CM3021 ORGANOMETALLIC CHEMISTRY (3.0 AU)

Taken in: AY 20/21 Sem 2
Grade: A

5 Online Quizzes, 5 MCQs each (5%): 5%
6 Pre-Tutorial & Tutorial (10%)
5 Reflections (10%)
Midterm 1 (25%): 40/50 [average: 34]
Midterm 2 (25%): 49/60 [average: 35.1]
Midterm 3 (25%): 96/100 [average: 65, highest: 100]

There is a change in assessment this sem, compared to the last. Last sem, there was finals, but this sem it became 100% CA with no finals. I actually liked this arrangement as more time can be dedicated to studying for other mods during the study week & we are completely done with this module by Wk13.

1st half: The prof says that he doesn’t wanna lecture the content as our attention will decrease with time (esp for 2hr lectures), so his style of teaching is different from traditional lectures which need some getting used to if you don’t want to miss any deadlines lol. To summarise what you need to do each week: watch bite-sized videos, attend the 2hr lecture (optional), do pre-tutorial & upload, attend physical tutorial & upload your answers, attend the 1hr lecture to do the reflection & upload. As for the bite-sized videos, he does not upload the slides for those even though we tried to ask him for them 🙃 So, I’d suggest you pause and write down important pointers while watching, so you don’t have to keep going back to the videos (altho you can, if you remember that certain content was mentioned). I was quite annoyed, since it no longer was “bite-sized” videos, if we need to keep pausing & writing, so we actually spent quite a long time on them. But okay, it paid off since I did quite well for his midterm hahah. During 2hr lecture time, he’ll go through the key points of the topic as well as have some Learning Catalystics (LC) questions to gauge our understanding & have a Q&A session. The 2hr lectures usually last less than an hour. To my knowledge, the LC questions are not graded. We also need to complete a pre-tutorial question (1 question only, with some parts occasionally) before the physical tutorial. We need to upload our hand-written/drawn answers onto NTULearn. You’ll probably need to google/research/read journals to find the answers for the pre-tut. During the physical tutorial, the prof will go through the pre-tutorial & give us an in-class tutorial question which we are to do & discuss in a group. He’ll go through the question before class ends & we have to take a picture of it & submit it before the end of the tutorial. He does not upload the model answers to the pre-tut & tut questions, so you have to copy down what he says/writes during the physical tutorial. Attendance for the physical tutorial is counted as we have to write our names on the group submission of the tutorial question. But, he does not give us the physical marks for the pre-tut, tut & reflection, he’ll just mark them & write his comments that’s all. He also mentioned that if we see all ticks, doesn’t mean we got full marks. Similarly, if he has commented on our answers, doesn’t mean we have done badly. He told us he does not want to disclose his marking scheme for pre-tut, tut & reflection. Next, during the 1hr lecture, he’ll upload a few questions (which he calls Reflection) we have to complete & submit within that hour. It usually has around 4 questions with sub-parts. We are required to turn on our camera while we do the reflection. This arrangement was only required from reflection 2 onwards, so I suspect perhaps some students copied answers in reflection 1 & the prof wants to prevent it. Lectures are conducted via Teams. Since there are no finals, midterm 1 tested all topics taught by him. Midterm 1 (2hrs) is open-book, open-internet but no communication allowed (duh), multiple submissions allowed & conducted online via Teams (video on) as well. I heard from those who took this mod last sem that NTULearn crashed when everyone was trying to submit last minute so my game plan was to submit once first when I’m done, then upload again if I have any changes to my answers so that at least the system will have a record of my submission rather than no submission at all if NTULearn crashes. Y’all can do this too. Although, I do not know of anyone who experienced technical difficulties in my sem. The midterm is not difficult if you have been consistent with the pre-tut, tut & reflections & understand them. Oh and do not spend too long on a certain part, just move on first if you are not sure because there was a question which I had a long & short answer in mind, not sure what is he looking for but I just wrote the short answer & moved on. Turns out I was wrong but had I not moved on, I may not have completed the paper 🙃 Nonetheless, I was happy with my result 🙂

2nd half: It is the first time the 2nd half was taught by this prof, as the other prof left NTU, so we had no idea how this prof’s (same prof as CM2021’s 1st half) teaching style is like. His lecturing style was the traditional style, 2hr & 1hr lectures were conducted via Blackboard Collaborate. To me, the content is slightly easier than the 1st half (I think a lot of ppl will disagree but hear me out), because the content is such that once you understand the concepts (elementary reactions), it is quite repetitive for the other topics with a little bit of additional info/slight changes from the original concepts. Whereas, 1st half content is like many distinct concepts that do not really link. However, y’all may get lost by the information overload in the 1st few lectures, but as long as you spend some time, out of lecture time, to try the understand the different elementary reactions well then you’ll be fine. Since midterm 2 & 3 are open-book (but conducted physically in school, 1hr each), so no memorization needed, just need to know where to find the information. It is not open-internet unlike midterm 1. Also, the prof will give hints for each midterm, pay attention to those & try to find examples elsewhere on what kind of questions he may ask & make sure you know the thought process towards answering the question. Because it is impossible he tests on reactions that are already in your notes, so it’s best to know the thought process like ask yourself: “What catalytic cycle is this”? “What is the valence electron count of the catalyst?” “What are the elementary reactions involved in this catalytic cycle?” “What are the conditions required for each elementary step?” “*catalytic cycle 1* has steps A, B, C. For step A, the catalyst needs to be/have *x*” “Does it already fulfil the conditions? If not, what needs to be done to the catalyst?” etc. I managed to score high for midterm 3 because I managed to correctly spot the 3 questions in the paper, which saved me some thinking time during the exam. In fact, after I flipped over the paper, I smiled & wanted to give myself an applause, but I quickly stopped myself after 1 clap lmao, ppl definitely thought I was weird 😂 Could have gotten full marks if I had not made careless mistakes 🙃 Oh & the prof says he will not test on the rate of reaction (depending on nature/substituents of starting material) for our sem, so I’m guessing he will test them next sem lol. Please comment & let me know if I’m right 😉 Some tips: 1) sometimes the questions are either you can think of the steps or you cannot. So if you get stuck, move on, as maybe you won’t get mind block for the other questions. 2) each step in the reaction is worth 5marks (not sure if he’ll change it in future), but you’ll be able to gauge how many steps there are. 3) doesn’t matter if your approach is different from your peers because as long as it makes sense, even though the route is longer, he’ll give you full marks.

I actually enjoyed this entire mod, I hope yall will too 🙂 Also, it’s interesting how they disclose the marks of all the midterms because I thought since there were no finals, they will not disclose the marks for maybe 1 midterm lol

This review was reposted with the kind permission of Awesome NTU CBC Student. Originally published at https://awesomentucbcstudent.blogspot.com/2021/05/ay2021-y3s2-review.html

Year Taken: AY 18/19, Sem 2

This course is split into 2 parts with different lecturers before and after recess week. For the lessons before recess week, the lecturer usually only spent 1 hour on monday instead of the stipulated 2 hours. However, we had to watch some pre-lecture videos and attempt a quiz before the lecture, and the quiz is graded. The lecture is quite interactive as there is plenty of clicker questions so it’s less boring HAHA.
Then, there is a weekly compulsory tutorial in the middle of the week where we had to complete tutorial questions before going to class, and new questions would be given for us to discuss.

On fridays, there are graded reflection activity to be completed, you get full marks as long as you did the reflection, which is usually about the content taught during the week.
The best thing about this course is that the first mid term is open book, open internet, meaning that we can use phones during mid term yayyyyy.

For the lessons after recess week, things went back to 2 hour lecture on mondays, a tutorial on wednesday and a one hour lecture on friday. I feel like the second part of the course is more content heavy but the lecturer was very patient to guide us during tutorials. The mid term was open book too I think that really saved my grades a little ^_^ The final exam was also open book, but remember to bring a periodic table!!! I forgot to bring and had to guess my way through some questions x_x.

This review was reposted with the kind permission of Hairdryer. Originally published at https://ionhairdryer.blogspot.com/2019/12/ay-201819-ntu-spms-cbc-y3s2.html