realize that this is good for you, too. I encourage you to form discussion groups.



    		Date
    		Content
    		  Optional additional problems
    1
    		 1/19
    		 7.1  7.1:15,27,35,49
    2
    		1/24,1/26
    		 7.4,7.2,7.3 7.4:39,65; 7.2:55,69; 7.3:31,39
    3
    		1/31,2/2
    		 7.5,7.7,7.8 7.5:21,35; 7.7: 29,44; 7.8:49,57
    4
    		2/7,2/9
    		 8.1,11.1,11.2 8.1:39,45; 11.1:55,79; 11.2: 67,85 
    5
    		2/14,2/16
    		 11.3,11.4 11.3: 27,29; 11.4:28,43
    6
    		2/23
    		 First midterm
    7
    		 2/28,3/2
    		 11.5,11.6 11.5: 17,31; 11.6:39,41
    8
    		 3/7,3/9
    		 11.7,11.8,11.9 11.7:21,29; 11.8: 29,33; 11.9:34,39
    9
    		3/14,3/16
    		 11.10 11.10:31,66
    10
    		 3/28,3/30
    		 9.1,9.2 9.1: 4,9; 9.2:18,23
    11
    		 4/4,4/6
    		 9.3, Second midterm 9.3:19,47
    12 4/11,4/13
    		 9.4,9.5 9.4: 5,9; 9.5:15,37
    13 4.18,4.20
    		 Appendix H, 17.1 Appendix H:18,47; 17.1: 19,33
    14
    		 4/25,4/27
    		 17.2,17.4 17.2: 13,15; 17.4:3,9
    -- 5/13
    		  Final Exam, 3-6pm
    		 See box above for location

    Discussion sections:

    Any given day of your discussion section will mostly be devoted to the material covered in lecture the previous day. Because WeBWorK is best suited to help with your computational ability, your time in discussion section will put more emphasis on helping to develop your problem solving ability.

    Below is the topic of the discussion section on any given day. The quiz will cover material as described above under "Quizzes".






    1
    		1/18: 5.5 1/20: 7.1
    2

    		1/25: 7.4 1/27: 7.2, 7.3
    3

    		2/1: 7.5 + quiz 2/3: 7.7, 7.8
    4

    		2/8: 8.1 + quiz 2/10: 11.1, 11.2
    5

    		2/15: 11.3 + quiz 2/17: 11.4
    6

    		2/22: Midterm review 2/24: Recapitulation
    7
    		3/1: 11.5 + quiz 3/3: 11.6
    8
    		3/8: 11.7,11.8 + quiz 3/10: 11.9
    9

    		3/15: 11.10 + quiz 3/17: 11.10
    10
    		3/29: 9.1 + quiz 3/31: 9.2
    11
    		4/5: Midterm review 4/7: 9.3
    12
    		4/12: 9.4+quiz 4/14: 9.5
    13
    		4/19: Appendix H + quiz 4/21: 17.1
    14
    		4/26: 17.2 + quiz 4/28: 17.4

    Classroom conduct:

    Please do not use electronic devices (smartphones, iPads, laptops) during class, unless you are using an iPad-like device to take notes or have DSP accommodations.

    Some words of advice:

    The class will be much easier for you if you try to understand the material, rather than depending just on memorization. The exams will test both your ability to perform computations and your understanding of the material.

    The material in this class is, for most students taking 1B, the bread and butter for many other classes to come later. We will cover many topics in the semester and the pace will be VERY DEMANDING.

    The WeBWorK homework is computational by nature. Being able to do the WeBWorK homework is necessary in order to get a good grade in the class but it is not sufficient in itself. The quizzes and exams will also test your understanding of the material and your problem solving ability, which will be developed in your discussion section. Doing the optional WeBWorK problems and the optional additional problems from the book that are listed above may help for the quizzes and the midterms.

    You can replace your lowest midterm score with your final score. Because of this, you may be tempted to blow off one of the midterms and plan to make it up on the final. Bad idea. THIS NEVER WORKS. You will want to keep up at all times.

    Special accomodations:

    Efforts will be made to accommodate students with special needs. Students requiring special examination arrangements or note takers should please consult the DSP office and notify their GSIs. I should be notified by DSP within two weeks of the beginning of classes, so that appropriate accomodations can be arranged in time.

    Health statement:

    Do not go to class, discussion section or office hours if you feel sick or do not meet the university health requirements. You don't want to infect your fellow students, just as you don't want them to infect you.

    Academic Honesty Policy:

    Collaboration on the homework assignments is welcome. (This is a good way to learn the material.) So is the consultation of other sources, such as other textbooks. However, each student has to write up and submit their own set of solutions.

    Some professors don't care if students cheat. I care. Any evidence of cheating on an exam or quiz will result in a score of zero (0). Cheating on the final exam results in an F for the course. Cheating includes but is not limited to bringing notes or written or electronic materials into an exam or quiz, copying off of another person's exam or quiz, allowing someone to copy off of your exam or quiz, and having someone take an exam or quiz for you. Incidences of cheating will be reported to Student Judicial Affairs, which may administer additional punishment.

    WeBWorK:

    WeBWorK, accessible from the bCourses menu, is an online homework system that automatically checks your answers and records your scores.

    To get started, do the homework set HW1 in WeBWorK, which is a tutorial on using the system.

    If you have problems getting WeBWorK to work properly, try clearing your browser's cache. We have updated to a new version of WeBWorK, which can cause problems if your browser has saved information while using the old version.

    Regular homework sets are due one minute before midnight on Sundays. Solutions become available soon after the due deadline.

    Most problems will have a limit on the number of tries, usually 10. If you don't get a problem right on the first try, check to be sure that the answer you entered is what you meant. If so, then double check your calculations for arithmetic mistakes.

    If you still have trouble after checking for mistakes, re-read the problem carefully to be sure you understood it correctly. Then think again about your strategy for solving the problem—maybe the method you need to use is different from your first idea. The numbers in the problem may change after the fifth try.

    For a quick guide to WeBWorK, click on "Complete a Webwork homework set'' at the UBC Student Student Guide. More detailed information is at the WeBWorK wiki page.

    If you have a problem with WeBWorK, you may want to ask on Piazza.

    A few WeBWorK tips:

    0. Preview, preview, preview! This does not use an attempt, and it will help you catch most minor errors.
    1. WeBWorK is case sensitive. For example, a "pi" needs to be entered in lower case, while the "+C'' in integration needs to be in upper case.
    2. Do not use commas in your answer unless you are entering a list of numbers. For example, 12500 means twelve thousand five hundred, while 12,500 means the two answers are 12 and 500.
    3. If your answer includes decimals, unless instructed otherwise, always enter at least four decimal places.
    4. WeBWorK does not allow partial answer submissions. If a problem has 3 parts, all 3 parts have to submitted at the same time. If the student submits only part (a), it will count as one attempt. However, if the answer for part (a) is correct, it will be saved and the student does not have to answer part (a) again.

    Piazza:

    Before you post a question, consider the following:

    • Is your question answered in the syllabus, textbook, or lecture notes? No need to post; just look it up yourself! If you have checked those resources and found an answer you don’t understand, it’s totally fine to ask for clarification, just be specific about where you looked and what is unclear.

    • Has someone else already asked about the same problem? Scan/search for related questions before you post, and read the posted answers to see if they help with your issue (or wait for posted answers).

    • If you determine you really do have a new question, include the following info: which homework set or reading assignment it’s from and which problem it is (including the problem number and statement). We are not mind readers, and we don’t carry our books everywhere we go. Describe what you have tried already, and where you are stuck. We are happiest to help students who are trying to help themselves first.

    • If you are really struggling with trying to even articulate what it is you don’t understand, probably it is best to go see someone in person during office hours or at the SLC.

    Also:

    • Note that you can post anonymously on Piazza (many people appreciate this if they are feeling self-conscious about their questions), but you are only anonymous to other students; the GSIs and I can see who you are.

    • If your account does not show your full name, it may be disabled.

    • Please keep in mind that students come into this class from vastly different backgrounds and with very different goals. Things that are easy for you may not be easy for others. Remember to be kind in your responses. If you are disrespectful to other students, your account may be disabled.

    • Please feel free to discuss current homework assignments with each other on Piazza, but DO NOT post any complete solutions for homework sets until after the due date. Just give hints or ideas for what to try next.

    • Sometimes Webwork will be set up so that everyone has different numbers, but still essentially the same problem. This is part of why it is essential to explicitly say what your question is. Another large part is that in figuring out how to phrase your question or describe your work, you will often discover the answer yourself.

    • Piazza is not a proofreading service. Do not post questions of the form “Here’s is my work. Where’s the error?” It is fine to bring this sort of thing to office hours if you are having trouble spotting your own mistakes, but it’s super tedious on Piazza. (In OH, you’ll be asked to explain what you tried, and often that will help you find your own errors.)

    • We don’t guarantee that we’ll be checking Piazza at any particular time. Don’t put homework off to the last minute and expect to get help in time. You might get lucky, but you might not.