MTH2140-MTH3140: Real Analysis

- Examination (3 hours): 70%
- 3x assignments: 3 x 8% = 24%
- Participation: 6%

First off, word has been going around that you can take the textbook in the exam, THIS IS NO LONGER TRUE!

I had heard nothing but bad things about this unit. Unfortunately I also have the same opinion, it's my least favourite maths unit I have taken by far. The lecture notes have been revamped from last time the unit ran, which is good, but the lectures are still crap. Jerome did make an effort to improve them towards the end of semester, though.

Jerome as a tutor is kind of intimidating. He makes an effort to be approachable and to respond to feedback but doesn't quite succeed. The participation marks are easy enough to get though -- just show up to most of the tutes and have something to say every time (present an answer to a question on the board every few weeks, too -- probably the most intimidating thing about the tutes), and you will get full participation marks. Also, marks are given for presentation/clarity, so when you do your assignments (and the exam!) write neatly, and use full English sentences. Keep the maths-speak to a minimum, or you are throwing away free marks.

I felt the exam was more an exercise of how well you can memorise stuff and THEN use it to apply to proofs/theorems, so I kind of got screwed over a bit because I couldn't memorise the specifics of theorems which were needed to start a lot of the proofs off. Not having the textbook I felt was a detriment to me, because I can't always remember specifics and you kind of need that for this subject.

Maths doesn't come that easily to me (and yet it's one of my majors... fail logic is fail). But general consensus is that this is a hard unit and I agree. Think carefully before you choose it. There is no real difference between second and third year level by the way, only in the assignments you will have one extra question. If you need this unit for a pure maths major and you struggle with exams like I do, I recommend trying to get as many of the coursework and participation marks as possible and just trying your best in the exam. If you are really good at self learning, or are a gun at maths, you will be fine.

Dr Jerome Droniou

Multiple past exams on the monash library section, only one exam with solution

1.5 Out of 5

No recorded lectures, however towards the end Jerome would take pictures of the stuff he wrote on the blackboards.

Understanding Analysis by Stephen Abbott
DO NOT BUY THE BOOK unless you want a hard copy: you can get it online with answers, for free (thanks, Google!)
Also, you can no longer bring the book into the exam!

-Three 1-hour lectures
-One 2-hour support class per week

Semester 1, 2014

-Examination (3 hours): 70%
-Assignments and participation in support classes: 30%

This unit was fun to learn, if you're good at self learning. I didn't attend the lectures but from what I've heard, it is garbage. The written notes were barely readable so I suggest learning off the text book rather than spending hours deciphering what the heck was that word in the hand written notes. I thought the unit was a bit too difficult and there's hardly any relevant examples in the tutorial that can help you in the assignments, which is generally how I learn to approach a question. Furthermore, there aren't much pure maths units before this (I guess only MTH1112 and MTH1000, which is not exactly pure maths) and for an introductory unit to pure, they assumed that we had a very good knowledge to the relevant topics, which makes this unit more frustrating since they don't explain some of the topics such as probability generating function in detail. Also I'm not sure if it was just my tutor but she is terrible at marking, how can a marker skip an entire page of working, which was worth 6 marks out of 30, and when I ask her to read over my working, she gave me the full marks.

Anyways this is turning more to a rant but if anyone out there doing pure maths major, consider choosing level 2 over level 3 and do plenty of pre-reading before the semister starts

Dr Jerome Droniou, Dr Gilbert Weinstein

Multiple past exams on the monash library section, only one exam with solution

2 Out of 5

No recorded lectures, however there are hand written lectures notes

-Must buy: Understanding Analysis by Stephen Abbott, you can bring a clean copy of this book into the exam

-Three 1-hour lectures
-One 2-hour support class per week

Semester 1, 2013

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