Logical Assessment

I have just finished, and submitted, my a1 assignment for CSC165. I am curious to get back my grades as soon as possible, because I want to determine where I can improve for the upcoming midterm, as well as for future reference. I found this assignment to be tricky, but enjoyable. It was not overwhelmingly long, but took me a while to figure out. Here is how I tackled it:

• Making a plan: I would take a question and try to break it down into smaller steps. I started off by writing the original statement in symbols, which I find easier to visualize than in english. I also had a notepad next to me to jot notes down as I go, as well as the symbolic definitions of negation, contrapositive and converse. I found that doing this was extremely helpful.

• Executing the plan: I would go step by step, and if I came across something I felt I didn't understand, I would refer to the lecture for that day. I prefer to look at the annotated lectures because the notes Prof. puts on them are helpful for reference. 

• Don't panic: I found that a few times I felt extremely overwhelmed (particularly on question 3 when trying to convert symbolic to english). I decided that every time I felt this way, I would take a break from the assignment for ~10-15 minutes and then I was able to think more clearly. Actually, doing this helped me to find a few mistakes I was making during the early stages of tackling the problems.

All-in-all, I am excited to have finished this assignment, but now it is time to study for the midterm!

Week 3 thoughts

Now that week 3's tutorial has been completed, I thought I would post some of my concerns for the next few weeks of class:

• Keeping up: I feel as though from week 2 to week 3, there has been a huge jump (I will admit, the tutorial exercise this week was significantly more difficult than the first week). I find it sometimes difficult to wrap my brain around some of the symbolism, not so much understanding what each symbol means... but what the question as a whole means.
• Pushing forward: I sometimes get negative on myself when I feel frustrated about not understanding the question. I think this is what office hours and tutorial were made for. I hope to take advantage of these times so that I can understand concepts more concrete, in preparation for an assignment or midterm. If this course is like any other at U of T, I should know that tutorial quizzes do not reflect the intensity of knowledge that will be on an assignment or midterm. I must strive to push forward so that I am able to keep up with the work, and not have (as many!) frustrating moments.

MASS CONFUSION

I had my first CSC165 tutorial today. It is a small class and we got to go through all of the exercise in small groups. I enjoy doing small group settings instead of large lectures because I feel like it is easier to ask questions that way. One of the questions that was raised in my class was over Question 2, part b/d:

There is one of the three python programs that passes all three test suites. and There is one of the three python programs that fails all three test suites. My TA, along with several of my classmates interpreted this question as there being at least one of the three python programs that passes/fails all three test suites. I interpreted it as being simply only one program. Because of this confusion, my answers were different from the TA's solutions. Who is right? I am not sure what the proper "correct" answer was, but it was still nice that we were able to debate our points. My TA said that he will ask professor what he believes in the correct interpretation of the problem... so, until next week!

Test

This is a test post.