Quantitative Reasoning and Problem Solving

Grader:Daphne Franklin
Email: dfranklin@wisc.edu
Office hours: Mondays, 10-11 a.m. (B119 Van Vleck)
Fridays, 9-10 a.m. (B325 Van Vleck)

Lectures: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 1:00-2:15 p.m. in 145 Birge

Text: Jeffrey O. Bennett, William Briggs: Using and Understanding Mathematics, a Quantitative Reasoning Approach, third edition, Addison-Wesley, 2002.
Syllabus: Most of Chapters 1 through 7.

Assignment #2 is due in class on February 2. (Question 1 is a variant of a problem discussed in the lectures; if you missed that lecture, try to find someone who was there.) Here are the solutions.

Assignment #3 is due in class on February 9. Here are the solutions.

Assignment #4 is due in class on February 16 (deadline extended to 5 p.m., February 17 on account of the snowstorm). Here are the solutions.

Here is a practice exam for the first midterm exam (Feb. 23), and here are the solutions. Also, here is the exam itself, and here are the solutions.

Assignment #5 is due in class on March 2. Here are the solutions.

Assignment #6 is due in class on March 9. Here are the solutions.

Assignment #7 is due in class on March 23. Here are the solutions.

Assignment #8 is due in class on March 30. Here are the solutions.

Here is a practice exam for the second midterm exam (Apr. 6), and here are the solutions. Also, here is the exam itself, and here are the solutions.

Assignment #9 is due in class on April 13. Here are the solutions.

Assignment #10 is due in class on April 20. Here are the solutions.

Assignment #11 is due in class on April 27. Here are the solutions.

Assignment #12 is due in class on May 4. Here are the solutions.

Here is a practice exam for the final exam (May 10), and here are the solutions.

Also, here is the final exam itself (questions and solutions).

Jan. 17

Jan. 19 (the vanishing leprechaun website)

Jan. 24

Jan. 26 (I've put my own version of the "top ten fallacies" on the course web-site; for lots more on fallacies, check out Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies; also check out the story Love is a Fallacy by Max Shulman)

Jan. 31

Feb. 2 (for the song "Seasons of Love" played in class, watch the trailer for the film Rent)

Feb. 7

Feb. 9

Section 3A

Section 3B

Feb. 28 (this short document covers the part of the lecture that wasn't based on section 3C).

Section 3D (with supplementary documents that describe the economics of moving to Chicago and evaluating the effect of hurricane Katrina on gasoline prices).

Section 3E (with three supplementary spreadsheets: ExamScores.xls, Discrimination.xls, and Mammogram.xls).

Section 4A (with supplementary spreadsheets: Roundoff.xls, Compound.xls, Micawber.xls, APY.xls, and Examples8and9.xls)

Section 4B

Section 4C (with supplementary spreadsheets: Loan1.xls, Loan2.xls, CreditCard.xls, Mortgage1.xls, and Mortgage2.xls)

Section 4D (the Internal Revenue Service's 2003 tax table may be helpful for doing homework assignment #9)

Section 4E (also, on an unrelated note, the kitchen math problem we discussed at the end of class)

Section 5A, Section 5B (also, you can learn about the General Social Survey, or "GSS", obtained over the past few decades by the National Opinion Research Center, or "NORC"; this report attempts to build on Kinsey's work while eliminating the bias inherent in "snowball sampling", and constitutes the best study done to date on sex in America)

Gabi Meyer's 5C notes, Gabi Meyer's 5D notes

Section 6A, Section 6B

Section 6C, Section 6D

Section 7C, Applications of probability and percentages

25 / 5 = 14 (just for fun)

Catalog Statement:
Quantitative reasoning for students who need to satisfy part A of the Quantitative Reasoning requirement and prepare for QR-B courses, but do not want to continue in the calculus sequence.

Prerequisite:
satisfactory placement scores.

Brief Description:
The emphasis of this course is on reasoning and problem solving. This is different from a technique-oriented, template-problem-solving course like calculus. Math 141 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. It is the kind of math that you would for example encounter
in the election season (are the candidates' arguments logical?)
when you exchange different currencies
when you look at statistics
when you play the lottery
when you invest
when you vote
when you drive
when you cook
when you shop

Midterms and Final:
On a typical exam, you are expected to answer questions which are exactly the same as the ones which you have studied except for significant changes in the story and changes in the way the data is presented.

First Midterm: Feb. 23 (in class), covering chapters 1 and 2 and material covered in lectures

Second Midterm: Apr. 6 (in class), covering chapters 3 and 4 and material covered in lectures

Final Exam: 2:45-4:45 P.M. WED. MAY 10 (Soc. Sci. 6210), covering chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 and material covered in lectures