Mathematics for Engineers B

A big battle for my first exam in semester 2...

The maths paper comprised 2 parts. The first 4 numbers were Prof. Wang Xin's crafts of art, while the last 4 numbers Prof. Xu Rong's.

Prof. Wang's part, albeit not very easy, was humane. The problem set was very similar to that of last year's. The most irritating fact was that his part was more of a game of plus / minus signs; that is, a small mistake in sign could be outright fatal. As for myself, I nearly calculated -∂F/∂y (note the minus sign) where F = 3x^2 - 8y^2 as -16y, while it should have been 16y. Sigh... I was lucky I spotted that sick little mistake before the time was up...

Prof. Xu's part... this was the nightmare of all candidates. She--a brainy, beautiful beast--is infamous for "unleashing" notorious, near-impossible-to-solve problems on the previous quiz (hence the nickname "beast"), and on this exam, that was no exception. She was made even more infamous for her dastardly Laplacian. The equation seemed so much to be lacking necessary boundary conditions... many couldn't solve the problem. I've heard some students complained how Prof. Xu ruthlessly attacked them with her upper-half plane Laplacian. I myself could only cover 2 of 4 from her part.

Yet... now it's no use to mourn on our mistakes. It's become a sunk cost. What we can do now is to expect yet another battle. Knowing that, we should prepare ourselves hard to confront the remaining exams.

At least, from now on, SCBE freshies can speak about maths in past tense.

Good luck everyone on your exam! GBU! ^.^

P.S.: For those taking Physics exam and wasn't sure about the outcome, cheer up! Many said that the paper was hellish, so chances are the standard will not be very high as well. You can still score an A+! =)