Examination papers related to
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My Number Theory and Cryptography
third year BA/BEd course
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My Challenging Mathematical Puzzles and
Problems BA only course
My third year Number Theory and Cryptography course (there is a
preparatory
second year course on Number Theory) - which I first taught in the academic year
1995-96 - is examined with a 3-hour written paper (attempt six questions
out of eight, each question obtaining the same credit), and a 2-hour practical computer lab examination
(all four questions to be attempted, the marks on the questions divided 30, 20,
30, 20) using Maple.
Below I make available all my examination papers for the years from 1995-96 to
the present, 2001-2002. Not being LaTeX literate, I prepare my exam papers with
Microsoft Word, and a typical 3-hour paper would come to about 200-300KBs, and a
Rich Text Format (rtf) conversion would come to about 700-800KBs (the 2-hour
Maple papers would take up fewer KBs) Thus, to make my papers available, what I
have done is this: converted the Word versions to rtf, and then zipped those.
Finally, I also make available one student's actual Maple work - question by
question - for the 1998-99 examination: I had to update it from its original
MapleV state to MapleVI, and I've also made a rtf conversion of it for readers
who may not have Maple. There was nothing particularly special about the
year or student that I choose (as it happens she was ranked in the middle of her
class of about thirty students). I have made her solutions available in two
formats: the original Maple mws format, and its rtf conversion.
Starting a NT and cryptography course from scratch was problematic, especially
as I had absolutely no idea as to what anyone else was doing elsewhere. What
should I have in the course? How long would it take to cover the material? How
would one examine it? ... I would say that the first two years were exploratory
ones, and that it was only at the third attempt that I felt I really knew just
what I should have, and could cover, in my course.
1995-1996 3-hour paper
(39KB) 2-hour
Maple paper (23KB)
1996-1997 3-hour paper
(39KB) 2-hour
Maple paper (10KB)
1997-1998 3-hour paper
(40KB) 2-hour
Maple paper (19KB)
1998-1999 3-hour paper
(38KB) 2-hour
Maple paper (15KB)
1999-2000 3-hour paper
(34KB) 2-hour
Maple paper (14KB)
2000-2001 3-hour paper
(42KB) 2-hour
Maple paper (14KB)
2001-2002 3-hour paper
(45KB) 2-hour
Maple paper (14KB)
The 1998-1999 student's Maple examination work (I may add some others in
the future, especially if I find that I get some comments from readers about
that):
quest1.mws
quest1.rtf
quest2.mws
quest2.rtf
quest3.mws
quest3.rtf
quest4.mws
quest4.rtf
Finally, I should point out that the cryptographic code (the crypt/alphabet,
to_number and from_number procedures) at the start of questions 2 and 3 in the Maple
paper is provided to students.
Finally, here is first exam paper for my new (2002-2003) third year BA only course on
Challenging
Mathematical Puzzles and Problems:
2002-2003
Exam Paper (Word, zip, 18KB)
2002-2003
Exam Paper (Wordrtf, zip, 16KB)
