EXAM INFORMATION FOR MA20217: ALGEBRA 2B

FINAL VERSION (10TH APRIL 2017)

The structure of this year’s Algebra 2B exam is like those of recent years: there are four
questions, each worth 20 marks, and you provide solutions to three of them. Students
who attempt all four questions normally perform worse than those who answer only three
questions, but the choice is yours. The content of each question on the exam is not limited
to the subject of a single chapter of the course only (except Q4 which covers only chapter
5), so I recommend against learning only certain chapters in the hope that you can do
well enough by answering only questions on these topics.

Definitions and Main Statements

One of the main tools that a mathematician has is knowledge of the relevant definitions
and statements of key results. Knowing the definitions, and getting used to deducing easy
results directly from the definitions, is the key to success in mathematics. To help convince
you to do this, roughly 50% of the marks on this year’s Algebra 2B exam are given
for knowing definitions, statements of results and deducing uncomplicated consequences
directly from these. This is similar to exams from recent years.

List of non-examinable material

The proofs of the following results1 are non-examinable, but know the statements:
Lemma 1.5 = subgroup criterion (because this is Algebra 1A)
Lemma 2.21 = a relation ∼ on T
Theorem 2.23 = field of fractions of an integral domain
Uniqueness for Theorem 3.20 = Uniqueness part of ‘Every PID is a UFD’
Corollary 3.21 = Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic
Lemma 3.26 = pulling out the content
Corollary 3.28 = Gauss’ lemma
Uniqueness for Theorem 3.29 = Uniqueness part of ‘Polynomial rings are UFD’s’
Proposition 4.8 = fiddly proof characterising R[x1 , . . . , xn ]
Theorem 4.24 = Lagrange’s four squares theorem
Lemma 5.15 = maps decompose on a direct sum
Theorem 5.22 = Jordan normal form - special case
Theorem 5.25 = Primary decomposition
Lemma 5.30 = On the generalised eigenspace
Theorem 5.32 = Jordan decomposition
1The numbers refer to notes here: http://people.bath.ac.uk/ac886/teaching/algebra2B.
1
 ‘Sketch proofs’
I would love you to understand the proofs of important results, but I don’t want you
to memorise vast quantities of material from proofs simply in order to regurgitate it for
the exam. To achieve this, the exam asks you to ‘sketch the proof’ of certain results;
roughly 25% of the exam marks are for sketching proofs of results from the course
When writing your sketch proofs, you should aim for a coherent summary of the big
picture of the proof that is worth 5 or 6 marks (out of 20 for the question). You should
add a little detail at some points to convey that you understand the content2, but the
advantage of a sketch proof is that you may choose when to give details.
You’re asked to provide a sketch of a proof when either:
• the proof itself is especially long; or
• I want to have greater leniancy in awarding marks than is otherwise possible.
To be crystal clear, the results you may be asked to sketch a proof of (you will NOT be
asked to provide a complete proof for any of the following results, including the statements
mentioned in parentheses below) are:
(1) Proposition 1.31, or you may be asked to sketch why a given set with operations
is a ring (e.g., see exam from 2013-14, Q1(b)(ii) for the quotient ring, or a specific
ring like the direct product, Mn (k), End(V ), R[[x]], ...);
(2) Theorem 2.14 (including 2.11), Lemma 2.19;
(3) Theorem 3.11, Theorem 3.16 (including 3.15), Proposition 3.19 (including 3.7),
Theorem 3.20 (existence only), Theorem 3.29 (existence only);
(4) Theorem 4.13, Theorem 4.15, Theorem 4.22;
(5) Theorem 5.7, Proposition 5.19, Proposition 5.24, Corollary 5.27.
The rest of the exam
I’ll say nothing about the remaining 25% of the marks.
Finally:
(1) All homework questions labelled (W) or (H) are examinable; those labelled (A)
are not. These provide examples of the type of question you might be asked as
described under the heading ‘Definitions and Main Statements’ above.
(2) In the list of sketch proofs above, I sometimes write ‘(including 2.11)’ or similar
simply because a sketch proof that merely states what Theorem 2.11 is would not
be worth full marks. To make the point, the proof of Lemma 2.19 uses Theorem
2.14 but I would not expect you to say anything about the proof of 2.14 when
providing a sketch for Lemma 2.19. However, Theorem 3.19 is an iff statement,
and if your proof makes only passing reference to 3.7 then you’d be missing out
completely on one direction of the implication, so I added ‘(including 3.7)’ above.
(3) In line (1) of the list of sketch proofs, it used to say ‘Theorem 1.26’ and then it
made reference to ‘exam from 2013-14, Q1(b)(ii)’. I’ve removed explicit reference
to Theorem 1.26 because if that will be asked, the format of the question would
be exactly as in ‘exam from 2013-14, Q1(b)(ii)’.
2For example, if a proof that you’re sketching studies a ring homomorphism φ : R → S, writing ‘We
prove that φ is a ring homomorphism, i.e., that φ(a + b) = φ(a) + φ(b) and φ(a · b) = φ(a) · φ(b) for all
a, b ∈ R.’ is better than simply stating that ‘We prove that φ is a ring homomorphism.’
2