I know this question has been asked several times, but I'm trying to solve it with a different approach that I didn't find online. I'm just wondering if my approach would work.
We look at the quotient map $q: S^1 \times S^1 \to S^2$ by $S^2 \cong S^1 \times S^1 / S^1 \vee S^1$ and want to show that it induces an isomorphism in $H_2$. The approaches I saw use either CW-complexes or homology of good pairs. Unfortunately, I haven't seen homology of good pairs yet, so I'm wondering if we can make the following work:
We have a long exact sequence of the map $q: (S^1 \times S^1, S^1 \vee S^1) \to (S^2, *)$:
$$\begin{array}{c} 0 & \xrightarrow{} & \tilde{H}_2(S^1 \vee S^1)=0 & \xrightarrow{i_*} & \tilde{H}_2(S^1 \times S^1) & \xrightarrow{j_*} & \tilde{H}_2(S^1 \times S^1, S^1 \vee S^1) & \xrightarrow{} &\tilde{H}_1(S^1 \vee S^1) \\ & & \downarrow{q_*} & & \downarrow{q_*} & & \downarrow{q_*} & & \downarrow{q_*} \\ 0 & \xrightarrow{} & \tilde{H}_2(*)=0 & \xrightarrow{g_2} & \tilde{H}_2(S^2) & \xrightarrow{\cong} & \tilde{H}_2(S^2, *) & \xrightarrow{} & \tilde{H}_1(*) = 0 \\ \end{array}$$
Is there a way to deduce from this diagram? Or would one have to go through the CW-complex argument anyway?