MATH 31B
Integration and Infinite Series
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 31A with grade of C- or better. Not open for credit to students with credit for course 3B. Transcendental functions; methods and applications of integration; sequences and series. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2019 - Taking Math 31B with Professor Wink was an amazing experience. I would agree on the part that he is one of the hardest professors for Math 31B, but he is one of the best ones as well. Grading He had two grading schemes and would use the one which yielded a better score for each individual student out of the two. Scheme 1 Homework: 10% Midterm 1: 20% Midterm 2: 20% Final exam: 50% Scheme 2 Homework: 10% Higher of midterm 1 or 2: 30% Final exam: 60% Homework He assigned weekly problems from the exercises in the textbooks which had to be turned in during the lecture on Friday every week. The difficulty level of the problems ranged between easy, moderately difficult, and hard. Though they offered good practice, in order to perform well on his midterms and finals, just the homework problems definitely wouldn't suffice and extra practice of the examples and other problems from the exercises are important. In addition to that, I'd strongly advise to solve his practice midterms and final, and also the problem sheets assigned by the TA (if your TA does)- they're extremely helpful and a great source of practice. Also, he drops your two lowest homework scores and a score of 75% and above on the homeworks is considered as a 100%, so that even if you make some error, you can learn from it and avoid it later on without putting your grade at risk. Midterms and Finals His midterms and finals were hard- no kidding. The averages on the first and second midterms were a 50% and 61% respectively, and that on the final was a 63%. But that doesn't mean they were completely impossible to handle. The exams being hard just meant that he really made you work if you wanted to secure a good score. The one drawback with his midterms that I would say is that they were just worth 26 points. So if you made even a small error, that would drop your score in terms of percentages a lot. If you're consistent with practice and don't put off the syllabus for just before the midterms and final, then I don't think you'd have any major problems in performing decently on his tests. The material in Math 31B is much, and a lot of it is in interconnected with each other (for example, you can't move ahead with infinite series or Taylor polynomials without having your concepts of all the convergence and divergence tests crystal clear). That is why it is important that you follow through with the practice and material as it progresses in the class so that you allow yourself to get familiar with it at a comfortable pace, which is really crucial to ensure in this class if you wanna perform well. Also, Professor Wink gave two points of extra credit for filling out the instructor evaluations at the end of the quarter. Curve He said that he wouldn't curve any exams (midterms or finals) individually, but would scale the overall scores after all the exams. The class was scaled down to quite an extent, with the cutoffs for letter grades in comparison to the overall scores being as follows- 100% or above: A+ >=85%: A >=82%: A- >=79%: B+ >=72%: B >=69%: B- >=64%: C+ >=53%: C >=43%: C- >=33%: D In all, I'd definitely recommend someone who loves to learn more about the intricacies of Math to take Wink's class because although it is hard, you learn a lot and get used to taking difficult tests. He does a great job of preparing you well for harder classes to come along.
Winter 2019 - Taking Math 31B with Professor Wink was an amazing experience. I would agree on the part that he is one of the hardest professors for Math 31B, but he is one of the best ones as well. Grading He had two grading schemes and would use the one which yielded a better score for each individual student out of the two. Scheme 1 Homework: 10% Midterm 1: 20% Midterm 2: 20% Final exam: 50% Scheme 2 Homework: 10% Higher of midterm 1 or 2: 30% Final exam: 60% Homework He assigned weekly problems from the exercises in the textbooks which had to be turned in during the lecture on Friday every week. The difficulty level of the problems ranged between easy, moderately difficult, and hard. Though they offered good practice, in order to perform well on his midterms and finals, just the homework problems definitely wouldn't suffice and extra practice of the examples and other problems from the exercises are important. In addition to that, I'd strongly advise to solve his practice midterms and final, and also the problem sheets assigned by the TA (if your TA does)- they're extremely helpful and a great source of practice. Also, he drops your two lowest homework scores and a score of 75% and above on the homeworks is considered as a 100%, so that even if you make some error, you can learn from it and avoid it later on without putting your grade at risk. Midterms and Finals His midterms and finals were hard- no kidding. The averages on the first and second midterms were a 50% and 61% respectively, and that on the final was a 63%. But that doesn't mean they were completely impossible to handle. The exams being hard just meant that he really made you work if you wanted to secure a good score. The one drawback with his midterms that I would say is that they were just worth 26 points. So if you made even a small error, that would drop your score in terms of percentages a lot. If you're consistent with practice and don't put off the syllabus for just before the midterms and final, then I don't think you'd have any major problems in performing decently on his tests. The material in Math 31B is much, and a lot of it is in interconnected with each other (for example, you can't move ahead with infinite series or Taylor polynomials without having your concepts of all the convergence and divergence tests crystal clear). That is why it is important that you follow through with the practice and material as it progresses in the class so that you allow yourself to get familiar with it at a comfortable pace, which is really crucial to ensure in this class if you wanna perform well. Also, Professor Wink gave two points of extra credit for filling out the instructor evaluations at the end of the quarter. Curve He said that he wouldn't curve any exams (midterms or finals) individually, but would scale the overall scores after all the exams. The class was scaled down to quite an extent, with the cutoffs for letter grades in comparison to the overall scores being as follows- 100% or above: A+ >=85%: A >=82%: A- >=79%: B+ >=72%: B >=69%: B- >=64%: C+ >=53%: C >=43%: C- >=33%: D In all, I'd definitely recommend someone who loves to learn more about the intricacies of Math to take Wink's class because although it is hard, you learn a lot and get used to taking difficult tests. He does a great job of preparing you well for harder classes to come along.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - Professor Xiang has a belief that the best students do not attend lectures. With lectures at 9 am, I usually walked out more confused than when I came in. That being said, the online book is the best place to learn for this course. Lecture slides are posted and you can get the same out of the lecture if you took notes on slides during your own time. Discussions are the best place to walk through example problems with your TA and likely where you will clear up most of your confusion. If Professor Xiang hosts office hours, it is in your best interest to attend. He is an extremely nice and understanding professor. He also offers a cheat sheet for midterms and the final which is very useful given the complex formulas taught in this course. Overall, if you are taking Math 31B do it with Professor Xiang. He is better than the other professors.
Winter 2024 - Professor Xiang has a belief that the best students do not attend lectures. With lectures at 9 am, I usually walked out more confused than when I came in. That being said, the online book is the best place to learn for this course. Lecture slides are posted and you can get the same out of the lecture if you took notes on slides during your own time. Discussions are the best place to walk through example problems with your TA and likely where you will clear up most of your confusion. If Professor Xiang hosts office hours, it is in your best interest to attend. He is an extremely nice and understanding professor. He also offers a cheat sheet for midterms and the final which is very useful given the complex formulas taught in this course. Overall, if you are taking Math 31B do it with Professor Xiang. He is better than the other professors.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2022 - This was his first class at UCLA, so he definitely wasn't the greatest lecturer, however, he was clearly very caring for his students and could be quite funny during lectures. His exams were extremely straightforward and I did well up until the final which I hardly studied for and rightfully did terrible on, which dropped my grade from a comfortable A to barely a B. Overall, I only expect Haoren to get better as a lecturer and I would definitely recommend him for this class.
Fall 2022 - This was his first class at UCLA, so he definitely wasn't the greatest lecturer, however, he was clearly very caring for his students and could be quite funny during lectures. His exams were extremely straightforward and I did well up until the final which I hardly studied for and rightfully did terrible on, which dropped my grade from a comfortable A to barely a B. Overall, I only expect Haoren to get better as a lecturer and I would definitely recommend him for this class.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2024 - Zhang Zhaoyu is a really very laid back professor, but he is not the best lecturer. When he lectures he usually just annotates the lecture slides and goes through the information pretty fast. It was difficult for me to honestly retain anything he was lecturing about. My grade is mostly because I self-studied. If you do happen to take this class, I recommend checking out Organic Chemistry Tutor. OGT honestly saved me, as you can find all 31b concepts on the channel explained very clearly. Zhang's tests were pretty fair. As long as you are able to do the homework, you should be able to do well on Zhang's tests. The tests are also graded very leniently.
Winter 2024 - Zhang Zhaoyu is a really very laid back professor, but he is not the best lecturer. When he lectures he usually just annotates the lecture slides and goes through the information pretty fast. It was difficult for me to honestly retain anything he was lecturing about. My grade is mostly because I self-studied. If you do happen to take this class, I recommend checking out Organic Chemistry Tutor. OGT honestly saved me, as you can find all 31b concepts on the channel explained very clearly. Zhang's tests were pretty fair. As long as you are able to do the homework, you should be able to do well on Zhang's tests. The tests are also graded very leniently.
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