Midterm, A1, etc.

As I was writing up a solution to Problem Set 3, I realized I'd been neglecting my SLoG so I should give an update on my adventures in 236.

The mid-term went well. I was surprised that it seemed to be all on induction, but that was fine with me since I feel very comfortable with it by now (which I wouldn't have thought possible a year ago). I just now saw the grades posted, and am pretty happy that I'm one of the five who aced it (we should form a posse), and am delighted that the number of people enrolled in the class is a power of 2. I decree that no-one is allowed to drop the course now (unless it's an exodus of 64 people).

I got my A1 back, and was pretty happy with how it turned out. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't saddened when some cruel TA who sipped the wine of life and found it to be bitter said that my cherished procedure for question 2 was "not the simplest", but "okay". Ouch. On the other hand, they were quite generous in giving me full marks for question 3, when my part a was needlessly long and circuitous and I made a small error in reasoning in part b. So I guess I came out even?

(Actually, after going back and re-reading the assignment handout, I realise that I probably came out ahead. I talked with Prof. Heap briefly about question 2 last week and he mentioned that at least one TA was taking off marks for not starting with a base case of 0, which I did, while he thought that 2 was the only appropriate base case. I had thought that the premise was that the menus could differ by no more than one meal, when in fact the handout said "exactly one" meal. So really, I should have lost a mark there, if not for my merely "ok" procedure)

I'd still be curious to know how many different approaches people used in question 2, and how they were distributed. I've enjoyed reading the TAs' posts on the message boards where they do something similar, going over the solutions to in-class problems or problem sets, along with an analysis of how many students solved it, common mistakes that were made, and alternate solutions.

I think that's all there is to report. It's a sad irony that the course that is, by far, my favourite this semester, is the only one where I have a platform to complain. If I had a SLoG for, say, STA247, let me tell you...