AY17/18 NTU SPMS CBC Y2S2

It did get worse haha...The drop in grades was so surprising that it took me 2 weeks to recover enough to start this new post. HAHA JKJK I was busy with work recently xD. My results were too embarrassing to be displayed so I will just show the results for my electives for this post. (Will reveal my grades for this sem if I do very well next sem HAHA). I brought all of these upon myself, I did a lot worse even when there were fewer exams than y2s1 cos of excessive slacking. I think I'm one of the laziest person you can find. What use is there saying all these now right? I didn't buck up when I know I need to :( Okok enough of the nonsense, lets go on with the course review~~

Btw I didn't realise this blog has so many readers, even when my results were really far from perfect. Rmb if you want any notes can email me and I will send them, sadly I don't have any senior lab reports and I don't share my reports cos they would probably worsen your grades HAHA.

AED23C | CRITICAL REASONING SKILLS FOR EFFECTIVE TEACHING | 2AU | UE | A-

Group presentation (30%)

Class participation (10%)

Individual assignment (10%)

Individual Essay (50%)

There is a weekly 3 hour lesson for this course but lessons ended at around week 9, so you would have more time to study for your other courses yay xD. The best thing is that there is no exam!! The lessons are very interactive and fun and relaxing, would definitely recommend this course! The only 2 drawbacks I can think of are that NIE is quite a long walk from the NTU campus, and you have to write a 1500 words essay with proper citations. I shall not spoil the fun by describing the details of the lessons, but I assure you that it would be fun. :D

For group presentation, we had to conduct a 1 hour lesson to teach students about critical thinking. We were required to design our lesson to suit a particular age group, with the students in the class acting as our participants. I think our group was hilarious HAHA thanks to my group mates, but I didn't talk much during the presentation (in fact, I'm not sure if I even spoke), but I did contribute in other areas okayyyy. >< 

For class participation, I don't know how we were graded, but again I didn't talk much. The lessons taught some philosophy which may overlap with HY0001, and we also learnt about fallacies and other skills that helped us to think critically.

The individual assignment was interesting as we were asked to imagine ourselves as an old person writing an email to our younger self.

And the main thing of the course is the individual essay, the topic was quite broad as it required us to discuss the critical thinking strategies or applications of critical thinking. But I had fun writing the essay too, oh and the course instructor speaks very well and his lessons are very engaging.

CM2031 | ORGANIC AND BIOORGANIC CHEMISTRY 1 | 3AU | CORE | :3

Mid term 1 (20%) 47%, average: ~60

Mid term 2 (20%) 52%, average: ~60 (average before moderation was 32/100 HAHA)

Final exam (60%)

I thought CM1031 was scary, but CM2031 was 10 times worse! (In terms of the amount of content taught) Also mainly cos I didn't study/ wrong study method. Oh and I wil try to upload all my notes with filled blanks by July as I'm still busy with work. Take note that for CM2021 and CM2031, the way the content are being taught and tested are different for different sems, I only realised that recently HAHA

Something different about the 2nd part of the semester was that we were able to choose whether we want to attend the real lectures or just view the e-lectures online via LAMS. There were different sets of notes for the different types of lectures too.

For mid term 1 and 2, around 50% of the test required us to draw the structures of the product when the reactant and reagents are given. I guess that means there is less emphasis on memorising the reagents and conditions?? BUT the other 50% required us to provide the synthesis and retrosynthesis routes of the product and reactants, so we still had to know the reagent and conditions. Mechanisms would also be tested but not as much.

For the final exam, I thought I was well prepared and the questions seemed manageable but I still managed to flunk it real badly. That's what I got for being too complacent.

CM2041 | PHYSICAL AND BIOPHYSICAL CHEMISTRY 1 | 3AU | CORE | -_-

Midterm 1(20%)

Midterm 2(20%)

Final Exam(60%)

The course has a lot of math HAHA, a bit of differentiation and integration which were required to determine the rates of change. There are also some "show that..." questions which reminds me of simultaneous equations in o level math. I dunno how to describe HAHA you can look at the pyp for more info.

For midterms 1 and 2, I noticed that many of the questions were exactly the same as the ones given in the notes, so study the notes and practice questions carefully. ESPECIALLY for midterm 2, where the proving questions contributed to a big part of the test(the questions and answers were exactly the same as the ones given in the practice questions).

For final exam, the questions actually looked more straightforward than the previous years, do we seem less smart than the previous batches? HAHA But I guess I didn't do well too, which I somewhat expected since I only started studying the content for the whole sem in 2 days. SHOULDN'T HAVE DONE THAT HAIZ. TOO COMPLACENT ALR

CM2062 | CHEMISTRY AND BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY LABORATORY 2 | 3AU | CORE | ._.

Labs (50%)

Final exam (50%)

This semester's labs were mostly group work, and we usually ended early yay. But I still did badly for lab reports, mainly because I did them only a day before submission. Most people got As for their lab reports but I got a wide variety of grades for them HAHA. So don't ask me for lab reports.

Here are some differences between CM2061 and CM2062

- we had to buy and use a lab notebook

- 6 precautions instead of 3

- pre-labs were not checked at the beginning of each lab

For the final exam, there were around 35 MCQs(?) and some short answer questions. Some MCQs required us to plot graph and do lots of calculations so don't underestimate them. We had to really understand the formulas given in the lab manual to do the questions. Some questions are tricky so it would be good to take note of the units given in the questions.

ET0001 | ENTERPRISE AND INNOVATION | 1 AU | GER-CORE | PASSED

Compulsory GER course, I took it this sem because I can HAHA. There are quizzes at the end of every module and you have to get at least 11/15 to proceed to the next module. Unlimited attempts are allow so just relax~

HY0001 | ETHICS AND MORAL REASONING | 1 AU | GER-CORE | PASSED

This course is about ethics and some philosophy, I usually just read the slides and answer the questions without viewing the videos. There is a 300 word reflection to be submitted by a certain deadline in order to pass this course.

ML0002 | CAREER POWER UP! | 1 AU | GER-CORE | PASSED

This course taught us about how to dress for different situations and also some dining etiquette which I found quite interesting. There is a compulsory assignment which we had to film an elevator pitch of ourselves speaking and upload it to youtube for grading. You can search for some of the examples online.

HG8011 | DETECTING MEANING WITH SHERLOCK HOLMES | 3 AU | GERPE-LA | B+

Project 1 (20%)

Project 2 (20%)

Project 3 (20%)

Quiz (40%)

I actually couldn't understand much about the first part of the course but the second part was fun as we looked at Sherlock Holmes films during lectures. For more details about the course, just google HG8011 and click on the first link as all contents are posted there. :D

PS8001 | DEFENCE SCIENCE | 3 AU | GER-CORE | PASSED

Quiz 1 (20%)

Quiz 2 (20%)

Final exam (60%)

I heard that this course is going to be replaced by another course next year so this review is probably useless HAHA. The 2 quizzes are online so I googled for the answers xD. The final exam is 100% MCQs.

UPDATE: FINALLY SCANNED THE 3 CHAPTERS THAT NEED SCANNING

https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=1j8AplqIJOUB4aPBC2OBoJbBtsNvkCKnN

AY17/18 NTU SPMS CBC Y2S1

This is by far the worst semester! Hopefully it won't get any worse... Mainly because of my lack of motivation haha I dunno what was I doing for the whole semester. So...I tried to minimise the damage caused by SU-ing 2 electives, which means I have 2AU of SU left omg

I also realised that I should have saved the notes for the previous semesters so shall start doing it from now on, if you want anything can pm me at 151tqju@gmail.com (from random username generate)

Pardon my bad grammar

CM2011 | ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY | 3AU | CORE | B 

Midterm 1(20%) 

Midterm 2(20%)

Final(60%)

Comments

This module is about extractions, chromatography, a bit of statistics, electrochemistry and potentiometry. I think this is the first time they included PSI in the syllabus, the topic is quite interesting as we learn things that are relevant to our daily lives. Overall the first few chapters are easy, until electrochemistry and potentiometry where the calculations became complicated and sufficient practice is required to understand the concepts. Luckily the lecturers also provided questions and answers for all topics except for the PSI. Oh and even though the calculations are easy, there are quite a lot of things to remember, like the drawing of diagrams, and comparing the properties of Nitrogen, Hydrogen and Helium as mobile phase in gas chromatography. There are blanks to be filled in the lecture notes so go for the lectures as the recordings are sometimes unclear. (learnt my lesson) One of the 2 recommended textbooks is available online so can go google~

Assessment

Mid terms 1 and 2 are quite straightforward, with simple calculations using the formulas given and some memory work, and must remember the significant figures and decimal places!! Mid term 1 only had short-answer questions, while mid term 2 had 25 MCQs. Just when I thought the final would be as simple as the previous years...We got the shock of our lives. You can compare the questions between 17/18 final paper and the others and see how different they are. Or maybe it's just me not studying enough... Actually I was surprised to even get a B since I only started studying 1 day before the final exam. (I spent the whole week studying for cm2021 and a bit of cm9081, again bad choices)

CM2021 | INORGANIC AND BIOINORGANIC CHEMISTRY | 3AU | CORE | A-

Midterm 1(25%) 78/100

Midterm 2(25%) 

Final(50%)

Comments

This module is about bonding (VSEPR and molecular orbital theory), symmetry and point groups(a very important part of the course), character tables and transition metals. The lecturer decided to leave out main group chemistry and focus on transition metals instead during the second part of the course, so our final exam only tested on transition metals. A very good thing about this mod is that ample practice questions were given with detailed answers provided! :D So can don't go for lectures and just stare at the answers provided. :x Just kidding! Of course attending lectures is much better than racking your brains trying to figure out the concepts, but I was too lazy haha. Don't be like me, really, go for lectures. There is a tutorial during recess week to prepare us for mid term 2 but I didn't go, argh I should have went for it cos I heard from my classmate that the questions discussed during that tutorial were similar to those in the mid term. >.<

Assessment

Mid term 1 is about molecular orbital theory, so we were tested on MO diagram drawing, and to determine point groups of molecules. Mid term 2 also required the drawing of MO diagram, plus character tables(A NIGHTMARE), and chirality(actually I still don't really get it).I would suggest doing the exercises provided to prepare for the tests, as well as attempt the questions from the Miessler textbook. There are actually detailed solutions for the textbook questions online, so can go find it. I can't find any free textbook online so I guess you would have to buy one(Update: I found the textbook online! Look for it at the side bar). For the final exam, it seems to be dependent on the lecturer's mood HAHA cos the content tested for each year differs greatly. Nevertheless, I think he is really nice as he tried to explain new concepts to us patiently which took a lot of time, and used interesting analogies to help us understand the concepts. The Tanabe-Sugano diagrams looked scary when I first saw it but not that hard if you understand them, and there are actually a lot of online resources to help you. 

CM2061 | CHEMISTRY AND BIOLOGICAL CHEMISTRY LABORATORY 1 | 3AU | CORE | B

Labs and lab reports (75%)

Final (25%)

Horrible. It was so horrible. I kept hearing people getting upset when they had 11 marks deducted from their lab report(s), while I got 20+ marks deducted for quite a few of them. ._. Such big blow to my self esteem. *cries* I should have been much more careful in my work(given that I'm the opposite of meticulous). Ya its entirely my fault haiz. 

Okay some lab safety tips to avoid being penalised during labs

1. Use a container(for example beaker) to hold your syringe with needle when walking around
2. Needles are to be thrown into the big container in the same fumehood as the waste chemicals (NOT IN BINS)
3. Only syringes can be thrown into syringe bins (NOT needles)
4. Don't throw filter papers with chemicals exposed into the bins, put them into used gloves and tie them first

There are still many more written in the lab manual but the above 4 are the common mistakes. Needles are dangerous cos they may hurt the cleaners if not disposed properly. 

For lab reports, take note of the decimal places and significant figures and units. Your work must be typewritten as much as possible. There must be a space between the number and the units. For final exam, one thing that I didn't expect is that we need to draw the structures of the common chemicals in labs, like acetone, ethyl acetate, diethyl ether etc, so take note. Also read the lab manual and try to understand each step. Some of the answers for the past year papers can be found online so can use them as reference since answers are not provided.

CM9081 | MEDICINAL CHEMISTRY | UE | 3AU | S

Mid term 1 & 2 & Homework (40%)

Final (60%)

Comments

I took this because I didn't know what elective to take, and I couldn't find any reviews on this module might as well try it so that a review can be written HAHA. The content taught were not difficult, but you need to know how to draw the mechanisms and the "cartoon" actions of some proteins and enzymes. Quite a bit of memory work(but less than CM1031) which I wasn't feeling motivated enough to study. We were asked to submit 5 homework during lectures and those are included in the grading. It feels like H2 Biology but many more actions of receptors (GPCR, tyrosine kinase receptor) were taught.We also learnt about the different types of drug administration and how it affects the action of drugs. Overall the module is quite interesting. The textbook is available online.

Assessment

Most people did very well for the tests as I heard the lecturer say that the average score is 80%.😱I'm definitely not one of them(didn't take back my papers cos I forgot). EH but the lecturer likes to reuse questions for the tests!! And he only uploaded the past year tests AFTER the mid term!! I saved them in my laptop so if anyone need those can pm me. For final, it was alright I guess, but I still SU-ed it since I didn't study enough and couldn't expect a good grade after all the slacking. 

HG8004 | COMMUNICATION ACROSS CULTURAL CONTEXTS | GERPE - LA | 3AU | A

Mid term 1 (25%) 16/25

Mid term 2 (25%) 18/25

Final (50%) 80/100

Comments

I took this because I didn't get my first choice and had to choose this during add-drop. This module is mainly about how people behave when they encounter different cultures overseas and how to cope and adapt to the cultures. The lectures are fun but a bit too long(weekly 3-hour lectures) and the lecturer is a lady who knows many languages! She shared a lot of her personal experiences which made the lessons interesting, and I would definitely recommend this module. Oh I realised that the slides on this link have more details than the ones I got for this sem, so you might want to download that instead.

Assessment

For mid terms 1 and 2, there are 25 MCQs each and most of the questions tested on content in the notes, but may also test on stuff the lecturer said during class, as well as the readings. Thus it is best to attend all lectures and pay attention to them. The average score for the tests were quite low though, so the lecturer said she would add 10 marks for everyone(YAY). For the final, we had to watch a movie and write a 300-word essay about one competency displayed by the character(s) in the movie. The competencies would be taught in the last few lectures and we only need to write about one of them, so it is not hard haha. 

MH2500 | PROBABILITY AND INTRODUCTION TO STATISTICS | UE | 4AU | S

Mid term 1 (20%)

Mid term 2 (25%)

Class participation(5%)

Final (50%)

Comments

Uh...this is actually a year 2 math core, I took it because the prerequisites were MH1800 and MH1801, and since I did well for those 2 I thought this would be simple too. In the end I did really badly for the tests hais. I thought it wouldn't be that hard since the first 3 weeks were about binomial, poisson and normal distribution which were taught in JC. I read reviews for this modules and they didn't say it is so hard! Or is it because I'm not a math student haha, luckily can SU or I will die. Yes yes it's great that I passed~ The textbook is available online too.

Assessment

For the first mid term, 1 single-sided A4 cheat sheet can be brought to the exam, and 1 double-sided A4 cheat sheet for the second mid term. For the final, 2 double-sided A4 cheat sheet can be brought. I don't know how to do well for this so go read other reviews instead~ 

Okay end of year 2 review, HAPPY NEW YEAR!! I added some links for the textbooks at the side bar but I think it is only visible on web view.