Reviews for Charles D. Levermore
Average Rating:| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: A December 24, 2011, 3:16 pm | Levermore taught us fairly well, but it seems like he taught us more how to do the problems in the class and less how to do differential equations in general. It doesn't seem like there are a whole lot of good diff eq professors in general, but I would recommend Levermore over others. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH220 Grade Expected: A July 13, 2011, 10:54 am | Levermore is a good guy. His lectures are not great, in fact they're quite boring. However, at times he will clarify questions if asked and he seems like he genuinely cares. Go to his office hours and he is more than happy to help. He also has a very generous grading policy. I stopped going to lecture and taught myself out of the book. Easy A. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: A May 25, 2011, 3:29 pm | Levermore is a pro at teaching differential equations. He really knows who the class is made of - primarily scientists and engineers, not mathematicians. His online notes are then particularly useful because he takes the time to write out general formulas that can actually be applied to real-world problems. I am saving his notes for life. |
| vnsach Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: A May 21, 2011, 10:22 pm | Great professor and nice guy. He is very reasonable with grades as his policies suggest. Drops a quiz and matlab, replaces quiz grades if you do well on the test and curves generously if you perform well on the final. I probably had around an 85 going into the final but he curved me up to an A since I did well on the final. Most importantly, his website is amazing. I literally went to class for 10 minutes a week just so I could take my quiz and learned everything off class notes and previous quizzes/tests. If you read his online notes intently, you will get an A in the class. He is better than the other teachers from what I have heard and a great choice for differential equations. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: A May 20, 2011, 8:05 am | Lecture: Levermore was not the greatest lecturer, but from what my friends experienced in other 246 classes he is probably your best bet. Definitely helps to be a math major and know many different math terms and symbols. Handwriting was subpar. You really only need to go to lecture for the last three weeks or so because that is when he goes over phase portraits and right before the second exam when he goes over spring forces because theses are not on his online notes. (He has great online notes that he posts) Website: Seriously best website ever, take him because of his website. MATLAB: Is difficult I can't really grade him for it though, he just assigns it and we have to figure it out (buy the MATLAB book, it does a pretty good job) Grading: 3 Midterms (100points each) 6 MATLAB's one dropped (20 points each) 11 Quizzes (almost every Tuesday during lecture 10 points each) Final (200 points) He also has some crazy grading systems which you can look up here: http://www-users.math.umd.edu/~lvrmr/2010-2011-S/Classes/MATH246/Quizzes.html Hint: look over the past couple years quizzes to study for each quiz (he keeps the answers posted too). And do the practice tests. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: A May 17, 2011, 1:50 pm | Just finished taking him. Probably the best teacher you could ask for for a class like 246. Very engaging, handwriting sometimes hard to read but bearable. Best part: His amazing website. All pertinent announcements go on there, grades averages and distributions, awesome sample problems, and best of all: Online notes! His online notes are great; they could easily be a substitute for going to class, but keep in mind there is a weekly quiz. Exams aren't difficult at all, just look at old exams and the samples problems and you can easily ace the class. |
| Draconian Legacy Course: MATH220 Grade Expected: A January 4, 2011, 6:31 am | It's true that Levermore's lectures are difficult to follow and often he will go on tangents in which little will be added to our knowledge of calculus. That having been said, Levermore has a great grading policy, one that is more than fair. I get the impression that he really is not trying to make the students' lives difficult. He seems like a good guy and although he threw out one very difficult test this past semester, that was largely to weed out those who were performing poorly. You will have to teach yourself a considerable amount out of the book if you do not have a calculus background. However, if you have taken calc, this is your guy: no homework and he drops 5 quizzes. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH220 Grade Expected: B December 18, 2010, 8:17 pm | First of all most of his lectures are introducing formulas...so pointless to go to them. He gives examples with variables(he is very hard to follow). A couple of his exams had ridiculous problems that were much harder than the quizzes (he did have an 8 point curve on one unfair problem). Although I loved the no homework(webassign) it was hard to discipline myself to actually teach myself from the textbook. I managed and ended up with a B. If you have taken calculus before and dont mind teaching yourself from a book this is the class because he has an awesome grading policy. He drops lowest 5 quizes out of 15 and he drops lowest exam if and only if it is 2 letter grades below all the other exams including the final (aka if you get a D on one exam and As and Bs on the rest..he drops the D b/c it is 2 letter grades below the As and Bs). If you dont remember shit or have never taking it then get another teacher and one that can actually teach you! |
| Anonymous Course: MATH220 Grade Expected: December 6, 2010, 2:50 pm | Levermore is a bad teacher. His tests are confusing, and he likes to trick his students. He does not teach the material well, and his tests are much harder than the other 220 sections. I took calculus before, and still cant manage to figure out this course. Take math220 with a different teacher! he even laughed in my friends face and told her to do better next time when she expressed that she was nervous about her test grade. |
| fiddlerkrt Course: MATH401 Grade Expected: A May 23, 2010, 8:37 pm | The class is supposed to be Applications of Linear Algebra, but we haven't learned a single one other than polynomial interpolation for what that is worth. The lectures are useless, the books sucks, and there isn't even a syllabus for the class. It took ten weeks to get the first exam back. The second exam wasn't too difficult but most of the class managed to do poorly since everyone has to learn from the book. The final was pretty easy. Most of the problems came from old tests. The homework for this class is beyond annoying. Although he assigns only 15-16 problems per week, some of these have up to "s" parts, meaning one problem is actually 19 problems. To make matters worse, the matrices increase from size as you go from a to s. Even with a calculator, the homework takes forever. I didn't even bother to do the last problem set since it effectively amounted to 85 problems. I wouldn't advise taking Levermore for this class. He can teach differential equations, but he fails when it comes to teaching Linear Algebra. |
| jahs389 Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: A+ March 3, 2010, 2:08 pm | Levermore has no accent and very effectively presents what you need to know - you can't ask for more than that. But, he also has a website with all his old exams and quizzes. He does reviews for exams and the actual exams are nearly identical in format to his practice ones, you can't go wrong if you study. Matlab will take up time but that is just the course not him. Between Levermore and my TA, I managed an A+ which is a pretty big turn around from a D I got when I first took Math246. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: B January 2, 2010, 5:30 pm | Ok professor, however just like every other math course at UMD, the structure is terrible. His lectures would leave you left in the dust, got most of my help from the TA during office hours. Not impressed with the way this class is set up. Your grade in this class solely depends on what TA you get. They grade all of the quizes and exams. For the last exam, my TA was not given a solution manual and had to make up her own solutions to the exam and then graded my exam. Don't expect to get any partial credit, it's either right or wrong with this class. I'm so glad that I pay so much in tuition to have my TA teach and grade me. |
| jcosta12 Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: A December 11, 2009, 9:52 am | At first, I hated this guy. However, once you get used to his teaching method and the extensive information he throws at you at once, he is a really good professor. He has his own methods of teaching things (KEY IDENTITY is his method) and it is by far easier than the other methods. He is the best Differential Equations professor UMD has to offer. His exams are EXACTLY like his sample tests he posts on his website with only slight variations. Do those and you'll be fine. Quizes every tuesday sucks, but if you get a higher grade in an exam, he replaces all the quizes leading up to that exam with your exam grade. This is the reason why I got an A in the class. |
| Xin Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: November 25, 2009, 11:33 am | Not a great professor. He tries to make class entertaining with his jokes and such, but it doesn't compensate for his lack of teaching ability. Don't even bother going to class unless there is a quiz or an exam, you won't learn anything at all. He just writes a bunch of greek symbols and nasty algorithms. Get past exams and quizzes and study those. Also read the book. |
| guru Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: October 1, 2009, 5:11 pm | I think he was a good professor. Slightly humorous. His class webpage is possibly the best in terms of utility I have seen from a professor. The exam dates, notes, homeworks, and solutions to quizzes, etc are posted in a very organized, clear fashion. |
| jumpboyb Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: September 12, 2009, 12:44 pm | So-So. His lectures often left you saying "WTF?" He will force you into learning the greek alphabet if you do not know it yet along with drawing some other random symbols. Not too many examples in the lecture however. The homeworks, old quizzes, and practice test will make sure you are ready to get an A or B in the class as the material really isn't hard for the most part. Easier than Calc 2 for sure. Go to his office hours and he does a slightly better job of explaining things to you that he went over in lecture. He is also very approachable and does not have a accent you can't understand |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: C May 18, 2009, 10:14 pm | He can't teach. He spends 75 minutes writing gibberish on the board that no one can understand. Even the book does a better job of explaining the material than he does. At some point during the semester you realize that you can't learn from him and you might as well skip his class and go to lunch instead. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: B May 18, 2009, 9:45 am | I was expecting to get a B in the class but was pleased to find out that I got an A-. Although he isn't the greatest teacher in the world, the only advice i can give is to do his sample questions for his exams and the final. They are EXACTLY like his exams just with different numbers. Also, for any math class, when preparing for a final exam, go to UMD's testbank and do past exams. There was a question that was taken verbatim off last years test. Do his sample questions and past exams and you will have no problem getting at least a B |
| jmartin1 Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: May 17, 2009, 9:02 pm | he was so-so as a professor. I personally found him to be very confusing at times and not very clear. however, the book for the class was awful, and for someone like me who uses textbooks as references, this made the class even harder for me. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: B May 1, 2009, 11:41 am | One of the worst professors I have ever had. Rarely uses examples to explain and lectures get confusing with the vast number of symbols and variables he uses. My TA's were excellent and more effectively explained 2 lectures worth of material in 50 minutes that he was able to do. Avoid taking his Math246 class. |
| stanleyj Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: B December 8, 2008, 2:01 pm | He is difficult to understand and tends to strictly teach theory rather than doing examples. Also, his lectures get rather confusing due to the abstract variables, bold letters etc. His tests can be too long vs the time that is given to take them. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: December 4, 2008, 5:39 pm | His lecture is clear and great! You have to par attention though because sometimes he teaches his own methods which are easier than the stuff in the textbook. |
| Anonymous Course: MATH246 Grade Expected: C December 1, 2008, 5:59 pm | worst professor ever. he is a genius, thats for sure, but he can not teach at all. i have not taken calc 3 yet which is supposed to make it easier but either way... he teaches class like he is reading from a book, which book, i havent a clue, because it sure isnt the one that is assigned to us. he has his own methods for solving things which are not in the book (or any others for that matter) which are not at all intuitive and effectively take up class time, as they are all useless. (to me at the very least). he rarely does examples to illustrate the concepts that he presents to us, and the examples he does use are not very good and are only of the simplest cases. his hand writing is very difficult to read, and his board is very rarely cleaned making it even harder to read the notes. finally, he refuses to accept any excuse for missing an exam. even if your mom dies, he does not care. |