The course covers fundamental concepts and organizing principles of physical chemistry that provide the basis for many aspects of chemistry and related fields, including analytical, inorganic, organic and bio-related chemistry. It will bring everyone to the same level of command of basic physical chemistry that is essential to progress to higher levels of core physical chemistry courses. Coupled with mathematical models, physical chemistry can provide quantitative results to compare with and understand experiments, and sometimes to stimulate new experiments. The concepts espoused in the course will be illustrated and connected with real world applications. Practical work is at the heart of chemistry. The laboratory component of the course therefore aims to expose you to chosen experiments which are meant to further consolidate the theoretical aspects learned during the course. The aim is to train you to apply the principles of thermodynamics, kinetics and spectroscopy presented in the lecture courses, in some illustrative experiments. This will help you gain familiarity with a variety of physico-chemical measurement techniques and instill in you the ability to work independently as well as part of a team.
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Taken in: AY 18/19 Sem 2
Grade: 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.
This review was reposted with the kind permission of Awesome NTU CBC Student. Originally published at https://awesomentucbcstudent.blogspot.com/2018/08/ay1819-y1s2-review.html
July 17, 2021 -
Year Taken: AY 16/17, Sem 2
Grade: B+CA1 (15%) – 7/10 [mean: 7.8]
CA2 (15%) – 20/24 [mode: 21]
Lab (20%)
Finals (50%)Comments/Content:
For the first half of the course, it is mainly on NMR, and the topic on gases (PV=nRT), and modifications to the ideal gas equation to calculate the values for real gases. Oh and also on solubility, which was taught in JC, and new stuff about how the vapour pressure, boiling and freezing points of solvent changes with the amount of solute added. The content is not difficult to understand except for the NMR parts, I had to look at a few of the past year questions and answers the lecturer uploaded for us in order to get the concepts. ( Or maybe I was just lazy to read through the notes carefully HAHA)
For the second half of the course, it felt like 100% JC chem, with topics like acids and bases, electrolysis and energetics. But the types of questions asked are a bit different. Nevertheless it is quite easy to study for if you put in consistent effort.Assessment:
The CA1 consisted of 10 MCQs with 8 NMR questions and the remaining 2 on gases. I did not study enough as I only focused on drawing and interpreting the tree diagrams, which is important but the quiz also tested on other areas and I made stupid mistakes. Remember, TMS is tetramethylsilane and FID is free induction decay. And 1 mol of gas is 22.4 dm^3 at stp!!
For CA2, I think many of the questions are repeated or found online, and also attend the tutorials as worksheets were given which gave examples of questions that would be asked in CA2. Everyone did well for this test so aim for full marks if possible.
For the final paper, the first half is still mainly NMR, while the second half only tested on topics that were not tested in CA2, which means that we have less to study yay. And also the questions are sometimes repeated so must do the pyps! I didn’t put in much effort in studying for this uh cos it looked easy >< And also no mood to study.
For lab, there are 5 lab reports to be submitted and 1 literature experiment which you have to learn how to make use of the search engines online to search for articles and chemical compounds.This review was published with the kind permission of Hairdryer. Originally published at https://ionhairdryer.blogspot.com/2017/06/ay201617-ntu-spms-cbc-y1s2.html
June 30, 2021
