AY18/19 Y1S2 Review

Year 1 flew by just like that. Semester 2 was much more difficult as compared to semester 1. Consistent effort needs to be put in, in order to maintain your GPA. Total 18AU.

CM1041 - Basic Physical Chemistry with Laboratory | CORE | 4AU | B+

Midterm CA1 (10%): 9/10

Midterm CA2 (10%): 22/24

Lab (30%)

Finals (50%)

This module has some topics that had been taught in JC and some new topics such as NMR. Midterms are easy and most of the cohort did really well. Finals was a mixture of easy and tricky questions. Just try not to be careless. some questions required knowledge taught in JC that was not taught in uni, so that threw some of us off guard. The lab is still pairwork. There are 5 experiments in total, conducted once every 2 weeks. We were split in 5 groups per lab session and each group does a different experiment. Meaning even if you get into the same lab session as your friends, you may still end up not doing the same experiment as them.

Overall, I would say that this is one of the more manageable modules of this semester. So do not slack off even though this is easy so that this module can help pull up your GPA.

CM1051 - Basic Biology & Biochemistry | CORE | 3AU | B+

Midterm (30%): B+

Weekly online lecture participation (10%): 10/10

Finals (60%)

Heard from my friends that this course is like H2 bio but slightly easier. However, I am someone who did not take pure bio in sec school and also did not take H1 or H2 bio in JC. Thus, essentially I know nuts about biology and naturally, I struggled a lot. To make matters worse, the lecturer was not good >< How this course works: there are online video lectures that you have to complete before attending the lecture which they call it a tutorial because the lecturer would just go through key points. By completing the online videos and answering the questions at the end of it before the deadline, you will get 10% immediately. Midterm comprises 2 types of MCQs: 1. only one answer 2. multiple correct answers. The questions with multiple answers is a killer. Was honestly super satisfied with a B+. If you are like me with no prior knowledge in bio, then it would help if you know someone good in biology for you to ask questions, because the videos alone do not suffice sadly. Finals were considered easier compared to the midterms. A lot of people left the exam early, not sure if they were super confident or simply just gave up hahah.

MH1804 - Mathematics for Chemistry | CORE | 2AU | B+

Midterm 1 (14%): 88/100 [average 88.1/100]

Midterm 2 (14%): 47/50

Weekly online homework (12%)

Finals (60%)

I feel that this module was so much more difficult compared to last semester's math. The only similarity with JC math is probably just basic vectors and power series. We were also taught matrices in which I think the last time we learnt matrices was in secondary school. Everything else taught was new and very difficult to understand. Midterms is easy if you understand every single example in your notes and are able to do them without referring to the answer key. Weekly homework assignments are a giveaway. Finals is tough like I'm not even joking, knowing everything in your notes help, but is not going to be enough. Most questions will require you to think deeper and think out of the box. Good luck with this module if you are someone who dislikes math like me 💪🏻

HW0128 - Scientific Communication I | CORE | 2AU | B+

Assignment 1 (25%): Annotated Bibliography [individual]

Assignment 2 (35%): Review Paper [pair work]

Assignment 3 (25%): Oral Presentation [individual]

Class Participation (15%) [individual]

Honestly thought I would excel in this module because I think my English is not bad, but clearly having a decent command of English does not suffice 🙃

For assignment 1, you will need to pair up and assign yourselves the 2 given articles. So for example, if you decide to take article 1, then your partner has to take article 2. The requirements of this assignment are not difficult in my opinion.

For assignment 2, it is pair work with the partner u chose for assignment 1. It would be nice if you are working together with someone you know (duh). Assignment 2 is slightly easier than assignment 1 because it is associated with assignment 1 in a way. 

For assignment 3 (most difficult), you are required to find a research paper on any topic related to science. Then come up with a PowerPoint presentation explaining a concept from the research paper. Difficulties: what research paper to use?? is the concept easy enough for me and the audience to understand?? is it interesting enough to capture the attention of the audience?? After selecting a research paper, then everything becomes easy. Because I am rather confident in presenting, I'm just not super clear of the information I'm presenting hahah. There are no clear guidelines on how to present, you are basically free to do whatever you want, which to me, is quite scary. Tips: Choose an interesting article, not something too science-y. For example, there was someone in my class who presented on the redox reaction, like because our entire class are chem students so all of us know what redox is, but our teacher is from humanities department so she does not understand. The disparity is too large in my opinion. The article I chose was on waste management, something most of us can relate to.

Additional tip: try to choose the same index as your friends because not only will classes be more fun, but when you are presenting in front of your friends, it will not be as daunting as presenting in front of strangers right?

GC0001 - Sustainability: See through the Haze | CORE | 1AU | Pass

Like any other pass/fail module, it is almost impossible to fail. I would suggest to get it over and done with as soon as possible and not forget about it. Just use all of your free time once the semester starts to complete this. It can be done in less than a month.

ES8007 - Climate & Climate Change | GER-Any | 3AU | A-

Midterm 1 (20%): 42/50 [average: 36/50] 

Midterm 2 (20%): 39/50 [average: 36/50]

Finals (60%)

I would recommend you to take this module as your elective (whether GERPE or UE). This module basically has a lot of geography. I took pure geog in secondary school and that's about it. I think if you put in consistent effort this module is manageable. The prof actually told us not to put too much effort into studying for the finals and that we should focus on our CORE modules more lol. He said if we just study (not too hardcore), B+ is very attainable. Some of the content is the same as what was taught in sec school & JC geog (according to my friend). How I studied:

1. Attend every lecture and take notes (like those not in slides that were mentioned), although lectures are recorded the quality is not that good.

2. Do past year papers & practice questions given (because some questions will come out exactly the same).

3. If you do not understand anything in the slides, ask your friends or google or email the prof/TAs, because fundamental errors in understanding can be fatal.

4. Before midterms/finals, I just looked through every single lecture slides, made sure I understood everything. I did not make notes for everything like I started to make notes but ran out of time so I just read the lecture slides.

Note: There is some content about the big bang like how elements were formed in the birth of stars, etc. Since I took astronomy in the same semester, it did help that I already knew the content (& more) before it was taught.

EE8086 - Astronomy - Stars, Galaxies & Cosmology | GER-Any | 3AU | B+

Midterm 1 (20%): A

Midterm 2 (20%): B+

Finals (60%)

Well, there are a lot of mixed reviews on this module out there. I took this module only during add/drop because I did not get any electives and this module had a lot of vacancies left (as you will see why later). I would not recommend this module unless your memorization skills are superb. The content is super heavy, not easy to understand the concepts and the content is very easily mixed up. The first half of the module is easy and will make you feel like this module is very manageable as you will be learning about the planets, the different characteristics which are not too bad and the lecturer is okay. But the second half consists of a lot of physics, the lecturer sucks (I'm sorry) and the slides are horrendous. Midterms will be relatively easy, but finals will kill you. Finals will consist of a mixture of easy & difficult questions. Easy whereby literally everyone can answer, so it doesn't really help you get a better grade. Difficult questions are those that require you to think out of the box and more often than not you'll have no clue what is the answer and just randomly choose. I did not manage to finish studying for this as I had another core final on the same day (which really really sucks). The friends who took this module with me all decided to S/U it, but I decided to take the risk as I was okay with getting a B+ and I thought I would be able to get that (surprisingly I did, so that's great). Overall, I think you should take this mod only if you are interested in astronomy and have S/Us you wouldn't mind using.

Note to self for next semester:

- do not procrastinate!

- try to read up the slides if i have free time before the lecture!

- must be consistent in making my own notes (esp for core mods)!

- do not lose motivation!