Assignments

Course Assignments with Release and Due Dates
Pset (pdf) Pset (html) Latex template Release date Due date
Pset 1(pdf) Pset 1 template June 24 Wed July 1, 11:59 pm
Pset 2(pdf) Pset 2 template July 1 Wed July 8, 11:59 pm
Pset 3(pdf) Pset 3 template July 8 Wed July 15, 11:59 pm
Pset 4(pdf) Pset 4 template July 15, changed to July 22 Wed July 29, 11:59 pm
July 29 Wed August 5, 11:59 pm
August 8 Wed August 12, 11:59 pm
August 12 Mon August 17, 11:59 pm

Typesetting

You are not required to typeset your homework solutions; however, it is an easy way to improve the legibility of your documents. Many Allen School students learned to typeset in this course and found it very useful in subsequent courses. Here are suggestions for how to get started with typesetting.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much explanation should I provide?

For each problem, you must briefly explain/justify how you obtained your answer, as correct answers without an explanation will not receive full credit. Moreover, in the event of an incorrect answer, we can still try to give you partial credit based on the explanation you provide.

In general, your goal in an explanation is to write enough that a student from class who has attended lecture, but not thought about the problem yet, could understand your approach, verify your reasoning, and believe your answer is correct. While we do not usually need to see arithmetic, you must include enough work that in principle one could rederive your answer with only a scientific calculator.

Unless a problem states otherwise, you should leave your answer in terms of factorials, combinations, etc., for instance \(26^7\) or \(26!/7!\) or \(26 \cdot \binom{26}{7}\) are all good forms for final answers.

Example: If you are asked to compute the number of ways to permute the set \(\{1,2,3,4\}\) that start with \(1\) or \(2\), it is not enough to provide the answer \(12\). A complete approach would explain that (1) we can count separately the permutations starting with \(1\) and those starting with \(2\), and that (2) the two sets are disjoint, and hence the overall number is the sum of the numbers of permutations of each type. Then, (3) explain that there are \(3!\) permutations of each type. Finally, (4) say that the overall number totals to \(2 \cdot 3! = 12\).

Can I work with others?

Yes, but you must follow the guidelines listed in the syllabus. If you work with others (and you should!), you must still write up your solution independently and name all of your collaborators somewhere on your assignment.

How do I submit?

You must upload a pdf of your written solutions to Gradescope under the corresponding Gradescope assignment(s). The use of LaTeX is highly recommended. Note that if you hand-write your solutions, you'll need to scan them. We will not grade work that we are unable to read, so please write neatly if you handwrite. Remember that you must select pages to identify which problem is on which page as part of your Gradescope upload. Please put each numbered problem on its own page of the pdf (this will make selecting pages easier when you submit), and ensure that your pdfs are oriented correctly (e.g. not upside-down or sideways).