Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

On the fifth day of the eleventh week of classes in my Mathematical Methods One class, we had the tenth and second to the last quiz for the term, about partial fractions with non-factorable second degree denominators and arithmetic sequences.

I cut down the first part to only two questions, none with any of the second degree expressions repeating, which would have ended them up with more than four unknowns when looking for the numerators. Besides, I got the items from the textbook and I didn’t have time to come up with new ones.

That’s another job for the randomizer spread sheet pseudo program I’m making.

Speaking of which, this one didn’t do its job right this time for the table with the arithmetic sequence values it was supposed to generate – actually it wasn’t told the correct instructions, which isn’t its fault, but then that’s strange considering I made the questions the day before. It wasn’t exactly a last minute rush with room for neglect.

Anyway, the items in the table included were the first element, the common difference (for geometric sequences they will have to derive this one because I’ll include the second element), the number of elements and the last element.

For the problems were the last element was generated, I forgot to check that the number of elements should be a whole number (not an integer, which could be negative). Thus I had not only to write down the reminders about the values on the board (like the elements, the common difference, the mean and the sum may be negative and fractional), but I also had to correct two values of the last element.

Maybe in the next quiz (the last one, with geometric sequences), I’ll include a middle element as well.

Still, it was easy enough that two people finished early before we even reached the halfway mark of the period. One was from the last tier (which are actually the top eight for this class) and another from the second to the last row (who are the second highest group).

Since there were still two students who had not showed up (those characteristically late, but this was too long even for them) I asked the first passers that they had to stay in their seats until the rest arrived.

It wasn’t that I was suspecting them of relaying questions, but best to avoid the appearance and seed of doubt. Anyway, the stragglers arrived less than ten minutes later.

This is where session 706 straggles itself. Class dismissed.