7th Week - Oct 25th

During this week, the topic of sorting algorithm complexity, and big-oh were taught through the class. Again, this week’s content was about proof and I actually found myself kind of ‘get into’ this topic.

This week’s three-hour lecture was split into 3 parts – proof by cases, review of proofs and algorithm. Firstly, for the first ‘ proof by cases’ part, we should always consider the cases at different situations. One typical example would be prove ‘∀n ϵ N, n^2 + n is even’. In this question, we need to consider when n is an even number as case 1, and when n is odd. Since the correct start is achieved, the rest part is just to prove it as what we did before. Secondly, the idea of uniqueness, introduction rules, and rules of elimination were introduced. But as far as I am concerned, this part was nothing about mathematical approach, which meant that this part was not that complicated.

Moreover, proving a question with complete steps was taught which was an advanced topic from last tutorial. I actually spotted myself ‘get into’ CSC 165 these days – the lecture content seemed easy and understandable and I truly understood the contents, which were taught during tutorial. It seemed that everything was getting better and I knew I would do this week’s quiz ok again before I attempted to achieve it.

Finally, hope I can keep this positive and optimistic attitude all the time till the end of this semester. 

Keep awake and study. 

 

6th Week - Oct 17th

Hi, this is the sixth school week, which is the week of Thanksgiving and we are back from the three - day - off long weekend. Meanwhile, the results of the mid-term tests are given back on Tuesday’s lecture. I was doing okay, but I still felt like there was a large space to improve.

Probably owing to the reason that I reviewed regularly, this week’s topic seemed to be quite understandable: cases, multiple quantifiers, and limits. Again, the materials of this week require the ability of proving and logic thinking, but I spotted that it would be okay as long as I caught up well on the last tutorial because the skills of proving are basically the same.

For the limits part, it is a new ideology, but again, as I mentioned above, proofs are all related, so there is nothing to be confused basically.

Moreover, because of the reason that tutorial was cancelled this week, actually nothing too much to do for CS165 this week. Therefore, what I should do now is to get myself a good sleep (but still coming two mid-term tests next week!) and be prepared for next week’s new stuff.

5th Week - Oct 10th

This is the fifth week of this school semester, and this week’s topic is about contradiction, existence, and sequences. Again, “proof” (proof using contraction, proof using contrapositive, proof for existence, and proof about a sequence) is emphasized during lecture hour.

After attending lecture and preparing learning stuff before ahead, I caught up well in this week. For this week’s tutorial, we were asked to prove two questions, which were actually not as hard as the tutorial documentaries given before. At this time, it took me half an hour to really try these questions before tutorial time and I spotted that making preparation before ahead was really helpful because I was able to catch every word the Ta said instead of sitting there and wondering.

Moreover, the mid-term test was given on the first hour on Tuesday’s lecture. By comparing with the sample answers posted online, it seemed that I didn’t do that well. Although I caught up after every lecture and reviewed a lot before the exam day, key concepts were still forgotten during the real exam. By looking back, really getting into each concept that was taught during class is what I should do to avoid this situation to happen ever again. Among the whole month while I was studying CSC165, I would skip some tricky points which led the practically understanding of this course but not full understanding. 

However, by looking back so far, I was quite pleased with what I have learned so far and those progresses I have made.

Keep calm and carry on.

4th Week - Oct 3rd

Hey, this is the fourth school week and we have learned the idea of contradiction, existence, and sequences. Besides, the idea of associating, distribution, and De Morgan’s method were taught.

Everything seems to be getting better in this week. Although I didn’t get a pleased mark from last tutorial quiz, I spotted myself was able to understand the concepts after TA had went over all of the questions. Moreover, this week’s tutorial quiz was not that hard -- it just asked to prove for a symbolic form.

The main idea of this week’s lecture is to prove two statements are equivalent or not. Personally, I spotted a pattern: the questions are always based on P => Q, and that is equivalent to ¬ P∨Q. Therefore, I think the key idea of this concept is to figure out the precedence of an equation, such as the question to prove “ P=> (Q => ( R=> S) is equivalent to (P∧Q∧R) =>S (the second question on tutorial 3 ) ”. If we begin with the left-side part, you have to consider R=>S, which is the stuff in the bracket first, and only later, it will come to Q = > the result of R=>S.

However, one thing I still find difficult with is that it is going to take me some time to prove it by my own. Yes, after the TA has gone over all of the questions and came with an explanation, I felt like I understood everything. However, if it is my turn, I’ll probably forget the following steps. Therefore, more practices and more careful observations are still needed for me.