Subject Code/Name: CHEM10003 Chemistry 1 Workload: • 3 x one hour lectures per week,
• 6 x three hours of practical activities during semester,
• 1 x one hour tutorial/workshop session per week,
• 6 hours of computer aided learning during semester,
• 8 hours of independent learning tasks during semester.
Estimated total time commitment of 170 hours
Assessment:• Three equally weighted 30 minute on-line tests conducted during the semester (6%)
• Ongoing assessment of practical work throughout the semester (20%)
• A three hour written examination in the examination period (74%)
Satisfactory completion of practical work is necessary to pass the subject. Independent learning tasks need to be completed in order to pass the subject.
Lectopia Enabled: Yes, with screen capture. However, some lecturers like to write on the document camera which doesn’t appear in the lecture capture. The organic lecturer also brought in models which once again wasn’t captured.
Past exams available: Yes, a ton on the library website. Solutions for the past 3 exams were given on the LMS. Last years exam was given as an exam wiki on the LMS for everyone to contribute to. The answers were checked and explained in the exam revision lecture during SWOT vac.
Textbook Recommendation: A. Burrows, J. Holman, A. Parsons, G. Pilling and G. Price,
Chemistry3 2nd Ed, Oxford University Press, 2013.
The textbook was extremely helpful for physical chemistry, I would highly recommend trying to get a copy for this section of the course. There were also prescribed questions from the textbook, which was useful in consolidating the information given in the lectures.
Apart from this, you also need (co-op prices given):
• Laboratory Manual (ca. $15) – They post this file on the LMS, but it’s better to buy it, it’s less of a hassle.
• Tutorial Workbook (ca. $9)- This isn’t essential, they also post this file on the LMS, so if you download the file on your laptop/tablet/smartphone and bring it into the tutorial, you’ll be fine to work off it.
• A4 duplicate notebook ($9 or from newsagent)- this may be compulsory or not, depending on your prac demonstrator.
• Organic model kits (ca. $30)- optional. Useful for making organic molecules and understanding their 3D structure.
• Lab Coat $23
• Safety glasses $7 OR safety goggles (only if you intend to use contact lens) $10
Lecturer(s): Lectures 1 - 12 (Organic Chemistry): Associate Professor Craig Hutton Lecture 1-5: Structure and Bonding of Alkanes (sp3 Hybridisation)
Lecture 6-7: Structure and Bonding of Alkenes (sp2 Hybridisation)
Lecture 8: Benzene and its derivatives
Lecture 9: Structure and Bonding of Alkynes (sp hybridisation)
Lecture 10: Functional Groups
Lecture 11-12: Spectroscopy and Determination of Structure
Lectures 13 - 18 (Physical Chemistry): Professor Muthupandian AshokkumarLecture 12-14: Gases
Lecture 15-18: Energy and Thermochemistry
Lectures 19 - 24 (Physical Chemistry): Professor Peter Tregloan Lecture 19-21: Spontaneity, Entropy and Free Energy
Lecture 22-24: Chemical Equilibrium
Lectures 25 - 30 (Inorganic Chemistry): Associate Professor David McFadyenLecture 25-26: Acids and Bases
Lecture 27: Trends in the Periodic Table
Lecture 28-30: Molecular Structure and Bonding (Lewis structures, Formal charge, Resonance, VSEPR – predicting the shapes of molecules, Polarity of molecules, Covalent Bonding, Valence bond theory)
Lecture 31 – 36 (Inorganic Chemistry): Dr Chris RitchieLecture 31: Molecular Structure and Bonding cont… (Molecular orbital theory, Intermolecular forces)
Lecture 32: Ionic Compounds and their Solutions
Lecture 33-34: Structures of Solids
Lecture 35-36: Main Group Chemistry
Year & Semester of completion: 2014, Semester 2.
Rating: 3 Out of 5
Comments: Okay so, this has to be the worstly taught subject that I’ve taken this year. It wasn’t too bad, but after doing fundamentals in semester 1, I think there’s a lot to improve in this subject. This may be because I did this subject in semester 2. My friends who did this subject in semester 1 didn’t have the same problems with this subject as I did.
ContentI found the content to be really interesting (most of the time). It built up on the knowledge from fundamentals, there were some things that were repeated all throughout the course but there were more details in this subject than fundamentals. It was really helpful to have the background knowledge.
You start off with organic chemistry, you go into the details of bonding of Alkanes including the various types of isomerism (conformational, structural and sterio). Then you move on to alkenes, including benzene, and then alkynes. You also learn a whole lot of nomenclature along the way. At first, you may have trouble visualising 3D molecules in your head, this is were an organic modelling kit or a youtube video will come in handy. You then move on to functional groups. Make sure you learn all of the functional groups, including the nomenclature. Make sure you don’t get confused between functional groups that have similar names (e.g. and amine and an amide) because you are expected to know the difference. You finish off the organic section by learning about spectroscopy. You will be expected to know how to use spectroscopic techniques to determine structure, so make sure you do some practice.
The next block of 12 lectures is physical chemistry. If you’ve done physics before, you shouldn’t find this part too difficult. You start off with gases and the ideal gas law. Make sure you know how to use this properly with the CORRECT UNITS. You also learn about Dalton’s law of partial pressures before moving on to the kinetic theory of gases. There are a few formulas here that you will need to know since they aren’t given to you on the exam. Also, make sure you know the difference between an ideal and real gas as this is a common question on the exam. After gases, you move on to thermodynamics. You basically learn about the first two laws of thermodynamics. You need to be able to calculate enthalpy and manipulate equations using Hess’s law, calculate entropy, Gibbs free energy (as well as a whole lot of other stuff which I forgot now). The last 3 lectures for this block is on equilibrium, you go into more details in inorganic chem.
So the last block is on inorganic chem. This can be challenging at times, especially buffer calculations. You learn about acids and bases, pH, buffer kA, kB before moving on to trends in the periodic table (electronegativity, electron affinity, metal character and a few more). After this you learn to draw Lewis structures and predict shape using VSEPR. You also look into the valence bond theory and the molecular orbital (MO) theory. For the MO theory, make sure you know how to calculate bond order. The second last part is on structure of solids. This can take a while to visualise. Make sure you go to the tutorial of this section, it was really helpful. And the last part is on main group chemistry. You go over the chemistry of all the elements in the periodic table so there’s a lot of memorizing to be done here !
Lecturers Some lecturers really gave me a hard time in this subject.
Craig Hutton was really good. He spent a lot of time explaining the main concepts and went through heaps of examples. He also brought in a number of 3D models which I found very helpful.
Professor Ashok was hard to understand at first, but you’ll eventually get used to him. It’s best to attend his lectures since he writes on the document camera which doesn’t appear on the echo recordings. He teaches straight out of the book and uses examples from there. I don’t know why, but when he uploaded the lecture slides before the lecture he would leave out the questions. After the lecture he would upload them again with the questions which really made no sense. I also felt that he taught us things that we didn’t actually have to know for the exam. Funny thing was, he would write up a formula sheet for what we needed to know for the exam but in the exam I only remember using a few of them.
Peter Tregloan was excellent. He would get us engaged into the lectures using QP polls which was really beneficial to test our understating. His lecture slides were good as well, had everything you needed.
David McFadyen was my tutor for the while of fundamentals. I really liked him as a tutor and now I realize that this guy sure knows his stuff! He was funny at times as well. He explained things clearly and his lecture slides were really good.
Dr Chris Ritchie was easily the worst of the lot. He was really dry most of the time. He would simply just read off the lecture slides, no examples, no explanation…nothing. I think the whole cohort was really frustrated at this guy, evident by the lecture attendance. What made it even worse was that he would finish some lecture in 35 minutes after which he would go back and try to explain things again. I think the worst part was that the content was fairly new to everyone and was a bit dry. I didn’t attend most of his lectures. I found the lecture slides and the book to be sufficient.
TutorialsTutorials take place in the chemistry building. The tutorial questions were really beneficial (I think they are past exam and MST questions) but the tutors weren’t that good at explaining what we actually needed to do to answer the questions. Out tutor for organic chem was good, but the tutors for physical and inorganic weren’t the greatest. At times they would just put of the solution on the document camera without even explaining it. The tutor for inorganic, especially for the section on buffer, left us more confused than we were when we walked in!
Good thing is, the tutorials aren’t compulsory and at the end of each 4 week block, the solutions for the tutorial questions are uploaded on the LMS. So, a better option would be to do the tutorial questions at home and if you have problems you can visit the learning centre in the Chem building. You’re choice though. If I knew the tutors were going to be like this, I wouldn’t of attended most of them.
AssessmentThree equally weighted 30 minute on-line tests conducted during the semester (6%)These are basically 3 online tests that you must complete after each block of 12 lectures. Each test is worth 2%. This may not seem like a lot, but it does add up so take these seriously. If you study for these they shouldn’t be too hard.
For the first one on organic chemistry mainly tested your understanding of functional groups, nomenclature (alkanes, alkenes, alkynes) and isomerism.
The second one was the one on physical chemistry. Lots of calculations here, especially using Hess’s Law so make sure to practice.
The third one on inorganic chemistry had questions on acids and bases, buffers and Lewis structures mainly.
These could change in future years so I would suggest doing quick revision of the whole block before attempting them. I found doing the ChemCAL’s very effective for both the MST’s and the exam so I would highly suggest you do them.
Ongoing assessment of practical work throughout the semester (20%)You’ll have 6 practicals throughout the semester. They aren’t evenly distributed (I had 2 in the last 2 weeks of the semester -.-). Each one is worth 3.33% so take them seriously. You have to complete a pre-lab (on chemical) before you go into the prac. You have to get 80% + to get a prelab receipt which you have to write down on a tear off slip in your prac manual. Some of these pre-labs are really annoying. You would get the answer wrong if you didn’t have the correct significant figures and if you didn’t answer the question they wanted you to answer it. Good thing is you can do the pre-lab as many times as you want before your prac. I think the pre-lab is worth 1 mark out of the 10 for the prac.
Depending on the prac, you’ll have different types of assessment. Sometimes you have to answer questions while at other times you have to hand something in. You also have to write up a report for each prac. Keep it concise and to the point and you should get the marks (have a look at your prac manual for how to write one up).
The key to the pracs is to be prepared. Understand what needs to be done. The questions that you have to answer are given in the prac manual, so make sure you know how to do them. Try starting the write up at home and if you can, answer some of the questions. This will ensure that you’ll finish the prac on time and maximise your marks.
A three hour written examination in the examination period (74%) Exam was made of two parts. Part A was multiple choice and Part B was short answer. Each part was worth 50% each. If you’re not quick and efficient, you will struggle with timing. Try not to be a perfectionist (like me at times lol) when drawing organic molecules or when doing calculations. As long as you have the main parts down you’ll get the marks, come back to them later to check them if you have time.
Part A was multiple choice. There were 2 mark, 3 mark and 4 mark questions here. It covered most of the course (including the ILTs!) There were a few tricky questions here that really required you to think. If you’re really struggling and don’t know what to do, try eliminating options. You should be able to finish this section within the recommended 1.5 hours.
Part B was short answer. Once again covered most of the course. Try to attempt all the questions and don’t spends too much time on question and you should be fine.
All in all, a fair exam. If you know the content you’ll be fine. Not many trick questions except for a few multiple choice questions. To study, revise lecture notes, do the chemCALs, do the MST again, do past papers and do the tutorial questions. When doing the past papers be aware that in the past section A was worth 2/3 of the mark and Section B was worth 1/3. I don’t know if it’ll change in the future but for us it was 50/50.
RecommendationsTo do well in this subject:
• Stay on top of the lecture content, try not to fall behind
• Practice regularly
• If your struggling with something, go and visit your tutor or the learning lab
• Don’t forget ILTs are a hurdle requirement
• Do the MSTs again for revision (they’ll be available in feedback mode after a week or so after you’ve done it)
• Be prepared for your pracs
• Do the past-papers under exam conditions
• Don’t try to do everything perfectly in the exam. Get the main points down and move on. Come back to the question later if you have time.
Final CommentsAlthough a poorly taught subject at times, the content was interesting which made studying for it a whole lot easier. I think the majority of students will take this subject in semester 1, so you’ll probably have different lecturers/tutors if you do. That's all for now, PM if you need anything and last but not least, goodluck