TAL - A National Database of Questions - Classification is the Key pptx

1 Introduction 2 Motivation for Creating TAL 3 Why do we use questions? 3 An Automated Test Generator 5 An Approach to Classification 7 Practical classification problems 8 A General Classification Scheme 12 The Mathematics Subject Scheme 12 How to specify a question slot 14 Conclusions 15 Appendix A 15 Appendix B 16 References 17 Maths-CAA Series May 2003 TAL - A National Database of Questions - Classification is the Key Contents 2 3 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key FDTL awards the idea of shared assessment resources in this form was not supported perhaps because the case was not made well enough. At present TAL is used by the University of Bristol and Liverpool John Moore’s University. As part of a European Leonardo project, ATHENA, the following Universities: Università degli Studi di Perugia, CPE Lyon, University of Szeged, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia all used TAL with their students. The project set a mathematics test at university entrance level and translated the test into the different languages. The students then all took the same test and the results were compared. Any other university interested in taking part in this project is welcome as are schools, which may find questions based on the SEFI Core Zero syllabus of interest. 2. Motivation for Creating TAL In the 1970s Bristol University staff used to mark students work every week. The pressure of work eventually led to the abandonment of this practice and there was a consequent fall in the mathematical competence of students. The idea of occasional progress tests was formulated to address this fall in standards but clearly if we could get a machine to mark students work every week then all would be well. We conceived of a huge database of questions with students set tests that were randomly generated from the database. Questions are ex- pensive to generate and need continual updating. Many people however are teaching roughly the same material and so the same questions could be widely used. The concept of a National Database of questions was born. This concept is much wider than mathematics and so the TAL project includes questions from many different subject areas, although the largest contributors of ques- tions are mathematics, chemistry and physiology. As TAL’s home is in Engi- neering we are also generating a database of Engineering questions stemming from a project, based in a new degree at Bristol called Engineering Design (www.fen.bris.ac.uk/engdesign). The Engineering database aims to help stu- dents understand engineering concepts; and is particularly aimed at questions that do not require detailed calculation but require a feel for the subject. 2.1 Why do we use questions? The main goal of education is that students should learn. To learn mathematics they need to try their hand at problems. We want students to understand the concepts of mathematics but such concepts are often quite complex. When students can understand how to do a question involving a concept, the under- standing may be quite one-dimensional, i.e. they can use the concept only in that sort of question. In order to help students to have a richer understanding of TAL - A National Database of Questions - Classification is the Key Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry Dept Engineering Maths, Bristol University Email: jon.sims.williams@bristol.ac.uk, mike.barry@bris.ac.uk Abstract: This paper discusses a CAA system called TAL. TAL is unusual in that it allows users to generate large numbers of equivalent tests from a specifica- tion. The tests are generated from a database of questions and all questions must be classified. Some of the difficulties involved in classifying questions are discussed. 1. Introduction The Test and Learn system, TAL is a database of questions with facilities for staff to set tests and students to take tests. It was first conceived in 1994. We built a system, which allowed students to run a programme on their PC linked to a remote computer. The system collected a test from the remote computer, ran the test locally on the PC and then sent the results back to the host compu- ter. The system used the basic systems of computer-to-computer direct links that were available at that time and worked very reliably. A bid to JISC was successful (Higher Education Funding Committee JISC Technology Applica- tions Project 2/352) in 1996. With this support we built a web-based version that was first used in 1997. The task of populating the database with a large enough set of questions was perceived to be too onerous a task for one univer- sity or department and so the system was built to allow several universities to use the same set of questions in the hope that participating staff would gradu- ally add to the database and we would all benefit. This is not, of course, the first time that the idea of sharing questions has been mooted and early in the TAL project we visited Glyn James and Nigel Steele at Coventry University and were given the paper results of a previous attempt to share questions. Martin Greenhow of the University of Brunel has kindly offered his set of ques- tions, Mathletics to be included in the database. The normal history of shared sets of assessment questions is that several people are very keen and offer questions at the outset; others are very keen to accept the sets of questions and then the whole project dies. We hope that by having the database of questions open for all to use remotely over the Internet, this project may yet succeed; however it really needs full support and maybe central funding by the LTSN subject centres. If the LTSN Generic Centre accepted the concept of a generic database then that would be even better as we already support questions from three subject areas, mathematics, chemistry and physiology. In the recent 5 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 4 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry that all the tests are similar. 3. An Automated Test Generator We first conceived of the automatic test generator just picking questions ran- domly and generating tests with about the same length and difficulty. So one would choose a topic: “Differentiation” and then all the tests would be gener- ated from questions with this classification. This was relatively simple to do but pedagogically it did not work – teachers need to craft their tests so that the questions are more precisely chosen. The problem of random choice showed up when some tests had two or more questions that were similar, while others had quite different questions. Automatic test setting is wonderful for the teacher in that several tests are set very quickly, but more control is needed in the formation of tests. The current system allows the user to set a test by specifying the topic or topics to be used for each question in the test. The concept is illustrated by the short test below: Example test Design Test Name: test1 Course Unit: EMAT1011 Setter: Jon Sims Williams Dates available: 3/5/02-15/5/02 Length of test: 11:34 +/- 2 minutes Facility of test: 60 % +/- 5% Figure 1: A simple specification of a mathematics test. Question No. Main Topic SubTopic1 SubTopic2 1 functions understanding form of graph 2 functions domain and/or range simple algebraic functions 3 differentiation practical application speed 4 differentiation function of function rule trigonometric functions concepts, we expose them to a wide variety of questions. The goal is clear. We know that students find it helpful if they can measure themselves up against a standard to see if they are doing well, and pedagogically we want to expose students to a rich variety of problems to reinforce their understanding. To reach this goal we need to motivate the students to do the questions and we need to provide the questions. There are two ways of providing questions: 1. Generate questions parametrically where the questions all have the same structure but have different numbers. 2. Provide a large number of different sorts of questions on the same topic. Method 1 has two advantages: • Students gain confidence because they can practice until they succeed on a familiar type of question • It is much cheaper to generate questions parametrically Method 2 gives students lots of practice but as each question is different they do not learn how to answer questions by drill or formula but rather gain a more multi-dimensional understanding of the topic. The disadvantages of this ap- proach are the converse of using method 1. Most importantly, students may get discouraged if the questions are all so different that they cannot build on the understanding they get from successfully completing one question in the next question they attempt. Ideally the questions lead on one from another increas- ing the scope of understanding without being too challenging. A good teacher can do this by hand selecting questions from the database. Automatic support is more difficult; it could be done but at present we only collect and use data on the relative difficulty of questions. We use questions for motivation. However just providing questions is not enough. Many students seem to need the motivation of getting some marks before they will put the effort into trying questions. As soon as you give marks, students complain if they think that other students are in some way cheating – yet to be most effective in supporting learning we want to offer access to the tests from students’ homes and halls of residence. Probably the most effective resolution of this contradiction is to set a suite of tests all of which are on the same set of topics and then tell students that one of these tests will be used for a supervised test and the other are available for them to use for practice. One of TAL’s special strengths is that it allows you to set tests according to a specification so 7 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 6 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry 4. An Approach to Classification The design of a classification scheme is primarily influenced by the needs of users. There are various publicly available classifications of mathematics [2 - 6] but none of them has as its prime aim the need to classify questions for teachers to use. The users are setting a test from a large database of questions, so they must be able to find questions that suit their needs. Teachers need to be able to find questions on the subject that they are teaching and at the same time they need to know if the questions will require any other expertise than just the specified subject. So if we take some examples: 1. The basic skill of differentiating a polynomial. 2. The use of differentiation of a polynomial to find its maximum. 3. Given a simple model of the position of a ball expressed as a polynomial, find out where the ball is travelling fastest. 4. Invent a simple model for a sledge sliding down a hill with a linear resistance to motion. Find the point where the sledge travels fastest. Now all these problems involve differentiation of a polynomial, so they could all be classified under the same subject; however the questions require increas- ing levels of modelling skills. In the classification scheme of the previous section, these questions were classified as follows: 1. Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/polynomials 2. Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/max;min; stationary points/polynomials 3. Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/max;min; stationary points/Model Application/polynomials In terms like “max;min; stationary points”, the semi-colon is used to mean “and/or”. If the user specified that he wanted to choose questions on …/differentiation then all these questions would have been selected. The user could however have excluded questions requiring the higher skills by excluding, for example, questions classified as: Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/max;min; sta- tionary points. This test has only four questions and realistically one should never set such short tests as their reliability is low; however here we have chosen to set two questions on functions and two on differentiation. Rather than just choose the questions on differentiation randomly we have used two additional classifica- tions to be more precise; so the first question is using differentiation to find a speed in a practical application. The second question specifies that the differ- entiation requires the understanding of how to differentiate functions of func- tions and the functions concerned are trigonometric functions. So the setter of the test has a clear idea about the sort of questions s/he is setting. Lastly two additional requirements are that the test should take 11.34 ± 2minutes and the facility of the test should be 60% ± 5%. The facility is the percentage of students who normally can get a particular question right. This is averaged over all the questions, and each lecturer can have a different set of facilities and time to do for each class taught. The test generator searches the database for suitable questions and generates as many tests as it can to satisfy the speci- fication. We like to set about 20 different tests satisfying the specification and in order to do this it may be necessary to relax the specification a little and allow a wider range of questions to be used for each question slot. The specification can be relaxed by saying that the type of function used in the function of function differentiation does not matter – just don’t specify it. Similarly we could allow any sort of application of differentiation not just questions based on speed. Other relaxations could be to specify another sort of question that could be used for each question slot e.g. questions on differentiation using the chain rule could be used as well as questions on the function of a function rule. Figure 1 is illustrative of the idea of how tests are specified but MainTopic, SubTopic1 and SubTopic2 have no particular meaning as will be shown in later examples. The whole basis of this test generator is that all the questions are classified and the classification of questions uses a tree structure. The ques- tions slots in the example above as specified as: 1. Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/functions/Understanding form of graph 2. Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/functions/domain;range/simple algebraic functions 3. Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/practical application/ speed;acceleration 4. Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/ function of function rule/ trigonometric functions The ‘Mathematics’ is not redundant as the database contains questions on other subjects. A semicolon is interpreted as ‘and/or’. 9 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 8 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry tions. If a teacher had taught the idea of ‘ill-conditioned’ as part of understand- ing about solving equations and the errors that can occur he would want to find the question classified under terms such as ‘solution of equations’. Now the SEFI Core Zero syllabus, [2], operates at the school-university interface level and has syllabus items that can be described by the classifications: Algebra/Linear Laws/understand the terms ‘gradient’ and ‘intercept’ with reference to straight lines Algebra/Linear Laws/recognise when two lines are parallel Algebra/linear Laws/obtain the solution of two simultaneous equations in two unknowns using graphical and algebraic methods These are all very much in the right area but incomplete as there is no refer- ence in [2] to ill conditioning. If we introduced a classification under SEFI Core Zero syllabus about ill-conditioning then one could no longer set tests from it knowing that all questions were in the syllabus. The right response is probably to say that one must know about ill-conditioned matrices to answer this question and classify the question as: Maths/Algebra/ Linear Algebra/Matrices/Matrix properties/ill-conditioned (4.1.1) It is possible that people would want to teach about ill conditioned equations in a way that does not involve looking at matrices at all, so a classification: Maths/Algebra/ Linear Algebra/linear equations/ ill-conditioned equations (4.1.2) may also be viable. Because of the need to be comprehensible to the target audience: teachers and university lecturers, we have adopted a twin approach to classification of math- ematics questions. Firstly, we have used the SEFI Core Zero curriculum for engineering mathematics [2] edited by Leslie Mustoe and Duncan Lawson. As part of a Leonardo de Vinci project called Athena 2000/1, a set of questions based on the classification in [2] was generated and a TAL test on these ques- tions was taken by students in different European countries. This syllabus is useful for both school sixth forms and some first year university work. Sec- ondly, we have adapted the Eric Weisstein’s World of Mathematics classifica- tion [3]. This classification is aimed at helping users to find the meaning of You will notice that there is a citation order used here where “max;min; sta- tionary points” comes before “Model Application” or “SimpleModelConstruction”. The normal rule in classification schemes is to place “general” classifications before “special” ones. However “SimpleModelConstruction” is a more general classification than “max;min; stationary points” as it could be applied to all sorts of problems not just differ- entiation problems, but we need the citation order to relate to the way in which the teacher will think. Normally a teacher will choose to teach differentiation and then when the subject is well established will start to ask students to use the process of differentiation on “real” problems involving some sort of model. Rather arbitrary decisions have been made, as a teacher might want to teach modelling and then choose what sort of mathematical techniques could rea- sonably be used by the students. At present we allow two classifications for each question so it would be possible to implement both approaches. The classification, as you can see, is mixing together a subject classification, “Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/”, with a problem type description such as “practical application” and the sort of application, “speed;acceleration” and then sometimes there is information about the sort of functions that are used in the question, e.g. trigonometric functions. The test setter needs to be able to specify questions using all these sorts of data, but a single tree structure containing all this is not ideal. A more general approach to classifying questions is described in section 5. 4.1 Practical classification problems In this section example questions are displayed and then an approach to as- signing a classification is discussed. Example 1 Two linear equations are said to be ‘ill-conditioned’ when: Answer 1: They cannot be solved Answer 2: They represent two parallel straight lines Answer 3: They represent two nearly parallel straight lines Answer 4: They represent lines of which one is parallel to either the x or y axis This question is posed in terms of equations and the answers are all in terms of the geometric understanding of the equations. In the mathematical literature however, the term ‘ill-conditioned’ applies to matrices rather than sets of equa- 11 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 10 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry Answer 2: The adjoint and the minor of the element a ij are identical when i + j is odd Answer 3: The cofactor and the minor of the element a ij are identical when i + j is odd Answer 4: The cofactor and the minor of the element a ij are identical when i + j is even This question needs to be classified under both minors and adjoints, but in the classification hierarchy we have: Algebra/Linear Algebra/Determinants/minor or cofactor and Algebra/Linear Algebra/Matrices/Matrix Operations/Adjoint because the adjoint is the transpose of the matrix obtained by replacing each element a ij by its cofactor A ij so it is a matrix operation. So once again we need to decide on a major classification and then have sub- classifications to show what additional knowledge is required. This question is easy to sort out as one cannot fully understand it without understanding Adjoints and one cannot understand Adjoints without understanding cofactors, so classi- fying the question under Adjoints only is satisfactory. This example points out a problem that questions often cross many boundaries in a simple subject classification. We need to find a classification scheme that allows a teacher to pick out questions that are on the topic being taught, but then finds it easy to remove questions that require additional knowledge that has not yet been taught. It should be clear from these examples that the classification of questions is a complex process. When it has been well done however, the setting of tests is easy. Because the process is so complex we need a team working together rather than rely on one or two people. The classification, as you can see, is mixing together a subject classification, “Mathematics/Calculus & Analysis/calculus/differentiation/”, with a problem type description such as “practical application” and sort of application, “speed;acceleration” and then sometimes there is information about the sort of functions that are used in the question, e.g. trigonometric functions. The test setter needs to be able to specify questions using all these sorts of data, but a terms. So when we look up Linear Equation we find a definition in terms of y = ax +b. Now, a part of what a teacher wants in terms of questions about Linear Equations will be the definition; but s/he will also want to know how to solve them and what goes wrong when you solve them etc. So we have built upon the Weisstein’s classification in accordance with our experience of teachers needs. Part of both the SEFI and adapted Weisstein’s syllabus are shown in the Appendices. The system allows multiple classifications so both of the interpretations (4.1.1) and (4.1.2) are implemented. If you look at the Weisstein’s classification on the Web you will find that (4.1.2) does not exactly fit. Example 2 The equation of the straight line that passes through the point (1,2,3) and is parallel to the line joining the points (2,3,1) and (5,4,2) is? This question requires two ideas: the student needs to be able to form Displace- ment Vectors, so that s/he knows the direction of the line and needs to be able to write down the equation of a straight line using its direction and a point through which is passes. So there are two possible classifications: Displace- ment Vectors and Equations of lines. This question is really about equations of lines and just incidentally requires one to know how to form displacement vectors, so we would classify the question as: Algebra/vector algebra/equations in vector form/equations of lines But students also need to know about the displacement vectors so we put this underneath equations of lines as other ‘required knowledge’. Algebra/vector algebra/equations in vector form/equations of lines/dis- placement vectors A new scheme has been invented to avoid treating ‘required knowledge’ in this way but it is not yet fully implemented. Example 3 For an n x n matrix A, which of the following statements is true? Answer 1: The adjoint and minus the minor of the element a ij are identi- cal when i + j is even 13 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 12 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry Application Area - this tree allows the editor to describe the application area e.g. physics/motion/speed;velocity. In addition we use the following lists, where only one selection is made from each list: 1. Modelling level: this classification only applies to certain questions. We distinguish the following modelling levels: • Simple Model Construction - a simple model must be constructed to complete the question. • Model Application - a model is provided as part of the question and must be used • Practical Application - this indicates that the student is expected to be able to use the particular mathematics described in the Subject tree pointer in a practical situation. Implicitly this will usually mean that they have to use a standard model used in this sort of application. 2. Evaluation Type: This takes one of two values: Numeric or Algebraic, and tells us if the question requires the answer in a numeric or algebraic form. 3. Bloom’s Educational Objectives: http://www.mathematicsweb.org/ mathematicsweb/show/Index.htm are a classification of the type of question thus: • Knowledge: states that the question simply checks if the student knows something factual. • Comprehension: usually refers to a question in which data is given and the question checks if the student understands what it means. • Application: The use of previously learned information in new and concrete situations to solve problems that have single or best answers. • Analysis: The breaking down of informational materials into their component parts, examining (and trying to understand the organizational structure of) such information to develop divergent conclusions by identifying motives or causes, making inferences, and/or finding evidence to support generalizations. • Synthesis: Creatively or divergently applying prior knowledge and skills to produce a new or original whole. • Evaluation: Judging the value of material based on personal values/ opinions, resulting in an end product, with a given purpose, without real right or wrong answers. Lastly the numeric field is used to describe how theoretical the question is. This is very important, as a question posed in an abstract manner on a simple tree structure containing all this is not ideal. A more general approach to classifying questions is described in the next section. 5. A General Classification Scheme TAL is conceived as a question database for many different subjects, so we have developed a database structure that allows each subject area to have its own subject classification Essentially each question is classified under one or more top level subjects e.g. mathematics and medicine. Then for each of these top-level subjects the subject editor is able to specify three lists, three trees and a numeric to describe questions. The questions can have multiple descriptors taken from these lists and trees. Each list has a subject specific title so that the users understand the interface in the language suited to the subject area. So in mathematics we are interested in the set of function types used in a question, but in chemistry they are not. Instead a list of question descriptors has been proposed: Question_descriptor = { Law or definition, Nomenclature, Qualitative test, Reactions & reactivity, Structure, etc} Rather than go into the details of the computer representation of this, the scheme will be described from a mathematical viewpoint. The scheme described be- low has been designed and built by a student but as yet it is not implemented in the production system. 5.1 The Mathematics Subject Scheme For mathematics we have selected three trees called: Subject tree - for the subject tree we have adopted two schemes: one based on Eric Weisstein’s World of Mathematics classification [3], this is the same as has been described in most of the examples above. There are considerable benefits from having a classification that is related to a syl- labus and so in the ATHENA project we used the SEFI syllabus, [2]. If you use the SEFI syllabus you know that the questions you find are in the syllabus. Function Type - this allows questions to be described in terms of the types of functions used e.g. {simple algebraic functions, trigonometric func- tions, exponential/log functions, inverse/hyperbolic functions}. Since this structure is a tree it allows a fine description of function types although only types given in the list are used in classification at present. 15 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 14 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry place questions that the user does not find appropriate. However it would be desirable to be able to control the ‘facility’ and perhaps the ‘time_to_do’ of some of the question slots in the test; so we propose to allow the user to specify the minimum facility and maximum length of questions in a question slot. Finally the test setter can select the average facility and length of the whole test and how accurately these two conditions must be satisfied. So the test can be specified as running for an hour plus or minus 5 minutes and similarly the average facility can be required to lie in the range (55,65) for example. The test compiler will then find all the questions that match the specifications for each question slot and try to generate the number of tests requested. 6. Conclusions The TAL system has been running since 1997. Initially a very small number of questions were available to set mathematics tests but now we have nearly 2000 questions mainly suited to first year university mathematics. There are another 2000 questions on other subjects. Automatic test setting is wonderful in that it saves considerable staff time and the availability of multiple tests allows students to get practice and be motivated. It is however easy to be sloppy about setting tests automatically and we have proposed some addi- tional controls in section 5 to make it easier to build appropriate tests. For the TAL database to be a really good resource it needs editors for every sub- area of mathematics to maintain the standards and encourage development of new questions. It is doubtful if any university can really maintain such a resource and so a collaborative effort is needed with several universities collaborating in its development. Appendix A - A part of the SEFI classification Analysis and Calculus Rates of change and differentiation Average & instantaneous rates of change Definition of derivative at point Derivative as instantaneous change rate Derivative as gradient at a point Difference between derivative & derived function Use notations: dy/dx, f(x), y etc. Use table of simple derived functions Recall derived functions for simple fns Use multiple & sum differentiation rules subject may be quite inappropriate. The scheme used for this Theoretical Nu- meric is: 0 or 1 a pure numbers question 2 the question is about basic rules or nomenclature of the subject 3 or 4 there is a simple parameter in the question 5 or 6 the question requires a simple theoretical understanding of the subject 7,8 or 9 the question requires a proof of some theoretical property We have had very little experience in using these although quite a number of questions have been classified on this scale. 5.2 How to specify a question slot Section 3 describes the way tests are set with the existing system. In this section we describe the use of the new classification scheme. Tests are set by specifying a number of question slots sufficient to form a test of the required length. If the questions used have an average time_to_do of 5 minutes then 12 question slots will be needed to form a test that is an hour long. Each question slot is defined by specifying: • The subject or a disjunction of subjects from the subject tree • The set of permitted function types • If the question is to be an application problem then choose the application area • If the problem is a modelling type of question then choose the level of modelling • The Bloom category for the question and the enumeration type {numerical or algebraic} can be set • Finally a constraint on the level of the theoretical numeric can be set. When the question slot has been specified the database is searched to find all the questions that satisfy the specification and the additional subject knowl- edge that is implicit in the set of questions are displayed. The test setter may then select any of these subject areas to exclude them the test. From our experience of using automatic test setting we find that just control- ling the content of question slots is not sufficient for good test design. At present the system allows the user to look at each question in each of the tests set and, provided there are spare questions, to swap spare questions in to re- 17 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 16 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry Theory Total differential Vector Derivative Increasing & Decreasing Monotone Decreasing Monotone Increasing Monotonic Function Etc. Mean-Value Theorems etc. 9. References [1] TAL – the Bristol University “Test and Learn System” at www.tal.bris.ac.uk. [2] The SEFI core curriculum for engineering mathematics http:// learn.lboro.ac.uk/mwg/core.html [3] Eric Weisstein’s World of Mathematics classification http:// mathworld.wolfram.com/ [4] MathematicsWeb - http://www.mathematicsweb.org/mathematicsweb/ show/Index.htt this is basically about Journals but has a 3 level classification e.g. maths/applied maths/numerical analysis. [5] Zentralblatt MATH - http://www.emis.de/ZMATH/ [6] 2000 Mathematics Subject Classification http://www.ams.org/msc/. [7] Bloom’s Educational Objectives http://www.mathematicsweb.org/ mathematicsweb/show/Index.htt Use the product rules of differentiation Use the quotient rules of differentiation Chain rule for differentiation Relation of gradient and derivative Equation of tangent & normal to graph Stationary points, maximum and minimum values Find if function is.increasing using differential Define a stationary point of a function Distinguish turning and stationary point Locate a turning point using derivative Classify Turning Points by 1st derivative Find second derivative of simple functions Classify stationary Points by 2nd derivative Appendix B - A part of the General Classification Scheme Calculus and Analysis Calculus Differentiation Chain;product;ratio Rules Differentiability Directional derivative Equations of Lines Function of function rule Gradients;slopes in R2 higher derivatives Implicit;log differentiation Introductory Maclaurin series Max;min or stationary points Global Maximum Inflexion point Local Minimum Saddle point Numerical differentiation Parametric equations Partial Derivative Second derivative test Tangents;normals Taylors series . ‘ill-conditioned’ applies to matrices rather than sets of equa- 11 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 10 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry Answer 2: The adjoint and the minor of. redundant as the database contains questions on other subjects. A semicolon is interpreted as ‘and/or’. 9 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 8 Jon Sims Williams and. minor of the element a ij are identi- cal when i + j is even 13 TAL - A National Database of Questions – Classification is the Key 12 Jon Sims Williams and Mike Barry Application Area - this tree