Thursday 18 October 2012

MS324 Exam Debrief

Well I feel a lot happier about this one than last weeks topology. However I still think I'll be borderline grade 2/grade 3. OK so the questions

1) 3 first order differential equations I think I got most of this correct

2) A tricky one on Fourier transforms the first part was OK but the second and third parts were tricky I couldn't see how to do the second part although I'm sure it will seem obvious on reflection. Left this question and then went onto the second part

7) A question on Lagrangian mechanics a pendulum attached to a massive spring. This question had appeared before but was a bit fiddly still got most of the marks for this one

5) The inevitable question on waves on a rectangular boundary again this question appeared before. Straightforward but tedious and a long time to write out. Got say 3/4 of the marks for this one

6) One dimensional diffusion equation for a bar. Again this question has appeared before but only once (2006) so I guess some people might have been taken by surprise by this one. The past two years have been a heat conduction type equation for a cylinder or sphere and generally a lot easier to get full marks for. Time was running out and as the question involved a Fourier series I got the method but my constants came out all wrong. So reckon about 1/2 marks for this one

So back to part 1 question 3 A probability question on recurrence relations which I left and question 4 a tricky one on variational principles. The first part involving a tricky taylor expansion upto 4th order however the second part involved solving a fairly simple differential equation and in the last 10 minutes I think I got this out so say 5 marks

So overall estimate say
13 for question 1, 4 for question 2, 18 for question 7, 14 for question 5 10 for  question 6 and 4 for question 4 to give

13+4+18+14+10+4 = 63 so if the examiners are feeling generous they might bump up the marks a bit and I might just scrape grade 2.

Anyway it's over I'll post full reviews of both M338 and MS324 later on this month.

Managed to have a few pints in Diggers with another guy. One of the problems with this course is the lack of face -face tutorials so it is difficult to get to know people. He's doing fluids next year along with me so hopefully we can meet up again.

4 comments:

  1. Well done Chris. It is probably better that you had your pudding after your main course so that it leaves a sweet taste in your mouth. Looking forward to meeting up again soon to discuss "life, the universe and everything".

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  2. I did the sin^2 Fourier transform by turning it into cos 2 theta, and then doing similar translations to the first part.

    Hope that was OK.

    I didn't have a clue about the last part of Q5.

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  3. Hi Chris,

    Congratulations on another course done and dusted.
    I would say it's time to relax for a bit, but apparently we don't get that privilege this time.

    Best of luck!
    Neil H

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  4. I was disappointed with my performance on the exam. I'm very slow and spent the first hour just doing questions 1 & 2 (although I solved them). I was OK on the recurrence relation one but messed up the Part 1 functional question (although I got the first bit out). I should get something close to 50 marks on Part 1 though. Part 2 was a nightmare. I completely failed to get anywhere on the diffusion or pendulum questions. I actually did these last so spent the last 45 mins flitting between them unsuccessfully and trying to forage a few easy marks. I did get the vibrating membrane one out altho I dropped a few marks at the end. So I'll be coming in at around 70 and obviously be happy if I scrape a grade 2 and disappointed with a grade 3.

    Matt

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