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My lecturer has informed us that tutorial questions will be insufficient, and has asked us to practice liberally from the textbook. Unfortunately, none of the exercises have answers supplied and I don't know enough people in the course to be able to trade answers. I've tried working at the questions, but I find that I'm making practically no progress with them. What should I do if I have trouble with a large number of them?

EDIT: The course is Numerical methods for PDEs

Twilight Sparkle
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    Hire a tutor, make more friends or ask here..... –  Mar 05 '14 at 07:49
  • What subject? There is a big difference between problems on an intro to calculus course and a course on hypoelliptic PDEs, and the answer to your question will vary! – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Mar 05 '14 at 07:55
  • Thank you, I've edited the question – Twilight Sparkle Mar 05 '14 at 07:56
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    Firstly, Don't Panic. Check out good books on your topic and get a good foundation on what you're doing. You won't believe how much the internet can help you on your journey through the course. There are lots of lectures out there on many different sites.

    You have to find the good stuff by yourself. Good Luck and remember MSE is here for you.

     – Nick Mar 05 '14 at 08:02
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    Well, it seems to be a somewhat advanced course. Somewhat advanced textbooks contain solutions to exercises only with extreme rarily: one of the things that one is supposed to develop as one gets to them is the ability to know when what one is doing is correct or not. That removes quite completely the need to have solutions. Now, it may happen that one is completely stuck on a problem: in that case, ask a human (reading a solution in that case is quite the worst option!) – Mariano Suárez-Álvarez Mar 05 '14 at 08:02
  • @Nick, Mariano: Thank you for the advice. I'm currently a year 4 undergrad in my last semester; perhaps embarrassingly I've been relying on the solutions manual for hints whenever I get stuck (i.e. reading a little bit whenever I give up). I'll take your advice and try different textbooks + using MSE when I absolutely can't solve it. – Twilight Sparkle Mar 05 '14 at 08:12
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    Look for lecture notes on similar courses, you'll also find lots of past homework and exams with solutions posted on the 'net. – vonbrand Mar 05 '14 at 14:36

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You could always find the concept online and try and learn more about it from those resources. Khan Academy, MIT, and patrickJMT are just a few of the uncountable places you could find information.

louie mcconnell
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    Khan Academy and PatricJMT on Numerical methods for PDEs? Oh god, what would that be like? – Nick Mar 05 '14 at 08:15
  • Very slow, very deliberate for Khan. Makes it no harder than anything else he teaches :). The MIT course helped me a ton in my independent study. Challenged the course, aced the test. Here's the link: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/mathematics/18-02sc-multivariable-calculus-fall-2010/2.-partial-derivatives/ – louie mcconnell Mar 05 '14 at 08:18