Topics: the exam will be mildly cumulative with
most of the questions on
Chapters 7, 8, 13 in the text and on Voting,
but there will some questions on earlier material.
Practice
exam
Grader:
Office
Hall
Tel:
email:
at math dot wisc dot edu
Office hours: pm.
For quick help outside of office hours, please, go to the Mathlab.
Lectures:
| Lecture 1 | MWF 9:55 - 10:45 am | Soc Sci 6203 |
Text: For
All Practical Purposes, tenth edition by the Consortium
for Mathematics and its Applications, W.H. Freeman and Co. You may want
to consider purchasing the
e-book for about $60 net (Tech support at: 1-800-936-6899, Monday -
Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 a.m., EST).
You will need a scientific calculator like TI 30 X IIs, with some
statistical
functions, including correlation.
Catalog Statement:
Quantitative reasoning for students who need to satisfy part A of
the
Quantitative Reasoning requirement and prepare for QR-B courses.
Math 141 does *not* prepare for any further course in the Math Dept.
Please, contact your academic advisor, if you have questions about
whether
this course is for you.
Prerequisite:
satisfactory placement scores.
Brief Description:
This course introduces a wide variety of topics that show the
tremendous
impact of math on everyday life. One should not shy away from this, but
try to tackle it. Here are some sample problems:
- how to organize mail deliveries without retracing
steps if possible
- a clothing manufacturer has 60 yards of cloth
out
of which she makes shirts and vests. A shirt requires 3 yards and give
a profit of $5, a vest requires 2 yards and yields a profit of $3. How
many shirts and vests should she make to maximize her profit?
- what kinds of curves do you you get when you
plot
the scores of student exams? what properties set them apart?
- how are phenomena related? doing homework with
or without background music, here we argue about data
- how to conduct polls? sampling
- what is the probability of winning x $ in
the lottery?
- how do we determine the winner in an election?
Is that fair?
- how do we best save for a future goal? A look at
investing.
- borrowing and paying off credit card debt,
loans.
We will deal with budgets, taxes and learn how to use spreadsheets.
Surprizingly enough there are mathematical
models that can apply to each of these situations and they don't involve
calculus, for us anyway.
This course aims to give you a basic introduction to many of these
mathematical models. At the end of the class, you should be able to
apply
them to problems very similar to the ones given in the homeworks, but
with
different numbers.
There will be a significant number of homework problems and you are
encouraged to work in groups.
A quiz will consist of several problems from the current homework
set
and it will be given on line. You may take it at any time/place in a
given
time window. So in order to do well on the quizzes you will need to do
the homeworks.
Grades:
| Quizzes (about 10) | 20 |
| Midterm 1 | 22 |
| Midterm 2 | 23 |
| Final | 35 |
| Extra Credit | 5 |
| Total | 100 |
Note: even though we work in groups, each student is expected to be able to do ALL assigned problems.
***** You are required to attend the
final
exam. *****
Available Help: