“The biggest key to success in this course is not giving up when you “fail” or feel like you don't understand anything. You have to face the material you don't understand head-on to understand and improve for the next test. Not doing well for your standards on a few quizzes is NOT the end of the world and they are a great experience to test your understanding and review for exam time. Try to remain positive and tell yourself you can do this!
As far as strategies for reviewing and keeping up with learning in the course, the first thing I did was attending all the lectures (unless I had an emergency), but the night before the lectures I would watch the posted videos and take notes then so I could pause and write. This way, during the lectures I could just watch and review the material a second time for better understanding. I also did the CNQs each week, and when marking them I fully went through solutions to questions I did wrong so I would not make mistakes later. When reviewing for tests, I did past quizzes as practice, reviewed CNQs and OQs and reviewed my notes to make sure that I fully understood class examples. For the final, I started reviewing super early, like a month before for my notes. I did quizzes again, then I watched a ton of youtube videos for more practice with integration problems. I did the past midterms and the final posted on the SFU website. The last thing I did that was very helpful was I made myself a condensed notes package that included all the formulas and theorems that we had learned in class. It forced me to go through and really understand all the material as though I was teaching it to someone else.”
“Like any math course, the key to avoid significant amounts of cramming before exams is to distribute the studying. That is, treat the weekly quizzes seriously. Set aside time to answer each assigned question as completely and concisely as possible. You'll find that you can answer all but around 3 questions by yourself without difficulty. These 3 questions are almost certainly going to be on the quiz. Make sure you take these questions to the Algebra Workshop and get a TA to explain it to you completely. The TA's are there for a reason; don't be afraid to spend as much time as you need until you can explain the solution to someone else without any difficulty. As for lectures, it will help a lot if you read the corresponding chapter in the textbook beforehand. MACM 201 is a difficult course; trust me when I say that you won't understand the material the first time you look at it. This is especially true for learning the graph theory proofs. When it comes to memorizing definitions and proofs, try rewriting them in your own words and checking with a TA to see if they're still valid. The act of trying to simplify a definition or proof will help you understand the purpose of every word and sentence. It tells you which words and phrases are strictly necessary and which aren't.
As for the exam itself, the questions will be of two different types: mechanical questions and creative questions. Mechanical questions are the types of questions that you're used to doing from your homework. They can be answered without really understanding what you're doing; these questions simply test your ability to follow certain rules like a computer. Examples of this type include definitions of vocabulary, Principle of Inclusion-Exclusion, finding the coefficient of xn, solving recurrence relations once they've been set up, and applying Dijsktra/Kruskal/Prim's algorithms to a graph. You should be able to do these questions in your sleep; on an exam, when time is limited, these are the questions you do first. Creative questions, on the other hand, really test your understanding. Finding the answer for these types of questions is rarely straightforward; you'll have to play around with the question and try to solve it from different viewpoints. Examples of this type include setting up (but not solving) generating functions and recurrence relations, as well as pretty much all of graph theory. All you can really do to prepare for these questions is practice a lot of past MACM 201 exams and develop general heuristics for the questions. For example, although Hamilton paths don't have straightforward necessary/sufficient conditions like Euler circuits do, there are a set of general guidelines that you can follow in order to find a Hamilton path in a given graph. Although it can all seem overwhelming, making it through MACM 201 will be a really rewarding experience; good luck!”
“Welcome to MATH 341! Abstract algebra is a super cool topic to study; you won't get bored. As an upper level math course, the class size is probably going to be fairly small compared to your usual introductory math courses (I'm looking at you, MATH 151 and MACM 101). Consequently, you should try to interact with Jonathan as much as possible during lecture. Jonathan's style of teaching is great because after introducing a new concept, he'll illustrate how to apply the concept with an exercise (often taken straight from the textbook). This is your opportunity to make some guesses and see if you've been paying attention to what's been going on in lecture so far! Don't be afraid to raise you hand and make mistakes; I promise Jonathan won't bite if you mess up. You paid a lot to take this course; you might as well get your money's worth by trying to get out as much as you can from the lectures. The same thing goes for the tutorials: show up for all of them and interact with the TA. Think out loud and ask questions! Discuss your ideas with some friends!
As for studying for the exams, I suggest that you practice a LOT of exercises. Gallian's textbook is great and filled with tons of interesting problems that, at first, seem really difficult. However, once you get the idea, these exercises often have a short, elegant proof. In fact (spoiler alert!), Jonathan takes most of the problems from his exams directly from either the chapter exercises or the supplementary exercises of the textbook (with perhaps some minor modifications). Furthermore, I recommend that you develop a library of example groups that satisfy as well as violate various properties as you encounter new groups/properties throughout the course. Can you name a group that is not abelian? Can you think of an infinite group such that each one of its elements has finite order? Can you think of two groups that have the same order but are not isomorphic? Can you name a group that doesn't satisfy the converse of Lagrange's Theorem? Can you give an example of a subgroup that is not normal in some bigger group? It is often very illuminating if you can construct an example that illustrates why some claim doesn't hold in general or why such a strong hypothesis is required in some theorem. It is especially useful for the final exam, where you are asked to either prove or disprove some claim; your first step should be to quickly check if the claim holds for some of the more standard example groups in your library.
Good luck with the course! You'll have loads of fun, I promise. =]”
“Dear MATH 370W Student,
Welcome to the most satisfying course of your undergraduate career. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. The fact that you are enrolled in this course means that you are more than capable of achieving an excellent grade. Being that MATH370 is all about solving interesting problems; my advice is focused on the process of approaching and solving difficult problems, as well as tips I wish I had going into this course.
There is no concrete way to solve the problems posed in this course. Finding a solution is difficult, and the only way to improve is to solve more problems and work through examples. Many of the problems have their own quirks and require special “tricks” to solve, which you'll only understand by tackling more and more problems.
That being said, the real meat of this course is in writing and presenting your solutions in a coherent manner. Much like writing an essay, solving problems is an iterative process. The following is one way to approach problem solving:
My advice on solving the problems focuses more on the way you approach the problem, arrive at the solution, and less on the actual solution itself (i.e. Was the problem secretly basic linear algebra? Or was the polynomial question really about counting?). The problems that you will see are so varied that often you will seldom not see the same “type” of problem twice. Gaining insight on the problem solving process is incredibly valuable, and ultimately the this will be the most important skill that you will undoubtedly want to take away from this course.
My next piece of advice involves always being in the zone. The assignments are on a weekly basis and are tough, so stay on top of them. Look at the problems ASAP. Even if you don't attempt to solve them immediately, just having them in the back of your mind will make all the difference when you want to write your final solution.
One last piece of advice is to look at old Putnam exams. Spending 3 hours at a time working through half a Putnam can really help the problem solving process sink in — don't look at the answers until you've finished!”