MAST10006: Calculus 2

Four assignments worth 20%, final exam worth 80%

There are 4 assignments, each worth 20%. These are quite challenging and the tutors are very pedantic about working out, so please be sure to be thorough and show complete justification of your answers (i.e. 'by L'Hopital's Rule'). Nonetheless, if you put in a decent amount of effort in these, they should be an easy-ish 20%.

Calculus 2 is certainly not for the light hearted, however this subject was truly incredible that I had to write a review about it. Christine, the subject co-ordinator, is impeccable in terms of her organisation of the subject and lecturing ability. She made each and every lecture so engaging, and was one of those subjects that I just did not want to miss out on! Just a summary of parts of the subject:

Okay so, I don't know about anyone else, but this semester's exam for Calculus was more on the difficult side. Most of the questions were doable, but Christine decided to throw a few unseen questions in that threw a few of us off (i.e. using the chain rule to calculate partial derivatives in terms of polar coordinates and a weird continuity question). Anyways, I'd say about 80% of the marks should be easily achievable if you do enough past papers, the problem set booklet and constantly revise lecture material. It was long and arduous, but you should finish just within the set time frame.

Yes, with screen capture.

Antoinette Tordesillas, Thomas Quella, Christine Mangelsdorf, Daniel Murfet

The problem set booklet was incredibly useful - I definitely recommend anyone to do as many questions as possible in the following week after you learn about the content. Christine, as I said before, was amazing and I also recommend anyone in the future to attend her lectures as it'll make your Calc 2 journey much more pleasant and easier! I loved learning about all the applications relevant to the subject material, which really made me feel like I was learning something with purpose I suppose? Overall, an amazing subject that would be useful for most science/commerce disciplines!

Yes (5 with full solutions)

5 Out of 5

None required - the lecture notes were sufficient

This was simply an introduction to hyperbolic functions (cosh, sinh and tanh) and how to manipulate these definitions and solve various problems for them. There is also a study of their reciprocal functions (sech, cosech and coth) as well as their respective inverses. No nasty surprises here.

Basically a follow-up from the Calculus 1 study of complex numbers (i.e. De Moivre's Theorem), as well as introducing topics such as using complex numbers to integrate more difficult integrals (instead of using integration by parts) as well as being able to differentiate functions (such as how to calculate the 128th derivative of a function, except without having to calculate each derivative 128 times and just in one go!). I found this section pretty cool and neat. In summary, just know how to manipulate the complex exponential here.

This is also another review of Calc 1 integration (so integrating by substitution methods, partial fractions) and also introduces integration by parts.

Now the real stuff begins! This topic focussed on ordinary first order differential equations, how to solve separable and linear O.D.E.'s, using substitution methods (eg for Bernoulli's equation). The next part of this topic is on population models; how to construct phase plots, types of equilibrium solutions, Malthus-Doomsday model, Logistic model (with and without harvesting) and identifying the transient and steady state solutions of an O.D.E. The other application for first order O.D.E.'s is electric circuits, which deals with using Kirchhoff's Voltage Law to create a first order O.D.E for R-C and L-R circuits.

This topic focuses on solving second order O.D.E.'s for homogeneous and inhomogeneous equations, how to find the homogeneous and particular solutions and hence the general solution of the O.D.E. This section was pretty neat, I was blown away by the fact that complex solutions to an O.D.E. can have real solutions (when real conditions are imposed)! This is followed by an application in springs (free vibrations, Hooke's Law) as well as LRC electric circuits.

This topic introduced functions of two variables, that is, z = f(x, y). You learn how to sketch surfaces in three-dimensions by identifying their level curves and cross-sections, then you move on to defining limits for three dimensions. This gives rise to calculating first order and second order partial derivatives of functions of two variables, determining tangent planes, linear approximations, directional derivatives (i.e. what is the gradient in a particular direction of the surface?), how to calculate stationary points using the gradient vector and determine the type using the Hessian function (i.e. is it a local maximum, local minimum or a saddle point) then you finish the topic off with double integrals, partial integrals and calculating double integrals over rectangular domains (volumes of surfaces). A lot of plug and chug here, but you can see where it is useful and how it can be applied to real life situations.

3 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x one hour practice class per week

2017 Semester 2

93 (H1)

20% - 4x 5% assignments due on Mondays at regular intervals
80% - 3 hour end of semester exam
There is no hurdle for this subject

Lecture Notes + Lectures:
These were amazing. You could purchase them for around $10 from the Co-op, and they were pretty much mandatory to have. They were organised, and easy to understand. They had the content first, in easy to understand format, and formulas clearly displayed. If explaining needed to be done, it was explained (usually through solving equations) in the next pages and were also gone through by lecturers. After the content / relevant formulas / explanations was done, there were (many) examples. Lectures often had the first 20min or so of explanations, then the remainder was examples where they worked through questions (exam questions were very similar) at a good speed, explaining each step and giving you enough time to copy down, at a pace where you could follow the examples. This may sound boring but they didn't overload us with information and helped us understand how the formulas etc were to be used, instead of just throwing information at us. In my opinion, the lecturers were quite good

Tutorials:We were given a tutorial sheet to work through. We worked in groups of 2-3, answering the questions on the whiteboard. Often you would alternate who was writing / completing the question with the other/s looking and picking up mistakes, giving advice, helping when you got stuck. It was difficult to get through all the questions but I'm not sure they were designed to be completed in time, or to make sure we had enough to work on. The tutor walked around, explaining mistakes, what we needed to include, incorrect notation, or a good job. If something was commonly done wrong, he sometimes got everyone to listen while he did a short explanation of what to do and why. The tutorial questions are

Yes, with capture. All streams are recorded.

-Dr Iwan Jensen (subject coordinator) - good pace, completed the lectures on time and covered enough so that we were always where we were supposed to be.
-Dr Daniel Murfet - he went faster than required, and so his stream had a week or two where they learned nothing of relevance later. He was a bit more difficult to understand than the other lecturers.
-Dr Joyce Zhang - I rarely attended her lectures, she was alright, had friends who said she was good though.
-Professor John Sader - enthusiastic, often completes the lectures early but does it in a way that is easy to understand.

Yes, from 2013 onwards, both semester 1 and 2 exams with answers and short explanations provided.

5 Out of 5

Don't worry about a textbook, the lecture slides were well done and I never required a textbook. If you need one though, you could always borrow one from a library.

3x 1 hour lectures
1x 1 hour tutorial

2017 Semester 1

High H1

Four assignments which make up 20% of your grade. The remaining 80% comes from your exam.

I enjoyed studying Specialist Maths in Year 12 and even though I didn't achieve anything flashy in terms of marks there, I was eager to make sure I studied some kind of maths at university. Calc 2 is a difficult subject and like many of the difficult subjects before it, it tends to get hyped up to the point of exaggeration. Despite this, the exam is incredibly tough as it is three hours long and covers the entire course. It's also worth 80% of your final mark which is a point that only fully sunk in as I looked at my mark for the subject.

The course is really fun to study in my opinion. It begins with a week or two on limits and continuity which most people seemed to feel uneasy about but that goes away once you get the hang of it. At the time, it felt a little more abstract than what I'd have imagined they would teach in a course called 'Calculus 2'. You then get into hyperbolic functions which ultimately felt like discovering more trignometric functions (like sin, cos and tan) - it's not super enjoyable but I wouldn't call it challenging either.

And then finally you hit the biggest part of the course, which is all about calculus (it starts off by building upon the diff/int you learned in Spesh) and differential equations. Personally, I found the Calculus sections of the Spesh course to be really enjoyable so I loved this part of the course. Beware that some of the problems can get long and hard here.

After you cover partial derivatives and and briefly study the mathematical side of how a spring oscillates (so simple harmonic motion and then varying levels of air resistance), you get into functions of two variables which is where I felt most people ended up getting lost. I don't think it's because there's anything particularly difficult in that section of the course but rather that it's the final section of what is undoubtedly a pretty long course that feels overbearing at times.

So the course is long and the exam is quite tough (there's a stat about the subject's fail rate that gets paraded around every now and then). How could I have possibly enjoyed it?

The lectures and practice classes were absolutely phenomenal. Christine Mangelsdorf is an incredible lecturer who is very clear and thorough. She always provides her run down of the theory that's being covered or provides systematic strategies to approaching the more difficult questions. It might get a little annoying when she's being extra precise with something you understand easily but her willingness to cover everything diligently is something you'll feel extremely grateful for several times during the course when you're struggling to understand a concept or a question. I don't know about any of the other lecturers but I'd suggest doing your best to make sure you attend her stream in future semesters.

The practice classes were really worthwhile. I scheduled mine to be with a friend so I always had company but you break up into small groups of about 2-4 and tackle a question sheet on a whiteboard. You're encouraged to collaborate with your group for different approaches and your tutor hovers between groups, correcting questions and providing explanations when they are required (or maybe an easier way to solve a problem). They worked really well to soak up everything that had been taught to you during the lectures during the week beforehand.

I thought the assignments provided a fantastic balance between a natural extension of what's covered in lectures/tutes and a challenge. They explain that they encourage you to talk about approaches to problems with your friends and that definitely helps if you're struggling on some of the hairier questions. You get them on Mondays (and 7 days to do it), so if you start working on it during the week you'll be fine. Leaving them for Sunday night is just asking for a horrible time because the questions are meant to be a little challenging - so doing them under the pressure of short time limit is quite frustrating. In terms of marks on the assignments, I did really well on them throughout. My advice is to be especially thorough during your assignments, no matter how tedious that may be. Persevere with that tiny sub-question for three pages if it means you cover all your bases. I recommend doing a draft copy or working out each question individually and then neatly rewriting your assignment as a final copy before submitting it. With how long and annoying some things can get, the last thing you want is for your tutor to take marks off because they can't read your handwriting.

There's a problem booklet you get at the start of the semester. It's worth doing to solidify any parts of the course you struggle with but I stopped doing the assigned problems after a few weeks. Pay attention and annotate during the lectures, take your practice classes seriously and start your assignments early and honestly you won't need that booklet for much.

The exam is a nightmare to put it lightly. It's brutal and they're not afraid of throwing something ugly that'll eat up your precious time on there. You need a mark of 50 to pass the subject. If you get do great on all your assignments, that'll lock up about 20% of your total mark and a bit of maths says that if you get about 40% on your exam, you'll pass. Problem is, that's much easier said than done. Calc was on the 3rd day of exams and I had two the day before. Even though I put those two almost completely to the side for the week and a half before to prepare for Calc, I still didn't even scrape 70% on the exam. Don't lose out on those assignment marks because they become vital very quickly if you're not sure this a subject you'll pass. Hinging entirely on the exam to pass the subject is not a good idea (as I walked out, having done some back of the envelope questions, I thought I'd get around about 80%).
Overall, I found this subject to be challenging in all the right ways. I'm still a little bit disappointed with my final exam score but otherwise I had a great time and genuinely would recommend it to anyone who enjoys maths. It's no stroll in the park but the effort you put in feels rewarded throughout the semester (just don't be on the optimistic side of your exam score).

Yes, with screen capture.

John Sader, Christine Mangelsdorf, John Banks, Iwan Jensen

Yes, there were six available with solutions.

5/5

None. The lecture notes (a green booklet) are more than enough.

3 lectures and one practice class a week.

2016, semester 1.

H2B

4 assignments due every 2-3 weeks through the semester each worth 5%. Final written examination worth 80%.

I think too much time was spent on the introductory topics, that is, limits, sequences and series, hyperbolic functions, complex numbers and integration, which were mostly covered well in high school. 6 weeks were spent on these topics, which was very boring. Things got more interesting in weeks 6 to 12 but I think the introductory topics could have been covered in the first 2 weeks and more time spent on the remaining topics.

This subject mostly involves mechanical work, once you know the method, it is quite easy to apply it to different problems, unlike say linear algebra or real analysis, which are much more conceptual.

I was going to do accelerated maths 2 but it is too difficult and as an engineering major I don't really need to do it but this subject is too easy in comparison. I would love if there was something in-between accelerated maths 2 and calculus 2.

The assignments are very easy but marked harshly, which is understandable. The final exam isn't all that difficult but you have to be fast to complete it.

I am not a big fan of take home assignments. People copy of each other or simply copy of the internet. I see them copying in the library, in the lecture theater, etc. Take home assignments test who you know, not what you know. I am however a big fan of problems sets and quizzes but doing quizzes in lectures wouldn't be possible I guess, or just too expensive. I don't like that assignments are every 2-3 weeks. It would have been better if there were weekly assignments. I am also not a fan of the maths departments 80% "policy". That is just ridiculous. A final exam should never be worth 80%. May be 20% for assignments, 20% for mid-semester test and 60% for final. That would be reasonable.

I like that there are heaps of applications in this subject, that made it much more interesting than it would have been otherwise.
It is very important to do the problem booklet and the past exams and to do them well. There are no tricks in this subject. If you know everything and did the work, you will get a good mark.

Sadly, no.

Dr Christine Mangelsdorf, Dr Antoinette Tordesillas and one other lecturer whose name I don't know. Dr Christine Mangelsdorf is by far the best. She goes straight to the point and doesn't waste time. Dr Antoinette Tordesillas over-complicates things.

Yes, 4, with answers.

3.5 out of 5

There is no textbook for this subject but I highly recommend these free textbooks:
http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcI/CalcI.aspx
http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcII/CalcII.aspx
http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/DE/DE.aspx
http://tutorial.math.lamar.edu/Classes/CalcIII/CalcIII.aspx
They are extremely useful and cover and explain the material better than the lectures.

Contact Hours: 3 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x one hour practice class per week. Total Time Commitment: 170 hours

2014, semester 2.

Not yet received.

Assignments (20%) - 4 assignments worth 5% each. They were sometimes quite lengthy, particularly the final two, but they were nothing that couldn't be solved if you'd kept up with lectures and used your lecture notes to help solve them.

Exam (80%) - Yeah, it's quite an epic exam, especially if you aren't naturally maths inclined. I had to do some hardcore prep to feel confident going in. eg. I had done the entire workbook they give you by the time SWOTVAC started, PLUS all of the Tutorial sheets a second time. Then for SWOTVAC I did a practise exam each day for 7 days, checking my answers using Wolfram Alpha, and then going to the textbook and doing additional problems similar to the ones I wasn't so good at.

Here's the thing. If you're not a 'maths person', Calculus 2 can be both difficult and dull. But it's a prerequisite for lots of stuff (Engineering… as well as physics/maths majors of course) so you gotta do it. I shit you not, half (or more) of my tute group were taking the subject for the second time. I am not terrible at maths but I don't have a lot of natural skill either, and I had to work HARD to do well in this subject. The exam isn't gentle, so do prepare.

The past exams give you quite a good indication of what might be on your exam, but because there is a lot of content, they have a lot of stuff they can draw on to test you on.
A pretty big note: in 2013, they introduced a section on Sequences and Series. We only had practise exams from 2012 or earlier so NONE of this content was on the practise exams. DON'T FORGET TO PRACTISE IT. There is a major question in the evan dedicated to Sequences and Series so you need to know it well.

Yes, one of the three streams.

Mark Fackrell (coordinator), Antoinette Tordesillas, Steven Carnie. I had Antoinette and I really liked her, she was no-BS and explained stuff clearly.

Yes, quite a few, maybe 6, dating back to 2008. No answers.

4.5 out of 5

There's a recommended textbook but I didn't use it for learning, only for a few 'additional problems' (I found an online copy, wouldn't buy it).

3 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x one hour practice class per week.

Semester 2, 2013

Don't know yet.

3 assignments, worth 3.33% each. One mid-semester test, worth 15% and final exam worth 75% (hurdle).

Honestly, probably my favourite subject this semester. It started with some pretty boring limit stuff which always comes up on the exam and the 'tricks' to solve them are always the same. Moved onto hyperbolic functions and complex numbers which were ok, but the real meat of the course was applications and modelling of differential equations which was by far the most interesting. Applications involved spring-mass systems, concentration in tanks and electric circuits. The assignments were an easy 10% if you pay attention in lectures, and if you want to go well in the MST, make sure you do the questions in the green question book because they are almost identical. The exam was very similar to those of past years which made it very beneficial to do practise papers.
All in all, a very good subject, run very well, were you knew exactly was expected of you. Enjoyed it immensely.

Nope, pretty sure no math lectures are?

Norm Do (don't know about the others).

Yep, +10ish

5 Out of 5

Calculus 1 & 2 (Hass, Weir, Thomas, Adams and Essex), Pearson, 2010. Do not buy any books. They are not needed when the lecture notes are fairly good.

3 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x one hour practice class per week

Semester 1, 2012

H1 (97)