weirdness in the ap calculus ab exam

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Wed May 08, 2013 4:33 pm

http://sulekha.forumotion.com/t351-weirdness-in-the-ap-calculus-ab-exam#728

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 4:42 pm

sonny took it today.

by Rishi Wed May 08, 2013 4:49 pm

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:http://sulekha.forumotion.com/t351-weirdness-in-the-ap-calculus-ab-exam#728

Can I take it?

Do you have to be in high school to take that exam?

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Wed May 08, 2013 4:56 pm

Rishi wrote:
Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:http://sulekha.forumotion.com/t351-weirdness-in-the-ap-calculus-ab-exam#728

Can I take it?

Do you have to be in high school to take that exam?

i don't know. i don't see why the college board wouldn't let you. you should try. in case you're not allowed to, get one of those books on ap calculus that are available at barnes & noble, etc. it will have several realistic tests, one or more of which you can take at home.

do you think that the problems i described in my initial post are weird?

by Rishi Wed May 08, 2013 5:04 pm

[quote="Jeremiah Mburuburu"]

Rishi wrote:
Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:http://sulekha.forumotion.com/t351-weirdness-in-the-ap-calculus-ab-exam#728

Can I take it?

Do you have to be in high school to take that exam?

i don't know. i don't see why the college board wouldn't let you. you should try. in case you're not allowed to, get one of those books on ap calculus that are available at barnes & noble, etc. it will have several realistic tests, one or more of which you can take at home.

do you think that the problems i described in my initial post are weird?[/quote]

I don't think so.

In fact, the course I took online had multiple choice question both on the exams and the practice problems.

I still had to work them out on paper and then select the right answer.

I think it is possible to design a rigorous multiple choice exam in calculus to test whether the candidate understood the core concepts.

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 5:09 pm

Rishi wrote:
Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:http://sulekha.forumotion.com/t351-weirdness-in-the-ap-calculus-ab-exam#728

Can I take it?

Do you have to be in high school to take that exam?

I think you should be able to. I know some students who studied on their own and took the exams because their school wasn't offering the courses. I also heard about one kid where his school was offering the course only in the senior year. The kid was smart and didn't want to wait until then. So, he studied for it on his own and took the exam in the freshman year (he got a 5).

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 08, 2013 7:10 pm

on the other board rashmun wrote,

I do not know of any other tool (including MATLAB) which can compute indefinite integrals--they can all compute definite integrals.

rashmun meet mathematica, or rather the watered down free version of mathematica which runs on wolfram alpha:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Integral%5Ba+x%2F%28b%2Bc+x%2Bd+x%5E2%29%2Cx%5D

MATLAB can also do this but not with the pretty output that mathematica produces.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 08, 2013 7:21 pm

yes i do think it is weird. it is a simple matter to differentiate each of the answers. so this would be too easy a problem.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 08, 2013 7:23 pm

other programs that can do indefinite integrals and other symbolic computations are Maple and MACSYMA but mathematica is easily the best piece of software for this sort of thing. i love it.

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 8:00 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:other programs that can do indefinite integrals and other symbolic computations are Maple and MACSYMA but mathematica is easily the best piece of software for this sort of thing. i love it.

Good to know this. I am completely out of touch with calculus. I have worked with Maple 10-15 years ago and do not recall it having this functionality.
What tools do you use for statistical calculations? Do you do any programming?

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 08, 2013 8:11 pm

Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:other programs that can do indefinite integrals and other symbolic computations are Maple and MACSYMA but mathematica is easily the best piece of software for this sort of thing. i love it.

Good to know this. I am completely out of touch with calculus. I have worked with Maple 10-15 years ago and do not recall it having this functionality.
What tools do you use for statistical calculations? Do you do any programming?

i and the people who work with me build theoretical models and test them against experimental data. we use a variety of software tools including excel, MATLAB, mathematica and a software package called COMSOL. i don't do heavy duty code writing although people who have worked with and for me have done that for me. most of the code writing i do is done on mathematica and is no more than 10-20 lines long.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Wed May 08, 2013 8:42 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:other programs that can do indefinite integrals and other symbolic computations are Maple and MACSYMA but mathematica is easily the best piece of software for this sort of thing. i love it.

Good to know this. I am completely out of touch with calculus. I have worked with Maple 10-15 years ago and do not recall it having this functionality.
What tools do you use for statistical calculations? Do you do any programming?

i and the people who work with me build theoretical models and test them against experimental data. we use a variety of software tools including excel, MATLAB, mathematica and a software package called COMSOL. i don't do heavy duty code writing although people who have worked with and for me have done that for me. most of the code writing i do is done on mathematica and is no more than 10-20 lines long.

Sie sind ein Code Coolie.

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 8:43 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:other programs that can do indefinite integrals and other symbolic computations are Maple and MACSYMA but mathematica is easily the best piece of software for this sort of thing. i love it.

Good to know this. I am completely out of touch with calculus. I have worked with Maple 10-15 years ago and do not recall it having this functionality.
What tools do you use for statistical calculations? Do you do any programming?

i and the people who work with me build theoretical models and test them against experimental data. we use a variety of software tools including excel, MATLAB, mathematica and a software package called COMSOL. i don't do heavy duty code writing although people who have worked with and for me have done that for me. most of the code writing i do is done on mathematica and is no more than 10-20 lines long.

What is the cost of a Comsol license ( just curious). Also, which tool do you use for performing statistical calculations and tests and plotting? What about Linear Algebra?

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 08, 2013 9:33 pm

Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:other programs that can do indefinite integrals and other symbolic computations are Maple and MACSYMA but mathematica is easily the best piece of software for this sort of thing. i love it.

Good to know this. I am completely out of touch with calculus. I have worked with Maple 10-15 years ago and do not recall it having this functionality.
What tools do you use for statistical calculations? Do you do any programming?

i and the people who work with me build theoretical models and test them against experimental data. we use a variety of software tools including excel, MATLAB, mathematica and a software package called COMSOL. i don't do heavy duty code writing although people who have worked with and for me have done that for me. most of the code writing i do is done on mathematica and is no more than 10-20 lines long.

What is the cost of a Comsol license ( just curious). Also, which tool do you use for performing statistical calculations and tests and plotting? What about Linear Algebra?

i don't know. the place i work at has a site license. i didn't think to ask how much it costs. it's probably pretty expensive. excel and matlab for statistical analysis and plotting. linear algebra yes. there are many elements of math we use. i didn't think to list linear algebra separately. it's part of a lot of what we do. the use of linear algebra happens pretty naturally without conscious thought of using linear algebra. it's just like language. you don't consciously tell yourself, "now i am using a verb, now an adjective, now i am punctuating, and so on....". you do whatever it takes to break a problem down and solve it.

by Rishi Wed May 08, 2013 9:50 pm

the use of linear algebra happens pretty naturally without conscious
thought of using linear algebra. it's just like language. you don't
consciously tell yourself, "now i am using a verb, now an adjective, now
i am punctuating, and so on....".

I have heard math being informally described by Americans in the following ways.

1. It is another language (used to describe the realty).

2. It is logic with numbers.

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 10:33 pm

Rishi wrote:the use of linear algebra happens pretty naturally without conscious
thought of using linear algebra. it's just like language. you don't
consciously tell yourself, "now i am using a verb, now an adjective, now
i am punctuating, and so on....".

I have heard math being informally described by Americans in the following ways.

1. It is another language (used to describe the realty).

2. It is logic with numbers.

An Indian teacher of mine once described mathematics as being the language of God.

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Wed May 08, 2013 10:45 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:yes i do think it is weird. it is a simple matter to differentiate each of the answers. so this would be too easy a problem.

exactly! that's why it's weird. it doesn't test the student's skill in integration, but it does test the student's understanding of the fundamental theorem of calculus. there were several such problems.

if the college board wanted to test the student's skill in integration, the questions shouldn't have been of the mutiple-choice kind.

by MaxEntropy_Man Wed May 08, 2013 10:46 pm

Rashmun wrote:
An Indian teacher of mine once described mathematics as being the language of God.

thankfully none of my math teachers said stupid stuff like that.

by Jeremiah Mburuburu Wed May 08, 2013 10:56 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:on the other board rashmun wrote,

I do not know of any other tool (including MATLAB) which can compute indefinite integrals--they can all compute definite integrals.

rashmun meet mathematica, or rather the watered down free version of mathematica which runs on wolfram alpha:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Integral%5Ba+x%2F%28b%2Bc+x%2Bd+x%5E2%29%2Cx%5D

MATLAB can also do this but not with the pretty output that mathematica produces.

the t-89 hand-held, graphing calculator can find symbolic, indefinite integrals. of course, it can find definite integrals by numerical integration. its younger siblings like the ti-84 can find definite integrals, but not symbolic, indefinite integrals. the ti-89 costs about $135.

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 11:02 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
An Indian teacher of mine once described mathematics as being the language of God.

thankfully none of my math teachers said stupid stuff like that.

Would you call the statement stupid if he had said Mathematics is the language of Nature?

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 11:07 pm

Jeremiah Mburuburu wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:on the other board rashmun wrote,

I do not know of any other tool (including MATLAB) which can compute indefinite integrals--they can all compute definite integrals.

rashmun meet mathematica, or rather the watered down free version of mathematica which runs on wolfram alpha:

http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Integral%5Ba+x%2F%28b%2Bc+x%2Bd+x%5E2%29%2Cx%5D

MATLAB can also do this but not with the pretty output that mathematica produces.
the t-89 hand-held, graphing calculator can find symbolic, indefinite integrals. of course, it can find definite integrals by numerical integration. its younger siblings like the ti-84 can find definite integrals, but not symbolic, indefinite integrals. the ti-89 costs about $135.

The Voyage 200 calculator has the same or slightly greater functionality as TI 89 with a bigger screen and keyboard.

by bw Wed May 08, 2013 11:07 pm

Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
An Indian teacher of mine once described mathematics as being the language of God.

thankfully none of my math teachers said stupid stuff like that.

Would you call the statement stupid if he had said Mathematics is the language of Nature?

math is the language of the universe.

by Guest Wed May 08, 2013 11:09 pm

bw wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
An Indian teacher of mine once described mathematics as being the language of God.

thankfully none of my math teachers said stupid stuff like that.

Would you call the statement stupid if he had said Mathematics is the language of Nature?

math is the language of the universe.

When one refers to Nature or Laws of Nature one is referring also to the Universe. Would you agree?

by bw Wed May 08, 2013 11:12 pm

Rashmun wrote:
bw wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
An Indian teacher of mine once described mathematics as being the language of God.

thankfully none of my math teachers said stupid stuff like that.

Would you call the statement stupid if he had said Mathematics is the language of Nature?

math is the language of the universe.

When one refers to Nature or Laws of Nature one is referring also to the Universe. Would you agree?

yes. i think it is a perfectly reasonable statement to make.

by MaxEntropy_Man Thu May 09, 2013 7:23 am

Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
Rashmun wrote:
An Indian teacher of mine once described mathematics as being the language of God.

thankfully none of my math teachers said stupid stuff like that.

Would you call the statement stupid if he had said Mathematics is the language of Nature?

you could say that.

by MaxEntropy_Man Thu May 09, 2013 7:29 am

[quote="Rashmun"]

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:I have worked with Maple 10-15 years ago and do not recall it having this functionality.

when i first started with these types of software packages twenty or so years ago, i started with Maple which i think is an older product than mathematica. i remember Maple having this sort of functionality even back then. it was also excellent at factorizing huge unwieldy algebraic expressions, collecting terms in specified forms, extracting numerators and denominators from rational functions and all sorts of other symbolic operations which was important to me at the time for the type of problem i was working on. it really cut down a lot of tedium and probably saved me weeks (probably months) of tough manipulative algebra. that's when i came to fully realize the power of symbolic computation.

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