MATH 312 - Spring 2012

Midterm Exam II Practice Problems, Part I

Although most of the problems in Lay are on the easy side, hence not necessarily all that useful,
the supplemental exercises found at the end of each chapter are pretty good. In particular, there
is always a long list of true/false questions, which should be very helpful with regard to conceptual
questions. For the record, the exam will be cumulative, covering everything weve discussed in
lecture/done on homework this term. In terms of the text, that would be, roughly, sections 1.1-10,
2.1-7, 3.1-3.3, 4.1-8, 6.1-5 (and, to some extent, 6.6), 5.1-5, 5.8, 7.1-2, and a smattering from the
first two sections of the chapter on Markov chains posted on the website. The exam will be weighted
slightly toward material covered since the second midterm. Aside from the true-false questions, the
problems here cover only the more recent material. You can look back at the old practice problems/exams for the older stuff.
1. True/False:
(i) There is a linear transformation L : R4 R5 with dim(Ker(L)) = 3 and dim(Im(L)) = 2.
(ii) If P is a matrix of order 2 (i.e. P 2 = P ), its eigenvalues are either 0 or 1.
(iii) If Q(x) is a positive semidefinite quadratic form on R2 , the equation Q(x) = k (k > 0) defines
a pair of parallel lines in R2 .
(iv) If A is symmetric and C skew-symmetric, AC is skew-symmetric.
(v) Every invertible matrix is diagonalizable.
(vi) If A is skew-symmetric and n n with n odd, A is singular.
(vii) If A is m n and the system Ax = b has infinitely many solutions, m < rank(A) = n.
(viii) For any quadratic form Q(x), there is a change of variables such that Q(w) = 1 w12 +. . . n wn2 .
(ix) If A and B commute, they have the same eigenvalues.
(x) If A and B are similar, they have the same trace (i.e. tr(A) = tr(B)).
(xi) A matrix is singular if and only if it has 0 as an eigenvalue.
(xii) If x is an eigenvector for both A and B, then it is an eigenvector for AB and BA.
(xiii) If A and B commute, they have the same eigenvalues.
(xiv) The set of all quadratic forms on R2 (call it QF2 ) forms a vector space.
(xv) The set of all positive definite quadratic forms is a subspace of QF2 .
(xvi) The multiplication by x map mx : Pn (R) Pn+1 (R) given by mx (p(x)) = x p(x) is a linear
transformation.

(xvii) Any subspace of Rn has an orthonormal basis.

(xviii) The set of signals periodic with period k form a subspace of the space of all signals.
(xix) If sets {x1 , . . . , xr } and {y1 , . . . , ys } are bases for W and W in a space V , then {x1 , . . . , xr , y1 , . . . , ys }
is a basis for V .
(xx) If a Markov chain is reducible, it does not have a unique steady state solution.
2. (i) Let V = span((1, 1, 0, 1), (0, 1, 1, 0)). Find a basis for V .
(ii) Compute the projection of (1, 1, 1, 1) onto V , V .
3. Find the point on the plane spanned by (1, 0, 1) and (1, 1, 0) that is nearest to (2, 2, 2).
4. Find the best fit line for the data set (1, 1), (0, 0), (1, 2), (2, 2). Sketch the curve along with the
given data points.
5. Find the best fit quadratic for the data set (1, 1), (0, 0), (1, 2), (2, 2). Sketch the curve along
with the given data points.
6. Construct a matrix with eigenvectors (1, 1, 0), (0, 1, 1), and (1, 0, 1), with eigenvalues 0, 1, and 2,
respectively.

b
b is orthogonal.
c

0 1 0
8. Compute the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of A = 1 0 1 .
0 1 0

0 1 1
9. Compute the spectral factorization of A = 1 0 1 .
1 1 0

a a
7. Find a, b R so that Q = a a
b b

10. Compute
Z
0

Z
0

e(7x

2xy+7y 2 )

dxdy