I return with a certain sense of euphoria from the MATH 137 final, somewhat confident that my final mark will exceed the probational range by a few percentage points. I was absolutely terrified going into the exam. I was nervous that I had not sufficiently reviewed curve sketching and things of the like, and that it would be my downfall. Fortunately, I moved through derivatives, limits and integrals fairly quickly. I made one error on limits, that I realized afterwards, where I forgot to write that the limit did not exist. Unfortunately, I made this realization after pencils down, and was unable to correct it. For determining the area between curves, I was annoyed and angered by Bev. Marshman’s choice of questions. She always picks curves that are annoyingly incompatible with eachother, or so absurd as to anger the soul. On the exam, she had us determine the area between Pi2 - x2, and cos2x - 1. As I type this, I realize I forgot to impose the vertical translation on the cos graph…but that is okay. The math worked out fine, because I determined they intercepted at Pi and - Pi.
This area problem was annoying, because -x2 has a vertical translation upwards of almost 10, while cos2x-1 has a vertical translation downwards of 1. So, the gap between the two is substantial. The plot to draw it upon, minuscule. This resulted in some frustration.
There were some other things that angered me. Such as their insistence that we know Riemann sums, and several proofs that were not needed.
But oh well. I think my grade on this exam will be pretty good. Pretty pretty…pretty good.
Fortunately, it was out of 100 marks, so I could tell more concretely what I would be awarded (you could assign most tasks a mark value, such as drawing a diagram or properly expressing a limit).
I’m still nervous though. My long term and short term goals hinge on that exam.
Long term - career teaching math.
Short term - getting a Wii.