Earlier this morning, before starting the work week, I took my first linear algebra exam at the nearby Northgate Testing center. The proctored exam covered the first four modules in the course, topics including:
- Gaussian elimination (row echelon)
- Gaussian Jordan elimination (row reduced echelon)
- Adding, subtracting, multiplying matrices
- Calculating the inverse of matrices (using identity matrices)
- LU Factorization
I felt well prepared (thanks again to Khan Academy and 3Blue1Brown). Going into the exam, I worked (and reworked) the suggested exercises in the textbook. Honestly, I think if I hadn’t attempted the exercises, my mind would’ve tricked me into believing that I understood the material. But that obviously wasn’t the case because the different math problems had me fumbling around, furiously scribbling pencil all over my notebook paper followed by vigorous strokes of erasing. Anyways, 1 exam down — 2 more to go.
Next topic: calculating the determinant of a matrix (at this present moment, I have no idea what that means)
