Education: Reading Proofs

Solution 1:

When I was doing my undergrad your experience is the same as mine, so I guess things are kind of similar in undergrad programs. The motivated student can understand and do the proofs of his/her own but the exams are designed to only know whether the student understood the material covered in the class and whether (s)he could apply them for a given problem.

That being said, in my transition to grad studies I have noticed a significant difference. Here more emphasis is given on proving theorems. Sometimes they even give a theorem that is not covered in the class to prove in the exam. Most of the time the proofs that we have to carry out in exams aren't so difficult compared to what is done in lectures, but yet I feel it quite tiresome and difficult with regard to the very little experience I have had in proving theorems in my undergrad days.