FIGURE 2 “Get Back Those 10-20 Points of IQ After the Holiday Break with Op-Amp Quizzes”
After the holiday vacation, we need to exercise our brains to get back into “intelligence shape”. “Research suggests that taking a holiday can cut your brain power”1. Most researchers say it’s a 10-20 point hit on your IQ.
What better way to re-energize those brain cells then to take an OP-AMP quiz? When we were “newbies”, interviewing for a job, there was always a “Graybeard” challenging us to some crazy test he dreamed up.
Figure 2 -Buff and Brainy Exercising the body can benefit the mind
The answers were always amazingly simple and some times mathematically elegant. Like I have always said, “The answer is always obvious when you know it”.
While I was an “undergrad”, I interviewed for a summer technician job at Julie Research Laboratories which produced precision wire wound resistors & calibration standards. The owner, Loebe Julie, gave me an op-amp test which I aced since I was fresh from taking an analog circuit design course which included many op-amp circuit designs. I didn’t get the summer job and never understood why he gave me that interview test on op-amps since they made precision resistors. Only recently did I find out that “Julie was credited with inventing the first operational amplifier circuit with differential inputs (1943), a topology which allowed much greater versatility in applications circuits and remains standard until today”.
An interesting op-amp quiz is available on the Clarkson College website. Figure 1 shows one of the test question generated by an applet (You may have to download a Java program to run it). These quiz questions are homework problems for the Introduction to Electric Circuits textbook.
“Each homework set poses of a series of circuit analysis problems. The program checks the user’s answer to each problem. If it is correct, that fact is announced. If not correct, the user is given another chance to answer. The program keeps track of the number of answers and of the number of correct answers. At any time the user can ask to see the correct answer. Pop-up help screens in each module provide worked examples of typical problems and refer to the relevant pages in the Introduction to Electric Circuits, by R.C. Dorf and J.A. Svoboda.2”
The answer to the op-amp Quiz question of Figure 1 is worked at my web site. I also included the “ pdf “ answer sheet for the remaining problems. If you have any Op-Amp quiz question, please forward them on to me. Also, What book would you recommend for circuit analysis? What do you think of online learning?
So, get on the treadmill……(see Figure 2 Above)
REFERENCES
1 “Sun, Surf and a Lower IQ”, Michael Hewitt, August 17, 2011, Sydney Morning Herald
2 “Electronic Teaching Assistant”- Clarkson Web Site
3 “Buff and Brainy Exercising the body can benefit the mind”, By Christen Brownlee
DID YOU KNOW?
“The human brain continues to create new neurons throughout life. Exercise and cognitive stimulation can impact the number of new cells created in your brain.” (From the Luminosity web site).
FOR FURTHER STUDY
"Electric Circuit Analysis," textbook by Charles J. Monier, 2001, Prentice Hall
"The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design", Jim Williams, published by Butterworth-Heinemann, 1995. ISBN 0-7506-9505-6, chapter 13 by Robert Reay, "A new graduate's guide to the analog interview". (see preface Xiii
Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits Paul R. Gray, Paul J. Hurst, Stephen H. Lewis, Robert G. Meyer
MIT Online Op-Amp Course. (Home page for other courses from MIT)
Job Hunting Guide for Analog/Mixed signal Circuit Design by Fuding Ge
After the holiday vacation, we need to exercise our brains to get back into “intelligence shape”. “Research suggests that taking a holiday can cut your brain power”1. Most researchers say it’s a 10-20 point hit on your IQ.
What better way to re-energize those brain cells then to take an OP-AMP quiz? When we were “newbies”, interviewing for a job, there was always a “Graybeard” challenging us to some crazy test he dreamed up.
Figure 2 -Buff and Brainy Exercising the body can benefit the mind
The answers were always amazingly simple and some times mathematically elegant. Like I have always said, “The answer is always obvious when you know it”.
While I was an “undergrad”, I interviewed for a summer technician job at Julie Research Laboratories which produced precision wire wound resistors & calibration standards. The owner, Loebe Julie, gave me an op-amp test which I aced since I was fresh from taking an analog circuit design course which included many op-amp circuit designs. I didn’t get the summer job and never understood why he gave me that interview test on op-amps since they made precision resistors. Only recently did I find out that “Julie was credited with inventing the first operational amplifier circuit with differential inputs (1943), a topology which allowed much greater versatility in applications circuits and remains standard until today”.
An interesting op-amp quiz is available on the Clarkson College website. Figure 1 shows one of the test question generated by an applet (You may have to download a Java program to run it). These quiz questions are homework problems for the Introduction to Electric Circuits textbook.
“Each homework set poses of a series of circuit analysis problems. The program checks the user’s answer to each problem. If it is correct, that fact is announced. If not correct, the user is given another chance to answer. The program keeps track of the number of answers and of the number of correct answers. At any time the user can ask to see the correct answer. Pop-up help screens in each module provide worked examples of typical problems and refer to the relevant pages in the Introduction to Electric Circuits, by R.C. Dorf and J.A. Svoboda.2”
The answer to the op-amp Quiz question of Figure 1 is worked at my web site. I also included the “ pdf “ answer sheet for the remaining problems. If you have any Op-Amp quiz question, please forward them on to me. Also, What book would you recommend for circuit analysis? What do you think of online learning?
So, get on the treadmill……(see Figure 2 Above)
REFERENCES
1 “Sun, Surf and a Lower IQ”, Michael Hewitt, August 17, 2011, Sydney Morning Herald
2 “Electronic Teaching Assistant”- Clarkson Web Site
3 “Buff and Brainy Exercising the body can benefit the mind”, By Christen Brownlee
DID YOU KNOW?
“The human brain continues to create new neurons throughout life. Exercise and cognitive stimulation can impact the number of new cells created in your brain.” (From the Luminosity web site).
FOR FURTHER STUDY
"Electric Circuit Analysis," textbook by Charles J. Monier, 2001, Prentice Hall
"The Art and Science of Analog Circuit Design", Jim Williams, published by Butterworth-Heinemann, 1995. ISBN 0-7506-9505-6, chapter 13 by Robert Reay, "A new graduate's guide to the analog interview". (see preface Xiii
Analysis and Design of Analog Integrated Circuits Paul R. Gray, Paul J. Hurst, Stephen H. Lewis, Robert G. Meyer
MIT Online Op-Amp Course. (Home page for other courses from MIT)
Job Hunting Guide for Analog/Mixed signal Circuit Design by Fuding Ge
FIGURE 1
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