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MIT - Linear Algebra - Exam 1 Review

Review of topics and practice questions for first linear algebra exam. Matrix reduced row echelon form, null space, row space, column space, basis

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Mark Labinski
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446 views6 pages

MIT - Linear Algebra - Exam 1 Review

Review of topics and practice questions for first linear algebra exam. Matrix reduced row echelon form, null space, row space, column space, basis

Uploaded by

Mark Labinski
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Exam 1 review

This lecture is a review for the exam. The majority of the exam is on what weve
learned about rectangular matrices.

Sample question 1
Suppose u, v and w are non-zero vectors in R7 . They span a subspace of R7 .
What are the possible dimensions of that vector space?
The answer is 1, 2 or 3. The dimension cant be higher because a basis for
this subspace has at most three vectors. It cant be 0 because the vectors are
non-zero.

Sample question 2
Suppose a 5 by 3 matrix R in reduced row echelon form has r = 3 pivots.
1. Whats the nullspace of R?
Since the rank is 3 and there are 3 columns, there is no combination of the
columns that equals 0 except the trivial one. N ( R) = {0}.

R
2. Let B be the 10 by 3 matrix
. Whats the reduced row echelon form
2R
of B?

R
Answer:
.
0
3. What is the rank of B?
Answer: 3.

4. What is the reduced row echelon form of C =

R
R

When we perform row reduction we get:

R R
R
R
R

R 0
0 R
0

0
R

R
0

R
0

0
R

Then we might need to move some zero rows to the bottom of the matrix.
5. What is the rank of C?
Answer: 6.
6. What is the dimension of the nullspace of C T ?
m = 10 and r = 6 so dim N (C T ) = 10 6 = 4.

Sample question 3

Suppose we know that Ax =

2
4
2

and that:

2
1
0
x = 0 +c 1 +d 0
0
0
1
is a complete solution.
Note that in this problem we dont know what A is.
1. What is the shape of the matrix A?
Answer: 3 by 3, because x and b both have three components.
2. Whats the dimension of the row space of A?
From the complete solution we can see that the dimension of the nullspace
of A is 2, so the rank of A must be 3 2 = 1.
3. What is A?

Because the second and third components of the particular solution

are zero, we see that the rst column vector of A must be

Knowing that

0
0
1

1
2
1

2
0
0

is in the nullspace tells us that the third column of A

must be 0. The fact that

1
1
0

is in the nullspace tells us that the second

column must be the negative of the rst.

1 1
A = 2 2
1 1

So,

0
0 .
0

If we had time, we could check that this A times x equals b.


4. For what vectors b does Ax = b have a solution x?
This equation has a solution exactly when b is in the column space of A,

so when b is a multiple of

1
2
1

. This makes sense; we know that the

rank of A is 1 and the nullspace is large.


In contrast, we might have had r = m or r = n.
2

Sample question 4
Suppose:

1
2
1 1 .
0
0
Try to answer the questions below without performing this matrix multi
plication CD.
1
B = CD = 0
1

1
1
0

0
1 0
0 0 1
1
0 0

1. Give a basis for the nullspace of B.

The matrix B is 3 by 4, so N ( B) R4 . Because C =

1
0
1

1
1
0

0
0
1

is invertible, the nullspace of B is the same as the nullspace of D =

1
0
0

0
1
0

1
1
0

2
1
0

. Matrix D is in reduced form, so its special solutions

form a basis for N ( D ) = N ( B):

1
2
1 1

1 , 0 .
0
1

These vectors are independent, and if time permits we can multiply to


check that they are in N ( B).

2. Find the complete solution to Bx =

1
0
1

We can now describe any vector in the nullspace, so all we need to do is


nd a particular solution. There are many possible particular solutions;
the simplest one is given below.


One way to solve this is to notice that C

vector x for which Dx =


rst column of B = CD is
solution:

1
0
0

1
0
1

1
0
0

1
0
1

and then nd a

. Another approach is to notice that the

. In either case, we get the complete

1
1
0
1

x=
+c
0
1
0
0

+d 1 .

0
1

Again, we can check our work by multiplying.


3

Short questions
There may not be true/false questions on the exam, but its a good idea to
review these:
1. Given a square matrix A whose nullspace is just {0}, what is the nullspace
of A T ?
N ( A T ) is also {0} because A is square.
2. Do the invertible matrices form a subspace of the vector space of 5 by 5
matrices?
No. The sum of two invertible matrices may not be invertible. Also, 0 is
not invertible, so is not in the collection of invertible matrices.
3. True or false: If B2 = 0, then it must be true that B = 0.

0 1
False. We could have B =
.
0 0
4. True or false: A system Ax = b of n equations with n unknowns is solv
able for every right hand side b if the columns of A are independent.
True. A is invertible, and x = A1 b is a (unique) solution.
5. True or false: If m = n then the row space equals the column space.
False. The dimensions
are equal, but the spaces are not. A good example

0 1
to look at is B =
.
0 0
6. True or false: The matrices A and A share the same four spaces.
True, because whenever a vector v is in a space, so is v.
7. True or false: If A and B have the same four subspaces, then A is a multi
ple of B.
A good way to approach this question is to rst try to convince yourself
that it isnt true look for a counterexample. If A is 3 by 3 and invertible,
then its row and column space are both R3 and its nullspaces are {0}. If B
is any other invertible 3 by 3 matrix it will have the same four subspaces,
and it may not be a multiple of A. So we answer false.
Its good to ask how we could truthfully complete the statement If A
and B have the same four subspaces, then ...
8. If we exchange two rows of A, which subspaces stay the same?
The row space and the nullspace stay the same.


9. Why cant a vector v =

1
2
3

be in the nullspace of A and also be a row

of A?
Because if v is the nth row of A, the nth component of the vector Av
would be 14, not 0. The vector v could not be a solution to Av = 0.
In fact, we will learn that the row space is perpendicular to the nullspace.

MIT OpenCourseWare
http://ocw.mit.edu

18.06SC Linear Algebra


Fall 2011

For information about citing these materials or our Terms of Use, visit: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms.

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