6.042/18.

062J Mathematics for Computer Science August 31, 2020

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Tom Leighton and Zachary Abel revised Sunday 30th August, 2020, 16:42

Course Information

Welcome to 6.042! In this course, we’ll teach you some mathematics we think you’ll find
very useful in your study of computer science.
This handout contains basic information about the class, but all this and more is also
available on the course website. Most of the sections will be useful throughout the course.
The main items to pay attention to NOW are:

• This course will have asynchronous lecture videos and mandatory, syn-
chronous zoom recitations on MWF, with a range of available times.

• Make sure you are signed up through Learning Modules (LMod): https:
Check
//learning-modules.mit.edu/class/index.html?uuid=/course/6/fa20/6.042#info
that you are satisfied with your recitation time. (You can switch via LMod.)

• Make sure you are signed up for the Piazza webpage for the class.
piazza.com/mit/fall2020/604218062

• We will use Gradescope to submit and grade assignments. You can use the
code MJPXR4 to add this course on gradescope.

• Please note the dates of the 3 midterm quizzes. This class will not have a
final exam.

• Please note, and carefully adhere to, the collaboration policy for homework.
2 Course Information

1 Course Website
We will use the Learning Modules website for major announcements, class material, prob-
lem sets, and for the course calendar.
You should check the Piazza forum for weekly office hours and all announcements. Also
use Piazza to ask questions about course material or logistics—your Piazza posts may be
either public (visible to everyone, and signed with your name), public but anonymous
(visible to everyone, but only staff can see your name), or private (only staff can see your
post and name).
We will use Gradescope to submit and grade assignments. You can use the code MJPXR4
to add this course on gradescope.

2 Staff
The lecturers for this course are Tom Leighton and Zachary Abel. Please see the course
website for names and contact information of our teaching assistants. Your TA is your
first point of contact for questions about your individual standing in the class. The best
way to reach the course staff more broadly is to post (privately or publicly) on Piazza. For
questions about course content, Piazza is the best way to ensure a speedy response.
Our policies regarding problem sets and exams are clearly outlined in this handout. If a
situation arises that is not addressed in this handout, please post a private Piazza ques-
tion.

3 Prerequisites
The only prerequisite is 18.01. If you have already taken 18.200 or 6.046, then you should
not take 6.042.

4 Lectures & Recitations

Lectures are asynchronous. Videos (recordings from Fall 2016) will be posted on LMod in
advance; please be sure to watch the lecture and/or review the associated book chapters,
and answer that lecture’s Warm-Up questions, before attending the corresponding recita-
tion. You are responsible for material presented in lectures, including oral comments
made by the lecturers.
There are 1-hour mandatory, synchronous recitations on Mondays, Wednesdays, and
Fridays (averaging 2 per week; see the course calendar on LMod), focused on solving
Course Information 3

problems in small groups over zoom. Use LMod to view and/or switch your assigned
recitation. The first set of recitations will happen on Wednesday, September 2.
Before each recitation, you will answer a few brief Warm-Up questions about the lecture
material, on Gradescope. These questions are intended to be straightforward to answer
after you’ve watched the lecture and/or read the textbook chapters.
15% of your overall grade is based on recitation participation (see section 9), with another
5% based on the Warm-Up questions.

5 Problem Sets

You will have one problem set due each week (with shorter problem sets during midterm
weeks), for a total of 12. Problem sets are generally released on Mondays, and are due the
following Monday night at 11:59pm. The course calendar, available on LMod, shows the
full schedule of assignments. Grades are usually released the following week. Also note
that we drop your lowest problem set score.
Be neat! Graders may deduct for sloppiness. Make sure that everything you submit has
your name, your recitation number, your recitation instructor’s name, and a collaboration
statement on it.
Late Homework: Late problem sets may be submitted at any time for partial credit. For
the first 24 hours, partial credit decreases linearly from 100% to 50% (so, for example,
submitting 12 hours late still earns 75%). Problem sets submitted more than 24 hours late
earn 50% credit.
Submission Format: Solutions to all parts of the problem set should be submitted online
to gradescope in a single PDF file. While we allow (scanned) handwritten submissions,
we STRONGLY suggest you use LATEX – we have provided a LATEX template on LMod,
with a guide to getting started with LATEX on Piazza.
If the PDF file does not clearly indicate which parts the solutions refer to, or has parts
missing, it is assumed that the student did not attempt that part of the problem. Therefore,
before submitting, make sure all of your work is included in the PDF file.
Start each question on a new page and mark the top of the page with the following: (1)
your name, (2) the question number, (3) the names of any people you worked with on the
problem other than course staff (see Section 10), or “Collaborators: none” if you solved
the problem entirely by yourself, and (4) all written sources that you consulted, other than
the text and course handouts. Questions not accompanied by a collaboration statement
will not receive credit.
Regrade Requests: Any student who feels that their problem set was not graded prop-
erly may submit a regrade request through Gradescope within one week of the graded
assignment being returned to the student. Please note the following before submitting a
regrade request:
4 Course Information

1. You should carefully read the posted solutions for the problem in question.

2. Indicate which rubric items you deserve (if applicable), where in your solution
write-up you address them, and explain why you deserve extra points. Any re-
grades without justification will not be processed.

3. The course staff reserves the right to regrade the entire assignment, and your grade
may increase or decrease as a result of a regrade.

6 Office Hours
There will be regularly-scheduled office hours each week, staffed by TAs and lecturers,
with times posted on Piazza. Additionally, lecturers and TAs are available for individual
office hours by appointment.

7 Textbook
The text for this course is Mathematics for Computer Science. A draft copy is available
on the course LMod website. Reading will be assigned each week with the problem sets.
In addition, as and when necessary, we will post additional reference material or links
through LMod.

8 Exams
Quiz 1 September 29–30 (Tu–Wed)
Quiz 2 October 27–28 (Tu–Wed)
Quiz 3 December 3–4 (Thu–Fri)

There will be three asynchronous quizzez at the above times. Each quiz will be available
for a 24-hour period, and you may choose any 120-minute window within that available
time in which to take your quiz.
Quiz completion is mandatory. Legitimate conflicts can be discussed with the teach-
ing staff but must be due to extenuating circumstances and discussed in advance. If a
student misses a quiz due to an emergency, a note from the Deans’ Office (S3 : https:
//studentlife.mit.edu/s3) will be required before arrange a makeup.

The quizzez will all be open book – you may reference this semester’s course materi-
als while taking the quiz, but nothing from past semesters, and nothing from the wider
internet. These should not be necessary but might be helpful.
Course Information 5

Regrade requests. Any student who feels that an exam was not graded properly may
submit a regrade request via gradescope by the announced deadline. The request should
include a detailed explanation of why she or he believes that a regrade is warranted. The
course staff reserves the right to regrade the entire exam.

9 Grading Policy
We compute a percentage score based on your coursework and then assign a letter grade
according to the following guideline:

A 88.0 – 100%
B 75.0 – 87.9%
C 60.0 – 74.9%
D 50.0 – 59.9%
F below 50%

We may lower these thresholds (in the students’ favor!) to adhere to MIT’s letter grade
guidelines (http://catalog.mit.edu/mit/procedures/academic-performance-grades/#gradestext). Your
percentage score is the weighted average of your scores in four areas:

• Problem Sets (30%) We drop your lowest score.

• Recitation Warm-Up Questions (5%). We drop your 2 lowest scores.

• Recitation (15%) Each recitation is worth 0, 1, or 2 points. If you attend for the
full period and work constructively with your team, then you get 2 points. If you
miss part of the recitation or glaringly fail to work constructively with your team,
then you get 1 point. If you are absent, you get 0 points. We drop your two lowest
recitation scores.

• Quiz 1 (15%), Quiz 2 (20%), Quiz 3 (25%) If the class median on an exam is below
70%, then we normalize all scores upward so that the median is 70%. We normalize
by adding a fixed number of points to every score. Scores are not capped at 100%.
If the median on an exam is above 70% – fantastic!

The weights listed above total 110%; we’ll cut the extra 10% off of the weight of your
weakest Quiz.

10 Collaboration Policy
The purpose of this collaboration policy is to ensure that students have the ability to
seek sufficient collaboration and help when actively solving problem sets, but also to
6 Course Information

ensure that the resulting writeup reflects the student’s own individual understanding of
the material. With that said, please approach collaboration on problem sets with care,
and follow the more precise guidelines below.

Solving: We encourage you to collaborate with your peers to solve problem sets in order
to deepen your understanding of the course material. If you find yourself unable to solve
a problem, you can seek help, either by approaching the TAs or lecturers (through Office
Hours or private Piazza posts), or by mutually collaborating in a group of up to 5 or
6 students—larger groups lead to imbalanced participation and learning, and are best
split into subgroups. You should not ask for an explanation from someone who has
independently solved the problem, nor should you offer an explanation to someone who
did not solve with you.

Writing: Your writeup must be entirely your own. Jointly developing the broad outline
of a solution with peers is encouraged, but translating that into a detailed writeup or proof
must be done individually, in your own words, and you must understand it well enough
that you could explain it to your TA. Additionally, you should not show your writeup to
your peers, and you should not look at others’ writeups, until after the deadline. Seeking
feedback on your writing is also encouraged, but only from course staff or external tutors.
Copying from any source (books, bibles, past classes, your friend’s problem set, etc.) is
not allowed.

Collaboration Statement: If you do collaborate with someone other than the course
staff, or consult materials from outside the course, you must list their name(s) or the
source(s) in the Collaborator section for each applicable problem. If you did not work
with anyone on a problem or find the answer elsewhere, you should write “Collaborators:
None”. Problems not accompanied by a collaboration statement will not receive credit.

Openness: If you have any questions about the collaboration policy, or if you feel that
you may have violated the policy, please talk to one of the course staff. Although the
course staff is obligated to deal with cheating appropriately, we are able to be far more
understanding and lenient if we find out from the transgressors themselves rather than
from a third party or on our own.

Needless to say, no collaboration whatsoever is permitted on Quizzez.

11 Advice and resources for effective learning

Because of the conceptual nature of the material, just attending lectures and recitations
and doing the homework, are unlikely to be sufficient for learning all the concepts. Set-
ting aside time to do the reading and to study your notes from lecture and recitation is
Course Information 7

generally necessary to truly learn and internalize the material, and to be able to apply
it in new ways later in the course as well as for the rest of your life.
Collaborate with other students on the homework. Some problems in 6.042 are tricky
and sharing insights can save you a lot of time.
Homework is essential for learning the material. Rather than thinking of problem sets
as just a requirement, recognize them as an excellent means for learning the material,
and for building upon it. Spread out the time you have to work the problems. Many
people learn best by reading the problems long before they are due, and working on
them over the course of a whole week; they find that their minds make progress working
the problems in the background or during downtime throughout the day. Few people
do their best learning the night before an assignment is due. Work with others if that is
helpful, but with the goal of learning first and solving the problems second. It is worth
reading the posted homework solutions, even if you received full credit. Often the
clarity of explanation or details of implementation are different from the way you were
thinking about things in ways that can improve your learning.
Watch lectures! We’ll explain every topic in the course.If you follow lecture, then Mathe-
matics for Computer Science is the only essential reading all term.
Recitation is an integral part of this class and extends the material presented in lecture.
Attend recitation! If you show up on time, stay the whole hour, and work constructively
with teammates, then you’ve got 15% in the bag.
Come Prepared to Recitation. Recitations allow you to ask questions and discuss the
material in a more intimate environment. Preparation for recitation can pay off in big
dividends. Be sure to watching the lecture video and/or read the book chapter before
each recitation, so you’re ready to start asking informed questions and solve problems
upon arrival. You are certainly not expected to have already mastered the lecture material
before recitation, though, so long as you’ve been exposed to it. Warm-Up questions on
gradescope provide an easy self-check as you’re preparing.
Office hours are an essential means of filling in any gaps in your understanding and over-
coming difficulties you may be having with the problem sets. There is no need to attend
only the office hours of your own recitation instructor; attend whatever office hours are
convenient for you. Preparing for office hours, as with recitation, can make everything
more productive.
Don’t hesitate to ask for help. This class is largely conceptual, and the concepts tend
to build on one another. If you are having trouble understanding the material, it is
important to catch up early rather than risk falling further behind. We can help.
Office hours are a particularly useful mechanism for learning material and working through
difficulties on problem set assignments. Moreover, if you have questions about the course
or problem sets, please use Piazza as opposed to an individual TA or lecturer—that will
give you a better chance of getting a speedy response.
Quizzez are typically tough. The best preparation is to do your best on each homework
and go over your mistakes afterward with a peer or staff member.
8 Course Information

Seriously, please ask for help. If you are having one of those terms and you’re getting
buried by 6.042, MIT, and life at large, then come talk to us and we’ll see how we can help
you out. Please also reach out to S3, who has this to say:

We know that this is a complicated time and we care about your wellbeing. If
you are dealing with a personal or medical issue that is impacting your ability
to attend class, complete work, or take an exam, you should contact a dean in
Student Support Services (S3). S3 is here to help you. The deans will verify
your situation, provide you with support, and help you work with your pro-
fessor or instructor to determine next steps. In most circumstances, you will
not be excused from coursework without verification from a dean. Please visit
the S3 website (https://studentlife.mit.edu/s3) for contact informa-
tion and more ways that they can provide support.

Extra tutoring may be obtained from the following two resources. The MIT Department
of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science provides one-on-one peer assistance in
many basic undergraduate Course VI classes. Tutoring is free. 6.042 staff can send recom-
mendations to HKN on behalf of students who might benefit the most from this service;
such students will be prioritized in tutor assignment. More information is available at the
tutoring link on the HKN home page: https://hkn.mit.edu/
Tutoring is also available from the Talented Scholars Resource Room (TSRˆ2) sponsored
by the Office of Minority Education. The tutors are undergraduate and graduate students.
For further information, go to http://web.mit.edu/tsr/

12 Problems?
If you have a complaint or a problem that your TA and/or private Piazza posts cannot
address, please contact Zachary Abel directly at zabel@mit.edu.

This class has great material, so HAVE FUN!