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U of T MAT137 - Calculus!

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  • Aug 21st, 2005 5:35 pm
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Dec 9, 2003
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U of T MAT137 - Calculus!

I Am Going Into My First Year And I Wsa To Major In Computer Science. the Math Prerequisite is MAT137 - Calculus!. Im Would Like To Know How It Compares To Other Math Courses. And What Marks People Attained in This Course.

1. Why Is It That Comp Sci Requires Such An Advanced Math.
2. WHAT HAPPENED TO MAT135
18 replies
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Nov 27, 2004
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I'm done MAT137 for comp sci requirement. It was hell. Be prepared to spend lots of time doing the weekly assignment. Those took so much time.

MAT157 is easier but with more complex things and I think they go at a faster rate.

MAT135 is nothing compared to MAT137.

Good luck. Be prepared.
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Mar 15, 2004
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I'm going into second year CS and I have to do MAT237 for one of the requirements. For MAT137, I recommend you know a bunch of people on the first day of class or something, so you can do problem sets together. It's tough to do those assignments on your own.
Jr. Member
Nov 22, 2004
147 posts
NOTE: this is scary after you read this but have confidence, you can do it

CS requires such advanced math 'cuz trust me, it'll come in handy! It's hard! MAT157 was hailed to be the #1 hardest math course in North America (or is it Canada?) by Joel Chan, the hotshot coordinator for MAT137. He says MAT137 is somewhere up there too. He's smart. Make friends with him if you have him as a TA. Try not to take 157. Too many ppl do bad in it.

MAT137 is hard, that's why we're better than those lifesci nerds who thinks their Calculus (MAT135) is hard (or any other of their courses for that matter). Doubt they know how to problem solve...which you will have to do! Prepare to do 10+ hours per problem set (I'm serious, if you finish them all w/o copying others). You get one problem set EVERY WEEK!

Some tips:
DO ALL THE PROBLEM SETS!
DO NOT MISS ONE! THOSE TYPES OF QUESTIONS ARE IN THE TESTS (not the textbook difficulty ones, although they might change the textbook questions to make it up to par in difficulty for the test!).
GET SOME PPL TO DO IT WITH! (CUZ YOU NEED ALL THE HELP YOU CAN GET)(but keep in mind last point *)
GO TO MATH AID CENTRE (in Sidney Smith) AND ASK QUESTIONS OFTEN
*UNDERSTAND IT. DON'T MEMORIZE IT. THIS DECIDES YOUR MARK.
Make friends with ppl from China and/or ppl who appear nerdy. They tend to excel in the course and sit in the front of class, so sit in the front.

I got a 70 in it.

What you mean what happened to MAT135? It didn't get removed did it?

Hope this helps you out. Good luck!
Phishing is evil!

My HEATWARE
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Jul 4, 2005
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Ottawa
Ya, MAT137 is really simliar to MAT196..practically the same..except the color of the textbook is purple rather than red...so get to know some ECEs..so you'll get more help from them too
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May 20, 2005
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Gosh.. I don't remember what MAT course I took (sorry that was almost 10 years ago..) It was the MAT for first year engineering.

In any case, I just want to say that the level of difficulty will be determine by your math background. Example.. all engineering students have strong math backgrounds.. but not all the backgrounds are the same. I have found that canadian curriculum is somewhat lacking on the math department. My high school calculus book was a carbon copy of my first year calculus book in engineering.

Follow Captain Lee's advice and you will be ok.

C.


Edit: I just checked the ECE website.. I took MAT196.
Member
Nov 7, 2003
252 posts
1 upvote
Every Thursday @ 6pm, the mad dash to Sidney Smith!!!

lol, u'll know what I mean once you take that course.
Trying is the first step towards failure
--Homer Simpson
Member
Mar 31, 2001
247 posts
12 upvotes
Toronto
Final Lazy wrote:Every Thursday @ 6pm, the mad dash to Sidney Smith!!!

lol, u'll know what I mean once you take that course.
haha dont scare him dude...I see like 1-3 people there at 6pm :/
Member
Feb 25, 2003
480 posts
14 upvotes
Toronto
its definitely a jump from the high school calculus. you'll finally start doing proofs with calculus (somethign which high school lacked), my advice would be to really use ur TAs if u need it. MAT137 had a abundance of TA's and lots of TA hours. (I know the one i usually go to, is empty (lunch time) and i get some good 1 on 1 help at times).

The only thing your gonna have trouble with are the Limit concept (Epsilon Deltas), Some theorems and applying them (Mean value theorem, intermediate value theorem etc), and apparnetly, the ending [rfdlink=/forums/autolink/redirectpage.php?linkid=32]chapters[/rfdlink] are a toughy too (series and sequences).

as mentioned above, DONT MISS A PROBLEM SET, no matter how tough it is, the marks u get on the problem set does somewhat reflect how u are doing. IF u can do the problem sets with ease, the older tests wont be much of a problem.
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Jun 14, 2003
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Outphase wrote:its definitely a jump from the high school calculus. you'll finally start doing proofs with calculus (somethign which high school lacked), my advice would be to really use ur TAs if u need it. MAT137 had a abundance of TA's and lots of TA hours. (I know the one i usually go to, is empty (lunch time) and i get some good 1 on 1 help at times).

The only thing your gonna have trouble with are the Limit concept (Epsilon Deltas), Some theorems and applying them (Mean value theorem, intermediate value theorem etc), and apparnetly, the ending [rfdlink=/forums/autolink/redirectpage.php?linkid=32]chapters[/rfdlink] are a toughy too (series and sequences).

as mentioned above, DONT MISS A PROBLEM SET, no matter how tough it is, the marks u get on the problem set does somewhat reflect how u are doing. IF u can do the problem sets with ease, the older tests wont be much of a problem.
haha epsilon and delta, pinching theorem, mean value theorem... the confusing theorms of our time :D

I remember when we took MAT291 (Calc III), the exam was so hard that i saw most ppl flipped through the whole exam within 15 minutes :|
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Mar 24, 2004
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137 was pretty easy imho. Just go to class and TA hours and you'll be fine.

157 was hell though.
Sr. Member
Jun 29, 2005
906 posts
25 upvotes
You guys are scaring me much.... I hope my math is up to par with this. *wonders if CMO = first year calc. =\*
xIcewind
Member
Nov 7, 2003
252 posts
1 upvote
Outphase wrote: The only thing your gonna have trouble with are the Limit concept (Epsilon Deltas), Some theorems and applying them (Mean value theorem, intermediate value theorem etc), and apparnetly, the ending [rfdlink=/forums/autolink/redirectpage.php?linkid=32]chapters[/rfdlink] are a toughy too (series and sequences).
I thought the Delta Epsilon prove was pretty mechanical. In the test, it was those intutiative things that gets to me. Like those "Find whether this equation converges or diverges". I never seem to understand how to approach these, sometimes I thought L'Hopitals Rule would work, but it turns out I got to substitute first. Usually, I have a 50/50 guess of whether it diverges or converge to zero. :P

The Newton Rhapson (sp?) and FTC are important if you wanna further presue math or computer science in later years.

Good luck.
Trying is the first step towards failure
--Homer Simpson
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Mar 15, 2004
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Final Lazy wrote:I thought the Delta Epsilon prove was pretty mechanical. In the test, it was those intutiative things that gets to me. Like those "Find whether this equation converges or diverges". I never seem to understand how to approach these, sometimes I thought L'Hopitals Rule would work, but it turns out I got to substitute first. Usually, I have a 50/50 guess of whether it diverges or converge to zero. :P

The Newton Rhapson (sp?) and FTC are important if you wanna further presue math or computer science in later years.

Good luck.
lol, I didn't understand that stuff either. There seems to be a foolproof method when it comes to doing limit proofs (delta and episilon). I just basically memorzied it. Screw understanding it.
Sr. Member
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Aug 11, 2005
633 posts
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kawai wrote:haha epsilon and delta, pinching theorem, mean value theorem... the confusing theorms of our time :D

I remember when we took MAT291 (Calc III), the exam was so hard that i saw most ppl flipped through the whole exam within 15 minutes :|
Yea lol. Those were some good times. However, I did remember to put zero for an answer somewhere. But holy crap, that was the hardest exam I have ever seen in my life. The exam average came to 39% or something right?
Sr. Member
Dec 3, 2004
541 posts
42 upvotes
North York
I had to take this wonderful course 2 times :)

Since i didnt do anything in high school back in my country, and since there was a ~4 years break between finishing high school and entering UofT, i was completely crushed by mat137 - i mean, i had no math background whatsoever (forgot everything) so proofs + weekly problem sets were too much for me.

But second time it was pretty ok :) My advice is to get a calc with symbolic algebra system - something like ti-89/ti-92/ti-92+ or hp (not sure what hp's models are) - this will really help you to understand some concepts, especially with graphing.
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Dec 10, 2004
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LOL. An entire thread for this course. I thought the earlier post about making friends with Joel Chan was funny too. The more you talk to him, the more you wanna punch him.

5 years ago I went to him to get my test remarked because the grader deducted 2 points because I re-gurgitated a formula (as asked) on the test with different symbols than the textbook. Once he agreed that the semantics were correct, he flipped through my test and pointed out two places where the grader "could have" given me one mark less for it and basically told me to go away -- All because he's too lazy to update the marks in his stupid records.
Jr. Member
Aug 11, 2005
116 posts
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Toronto
bananaman wrote:Yea lol. Those were some good times. However, I did remember to put zero for an answer somewhere. But holy crap, that was the hardest exam I have ever seen in my life. The exam average came to 39% or something right?
IIRC someone heard Sabri mentioning an average in the 20%-30% range. But that was kind of expected since our midterm was way way WAY too easy and the average was in the 80s. The final marks ended up being more or less consistent with what they should be (~C average).
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Aug 11, 2005
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Yea I knew the exam was going to be hard but yea, at least Nachman did the job correctly by bringing down the average to where it should be.

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