October 18, 2019, 08:31:51 am

### AuthorTopic: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings  (Read 1042463 times) Tweet Share

1 Member and 2 Guests are viewing this topic.

#### acinod

• Victorian
• Posts: 631
• Honour: +100
• Respect: +95
• School: Melbourne High School
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #90 on: June 29, 2012, 06:33:19 pm »
+3
Subject Code/Name: MAST10008 Accelerated Mathematics 1

Workload:  4 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x one hour practice class per week, 1 x one hour computer laboratory class per week (6 hours in total)

Assessment:
• 3 hour end-of-semester exam (80%)
• 1 hour Matlab test (5%)
• 3 Online Assignments (6%)
• 3 Hand-in Assignments (9%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  There are a few but 2011 is a weird year. Not as similar to past exams as other subjects.

Textbook Recommendation:  Don't need it, lectures are your best friend.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Paul Norbury. This guy is a genius. Though he's sometimes too smart for the students as he often goes on about things where the majority of the class has no idea what he's talking about. Other than that, he's voice strangely sounds like this guy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UVlXckI5js. Despite how hard this subject is, he is nevertheless quite liked by all the students. I shall never forget his abrupt "Let's finish here." at the end of every lecture.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012 Semester 1

Rating: 4 Out of 5

Comments: If you think you're good at maths, YOU MAY BE PROVED WRONG once you have a taste of this subject. AM1 is an introduction to university mathematics and trust me it is hard. Countless lectures during the break, where he has gone through several insane concepts and you have no time to absorb it, you automatically turn your head to the person next to you. Of course he also does the same thing and gives you the same look...DAFUQ?!?! If I can relate this subject to VCE Maths, it would be: VCE Maths has a few big topics but the questions are really in depth and really try to test your knowledge. On the other hand, Accelerated Maths 1 is an overload of topics in just a few months, you are required to do an exam which tests you all these topics with quite a few in depth topics. It's really hard to catch up once you fall behind and not even SWOTVAC may be enough. If you want to excel in this subject, make sure you study your ass off CONSISTENTLY. There is no point listening to a lecture and copying down notes if you had no idea what just happened.
Finally, this subject has a few MATLAB classes. It's basically just going into a computer lab and learning how to use MATLAB. Honestly these are kind of pointless and you can learn everything you need for the test worth 5% at the end in like a few hours.
One last word on tutorials, these 'classes' are quite different from your other subjects because you don't actually sit in class and listen. What actually happens is you sit in groups and discuss problems.
2015: Working Living The Dream
2012-14: BCom (Actuarial Studies/Finance) @ UniMelb
2011: English [41] | Mathematical Methods CAS [45] | Specialist Mathematics [43] | Chemistry [45] | Physics [42]
2010: Chinese Second Language [35]
ATAR: 99.35

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR TUTORING IN 2016 for:
-Mathematical Methods
-Chemistry
-Specialist Mathematics

Tony Tam's Chemistry and Maths Tutoring

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
-Albert Einstein

#### acinod

• Victorian
• Posts: 631
• Honour: +100
• Respect: +95
• School: Melbourne High School
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #91 on: June 29, 2012, 06:51:24 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: CHIN10003 Chinese 7

Workload:  Two 2-hour seminars per week. (4 hours in total)

Assessment:
• 2 hour end-of-semester exam (50%)
• Oral Presentation (15%)
• Essay of ~500 words (10%)
• Mid Semester Test (15%)
• Homework (Essays ~300 words due every fortnight) (10%)

Lectopia Enabled:  No!

Past exams available: NONE!

Textbook Recommendation: Bridge: A Practical Intermediate Chinese Course, Vol. 1
This is the textbook, you'll need it for class.

Lecturer(s): Jia Gao and Cai Shen Shen. Jia Gao is the male teacher that speaks more English than Chinese and likes to ramble and mumble a lot. He speaks very slowly. Cai Shen Shen is the female teacher that is a bit more strict than Jia Gao. She speaks only Chinese and likes to crack jokes. Unfortunately my chinese is horrible so I can't understand them as well You will have both teachers, one for each seminar.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012 Semester 1

Rating: 2 Out of 5

Comments: This is Chinese school all over again. I swear to god, nothing has changed from this subject and VCE Chinese except the fact that you now go to Chinese school on a weekday and twice a week. Chinese is horrible. There are no past exams, no lectures recorded, and the assessment and exam is just so weird and not much preparation given. With Chinese, you basically have a textbook and for Chinese 7, you learn half of the book. Half of the book is basically 8 stories/essays/pieces of ~1000 characters each and overall, you will need to learn ~450 phrases.
The mid semester test is basically just memorizing the textbook. That's it. It is basically a few sentences from the textbook translated into English, and then you are required to translate it back to Chinese. WITHOUT A DICTIONARY.
The oral is pretty chill, just a basic general conversation with a partner of ~5 minutes.
The essay you have to hand in is also pretty annoying. Make sure you don't hand it in late otherwise you will lose a lot of marks since it is worth 15%!
The exam. Ok...the exam is just...how can I say... There is a potential to get 100% so easily and I was so stupid to not realize how easy it was to prepare for this. Exam consists of 4 sections:
• 1. Make sentences using one of the 450 phrases we learnt.
• 2. Translate some sentences randomly picked from the textbook that were translated into English and now you have to translate them back to Chinese
• 4. Write an essay ~300 words.
These 4 categories are just ridiculously easy to prepare for. The first section, although there are 450 phrases that you have to potentially need to know how to make sentences for, it is really predictable to know which ones will be in the exam. It's basically all the conjunction and joining words. The second section is the same as the mid semester. If you remembered how easy it was to prepare for that you should realize it's the same deal here. The third section is EXACTLY THE SAME as a comprehension work sheet that was handed out in the middle of the semester for homework. Exact same article, exact same questions. Finally the essay we have to write is once again EXACTLY THE SAME TOPIC as one that was given out for homework in the middle of the semester. You just had to memorize it and you're set!
2015: Working Living The Dream
2012-14: BCom (Actuarial Studies/Finance) @ UniMelb
2011: English [41] | Mathematical Methods CAS [45] | Specialist Mathematics [43] | Chemistry [45] | Physics [42]
2010: Chinese Second Language [35]
ATAR: 99.35

CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR TUTORING IN 2016 for:
-Mathematical Methods
-Chemistry
-Specialist Mathematics

Tony Tam's Chemistry and Maths Tutoring

“If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough."
-Albert Einstein

#### stonecold

• Victorian
• Great Wonder of ATAR Notes
• Posts: 5335
• Respect: +251
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #92 on: July 02, 2012, 07:01:01 pm »
+22
Subject Code/Name: BIOM20001: Molecular and Cellular Biomedicine

Workload:  6 x lectures each week, 1 x workshop each week, 3 x CALs (computer aided learning) throughout semester, 3 x practicals throughout semester.

Assessment:  2 x 30 min MCQ mid-semester tests (10% each), 2 x 2 hour exams (35% each), 5 x CAL/prac assessments (2% each).

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, including screen capture.

Past exams available:  Both 2010 exams are available from the library website.  Only the short answer and fill in the gap questions were provided from the 2011 exam.  None of the 2011 MCQs were given.  Also, make sure you annoy the coordinator to put up the 2010 and 2011 MSTs because he wouldn't want a repeat of what happened this year, with people just going and getting them off the third years and some people missing out and others not.  The coordinator also refuses to give out any sort of answers or marking schemes for anything.  Exams prior to 2010 are not available, but the old subject "Integrated Biomedical Sciences" has lots of past exam papers available.  I didn't do any of them, but having a quick look at them now they certainly still look relevant so if you want some extra writing practice, they may be worth looking at.

Textbook Recommendation:

• Alberts B, Johnson A, Lewis J, Raff M, Roberts K, Walter P, "Molecular Biology of the Cell", 5th Edition
• Nelson D, Cox M, "Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry", 5th edition
• Griffiths AJF et al., "Introduction to Genetic Analysis", 10th edition
• Engleberg NC et al., “Schaechter's Mechanisms of Microbial Disease” 4th edition
• Kumar V et al., 'Robbins Basic Pathology', 8th edition

To be perfectly honest, you probably don't need any of these textbooks to do well.  That having been said, luckily they are all available online so you can access them at your leisure if you know where to look.  The two most helpful are Alberts, which is a general Cell Biology book that covers a lot of the course, and Kumar, which covers Pathology.  Seeing as pathology is taught woefully and IMO is the worst part of this subject, it is probably worth reading the relevant parts of Kumar for the topic.  Luckily, Kumar is available online from the library website, so again, no need to buy.  I wouldn't be able to tell you about the other textbooks because I never even looked at them once, despite having them all on pdf.  In reality, all you are ever going to get assessed on in this subject is either what is on the slides, or what the lecturer says.  If you have all of this down, you're sure to do well.

Lecturer(s):

• Terry Mulhern [Coordinator] (Biochemistry, 18 Lectures)
• Dawn Gleeson, Alex Andrianopoulos (Genetics, 12 Lectures)
• Robb De Iongh (Cell Biology, 13 Lectures)
• Roy Robins-Browne, Sandra Uren (Microbiology & Immunology, 13 Lectures)
• Vicki Lawson (Pathology, 11 Lectures)

Each topic has had 2 lecturers in previous years, but a lot of lecturers have dropped away recently.  There were also a  couple of guest lecturers in the Genetics and Pathology topics.  All in all, I thought the majority explained their content well.  It doesn't necessarily mean that I liked them all, but I don't really care as long as they are clear.  Dawn and Alex have a tendency to get their stuff confused.  Vicki Lawson cannot go 15 seconds without screwing up her sentence.  Lecture notes across the board were decent.  That having been said, Dawn and especially Roy required you to listen and write down lots of things that weren't on the slides, and believe me, if the lecturer says it, it is assessable.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 1

Rating:  4.5/5

Comments: This is probably the most whinged about subject in the entire degree.  I think most of the criticism that this subject gets is unfair and unwarranted.  We are studying a Biomedicine degree.  I don't really know what people expected to learn, but if you didn't want to learn about this type of stuff, then I guess you are in the wrong degree.  People often complain that the content is over the top, irrelevant and can just be looked up if you ever need it.  Firstly, this is NOT a medical degree, it is biomedical science.  It is expected that you will learn detailed cellular processes.  Everyone just wants to learn things on a macroscopic scale or things which are relevant to medicine.  This is not what a biomedical science degree is about.  Also, sure you can look a lot of these things up if you ever need them, but you should learn them properly at least once and this makes sure that you actually understand them.  Moreover, this subject is somewhat of a 'taste' of what it is like to study medicine in terms of content and study required, so again, if people cannot handle this, then they are probably going to struggle in medicine.  I also understand that topics such as biochemistry and patholgy are actually studied in medicine anyway, so you are just getting an advantage by learning some of it now.  I am also under the impression that content wise, HSF in semester 2 will be far more intensive than MCB.

Lectures
Looking back (and I say this a lot haha) this subject probably wasn't so bad.  I really enjoyed the first four topics, and could actually see  myself majoring in any of them.  Pathology on the other hand I didn't enjoy.  Whether or not that was because it seemed overly rushed and was badly taught, I don't know.  Initially you will probably find that you will hate everything.  I went back and listened to each lecture after attending, and found it was always easier the second time.  I wrote down all of the relevant points that weren't in the slides and then typed it out into notes.  However you do your notes, make sure you include all of the important pictures and know how to draw them because lecturers love diagrams in the exam.  You don't even have to go to lectures if you don't want to as everything is recorded and I find that I tend to learn better at home or in the library.

Workshops
Calling these workshops is a blatant lie by the university.  It is an extra lecture spot in case the lecturer runs out of time in their allocated time.  Usually, the lecturer will cover some non-examinable extension stuff or do some revision/FAQs in this time.  The cell biology workshop and immunology workshop however were very important and you had to study them.  The content in these two workshops accounted for nearly one-fifth of what was on our second exam.  The cell bio workshop was on cancer, and considering that is this an overall theme on the course, it was fairly obvious that is was going to be tested.  The immunology workshop was on how pathogens evade the immune system.

Mid Semester Tests
Lots of people seem to do poorly on these for some reason and I cannot understand why.  They are multi choice.  It is a pretty simple equation in the end.  If you put in the time and effort to learn everything, then you should do really well on these tests.  95% of this subject is pure rote learning/recall. I don't really think you can be tricked.  The only two things which we learnt that required any level of conceptual understanding were enzyme kinetics (biochemistry) and the lac operon (genetics).  These tests do not cover the last topic (pathology) and therefore there are extra patholgy MCQs on the exam to compensate.  All in all, this is a straight forward 20% take one or two if you have done your work.  As I said earlier, absolutely make sure you get hold of previous years MSTs one way or another because they could repeat the questions and are good practice.

Around a week after the MSTs, the results are published on the LMS and the relevant lecturers explain the questions to you in a feed back lecture.

Pracs/CALs
This is another easy 10% so make sure you go and don't miss any.  The Biochemistry CAL was annoying because you had to hand up a worksheet at the end which is marked.  Everything else was assessed with online MCQ tests either during or after the Prac/CAL.  IMO it is not worth learning anything from the Biochem/Pathology/Cell Bio CALs for the exam.  It would be wise to make sure you are at least familiar with the pracs though, as in genetics, you need to know how to interpret gels for the exam, and you learn a fair bit of stuff on bacterial classification in the microbiology & immunology pracs which could also arise on the exam.

Exam A
For the first time, this exam was completely electronic.  There were 75 marks of MCQs and 45 marks of fill in the blanks/menu style questions which you complete on the Section B/C Answer sheets.  This exam was ridiculously specific, moreso than the MSTs.  No matter how much you learn, I think some lecturer will always have one annoying MCQ which you never thought would come up.  As always, you can expect a few MCQs which have mistakes and get removed.  Alex Andrianopoulos is also pretty lazy and may slip in a few 2 mark MCQs.

The fill in the blanks section is actually pretty hard for several reasons.  Firstly, you can always rely on a lecturer to give you a tiny diagram which is unclear and almost impossible to see.  Secondly, you get next to no marks for each blank (0.5 marks each).  So when you have 14 blanks to complete in just 7 minutes, it is not so easy.  Thirdly, it is so easy to screw up the answer sheet when you are putting in your answers so I urge you to double and triple check the circles you colour in.

You really want to be doing well on this exam to buffer against the written paper.

Exam B
This exam was also for the first time entirely composed of short answer questions and extended response questions.  I like the way they structured the exams this year.  It was far less confusing than in previous years where you had a mix of electronic marking and written answers on the same exam.  This exam was around a week after the first exam.  This is supposed to be an integration exam where lecturers get together and integrate their topics.  This is another lie.  It is very obvious as to who has written what questions, and there was little continuity between lecturers who had 'supposedly' written their questions together.

This exam is not easy at all.  It requires a really good understanding of everything, good memory, fast recall and also the ability to write very fast and also to draw diagrams.  There are lots of heavily weighted questions worth 10, 12, 13 marks on this section.  You get a few simple 3-5 mark questions as well though.  Just make sure you that you absolutely spend no more minutes than marks per question, otherwise you will not finish.  Once you think you have written enough to get the allocated marks, it is probably wise to move on, even if you have more to say.  You can always come back and add in more at the end, time permitting.  For the 10 mark questions, you absolutely must fill the page with writing.  Similarly, the 12 and 13 mark questions probably expect around 1.5-2 pages of writing (font and back) by the time you add in diagrams.  To indirectly quote the lecturer himself, "lecturers love diagrams and diagrams are always appropriate".  That having been said, don't waste ages drawing flashy stuff.  You have to ensure you finish the paper.  I finished the exam with about 8 mins to spare.  When I did the 2011 as a trial, I had literally 2 mins to spare.  You will be very pressed for time so make sure you have a watch and time everything perfectly, right down to the minute.  Your responses can be either in paragraphs or dot points.  Do whatever you feel is best going to address the question in the time you are given.  For some unknown reason I tend to randomly switch between writing paragraphs and dot points in different questions.

I thought that this exam would be really bad for me but in the end it was actually pretty good.  I kind of miss being able to actually demonstrate what you know rather than just filling in circles, so take this exam as an opportunity to impress the lecturer and demonstrate what you know.  They have a marking scheme, but at the end of the day, going into more detail about a process or giving examples is guaranteed to pick you up extra marks.  Also, make sure you write at least something for every question.  Lecturers are pretty lenient and like to give out marks where they can.  Ultimately, this exam is just like any other.  You just have to work out what lecture(s) the question is testing, decide what is relevant and then splurge it onto the paper.

The final lecture in the subject addresses the exams, giving you a breakdown of marks and telling you who has been allocated to write questions with who.  This is useful and allows you to try and predict the integration questions.  For example, we all knew that the 'integration' between cell biology and genetics would be about cancer...why else would the cell biology lecturer spend a whole workshop discussing cancer?  You can work out so much of what you need to know, just from listening to the things which the lecturers say, and even from the way they word questions.  Another example was a lecturer who never made the definitive statement (i.e. only, must etc.) the right option.  This tends to be the case for most MCQs.

Overall tips
There is so much I could tell you about this subject, but I'll try to be concise here:

Biochemistry
• Know the amino acids, single letter codes, three letter codes, resonance structures, properties and how to draw peptides and how the amino acids interact with one another.
• Understand the chemical interactions involved and basic thermodynamics and be able to explain them.
• Know the Ramachandran plot, as well as all of the properties of b-sheets and a-helices, including how to draw a rough schematic.
• Know every step, including enzymes and cofactors, of glycolysis, gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis, glycogenesis, TCA cycle, electron transport chain as well as a few other reactions which you are given.  You need to be able to recognize and name all of the molecules, but not draw them.
• Have a solid understanding of enzyme kinetics.
• Know all of the signalling pathways relating to glucogon, insulin, adrenaline etc.
• Know all of the diseases discussed in this part of the course.

Genetics
• Know the key structures of chromosomes and how they are replicated.
• Learn all the steps in transcription and translation, contrasting prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
• Know the relevance of epigenetic marks and how they affect gene expression.
• Make sure you understand tumour supressor genes and how you can identify them.
• Make sure you know about the types of mutations which can lead to cancer (oncogenic/tumour suppressor).
• The lac operon as well as other types of positively and negatively acting transcriptional systems are important to understandand at a conceptual level.
• There hasn't been a big emphasis on development in prokaryotes and eukaryotes in the past, at least for the written exam.
• Suppressor mutations always come up in a big question in the final exam.
• Be able to interpret gels, as they are bound to come up somewhere.

Cell Biology
• Understand the concept of topology.
• Know the various mechanisms and processes by which proteins are trafficked around the cell, including the steps and diagrams.
• Know all the properties and features of the cytoskeleton (actin filaments, intermediate filaments and microtubules).
• Know all the details of epithelial tissue including  cell junctions and the electron micrographs which are given in the slides.
• Understand all of the features of connective tissue, includuing fibrous proteins, adhesive proteins and proteoglycans.
• Know all of the signalling pathways which you get taught in detail, including how to draw them.  The important ones seem to be MAPK, Wnt/b-catenin and TGFb signalling.  Explain how these pathways cause cancer.
• Explain the characteristics of epithelial to mesenchymal cell transition, which is the transformation of benign growths to malginant tumours.

Micro/Immunology
• Know all of the features of bacteria, and how they contribute to virulence, including the experiemental evidence for this, especially toxins, fimbriae and capsids.
• Know examples and charactersitics of lots of different bacteria with different features.   Roy's favourite's are Clostridium sp. and Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
• Know how bacteria are classified both in the lab and also how species/subspecies are determined.
• Know how different drugs work against bacteria and the mechnisms of the ones which you are taught.
• Know the viral life cycle, including examples for different types of viruses (ss/dsDNA and ss/dsRNA) and how they replicate.
• Know some antiviral drugs and how they work.
• Know the details of polio virus, poliomyelitis and how the Salk and Sabin vaccines vary in prevention of contracting Polio.
• Understand how the innate immune system operates, and the key effectors, especially the complement system.
• Understand the mechanisms and effector cells of humoral and cell mediated immunity.
• Be able to describe how antibodies and T-cell receptors are generated.
• Know the structure of antibodies, T-cell receptors and MHC molecules to the level of detail given in the slides.
• Be able to explain the mechanisms by which pathogens evade the immune system and provide examples of such pathogens.

Pathology
• Know the different types of necrosis.
• Know the different types of cell adaptations.
• Know the difference between necrosis and apoptosis and the causes/pathways for each.
• Know the cause, process, regulation, characteristics and types of acute inflammation.
• Know all of the different types of hypersensitivities and the examples given for each.
• Understand the basis for an excessive immune response and immune deficiencies, as well as examples (e.g. allergy, AIDS).
• Understand the process of transplant rejection.
• Understand the different cells types and their capacity to regenerate.
• Know the process of wound healing by regeneration and by repair using connective tissue, as well as the repair process for cutaneous wounds and the complications which may arise.
• Understand the mechanism and characteristics of chronic inflammation, as well as the causes and macroscopic appearance.
• Understand the transformation, causes and epidemiology of cancer.  Be able to appreciate and explain the genetic and cellular changes which occur in cancer cells.
• Describe the properties of cancer cells, and how these can be exploited to identify cancer masses.
• Be familiar with the signalling pathways that may cause cancer.
• Understand how cancers are graded and described.
[/list]
« Last Edit: July 28, 2013, 05:05:58 pm by stonecold »
2011-13: BBiomed (Microbiology & Immunology Major) @ UniMelb

VCE 2009'10: English 46 | English Language 49 | Chemistry 50 | Biology 50 | Further Mathematics 48 | Mathematical Methods CAS 39
ATAR: 99.85

"Failure is not when one falls down but rather when one fails to get up" - unknown

#### Slumdawg

• Victorian
• Part of the furniture
• Posts: 1531
• Respect: +65
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #93 on: July 19, 2012, 01:27:35 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: PSYC20006 Biological Psychology

Workload:  2 X 1-hour lecture per week, 1 X 2-hour tutorial every fortnight.

Assessment:  20% Essay, 20% Laboratory Report and 60% final exam (120 MC questions).

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  No past exams available, however 60 practice multiple choice questions were available.

Textbook Recommendation:  Do not buy the textbook, waste of money. The lecture notes are sufficient.

Lecturer(s): Dr. Anderson (4 weeks), Dr. Howe (3 weeks), Dr. Humberstone (1 week), Prof. Trinder (2 weeks), Dr. Nichols (2 weeks).

Year & Semester of completion: 2012 Semester 1

Rating: 3  Out of 5

Comments: I was quite disappointed with this subject, the organisation was not great, the lecturers were mostly not great, the exam questions were not great and the cohesiveness of the subject was absent. I didn't feel like much of what was taught actually had much relevance to other parts of the course, it was like they just took a bunch of random topics and clumped it together to make "Biological Psychology".

The course is broken up into 6 components: Memory (Dr. Anderson), Brain Research Techniques (Dr. Howe), Statistics (Dr. Humberstone), Sleep & Emotions (Prof. Trinder), Neurophysiology/Psychopharmacology and Affective Disorders (Dr. Nicholas).

The only lecturer I really enjoyed was Dr. Howe who taught the brain research techniques: EEG, TMS, fMRI. All the other lecturers weren't very engaging unfortunately. I felt that Dr. Anderson's lecturing style was the most bland and unenthusiastic, whilst Prof Trinder who lectured sleep, ironically, put a lot people to sleep.

The two assignments were manageable if you spent quite a lot of time researching properly for them. The first essay was kind of stupid I thought, it was basically the introduction section of a lab report but really long. There were 4 hypotheses to be tested, and many other things that weren't really constructed well. The second assignment was a full lab report in 1000 words which is quite difficult to cut down to, however I felt it was more thought through than the first assignment. It's very important to get good scores on both assignments otherwise it'll be quite hard to get a H1 overall.

The exam was pretty poorly written, Prof. Trinder, Dr. Nicholas & Dr. Humberstone's questions were all fine. However, Dr. Howe and Dr. Anderson's questions featured a bunch of poorly worded questions with multiple errors such as "Al of the above" and "Either A nor B" (This was meant to say "Either A or B" but it got removed due to the mistake). The exam had 2011 written on the front, so it was obvious they recycled the exam considering they never release past exams. I was shocked to see so many errors. There were 24 lectures all up, and 120 questions so each lecture had 5 questions allocated to it. Some questions were very simple, but others were more challenging not because they tested your knowledge more in-depth but rather they were poorly worded.

Tutorials in this subject are alright, luckily I had a great tutor - Jared. Definitely try to get into his tutorials because he's really enthusiastic and did undergrad at Harvard! There was one question on the exam in the memory section based on a video we watched in the tutorial, so make sure you go to tutes! I think it does help understand the clinical applications of the things you learn, e.g. watching real life videos of people with epilepsy, Alzheimer's, sleep disorders, etc. However, the majority of the videos you watch are from the 80s, which is kinda disappointing cos surely there would be much better videos out there nowadays.

Overall, even though I love psychology I think this subject did a pretty good job of screwing it up. I don't regret taking it, I learned some interesting information in the course but I think this subject could be so much better if it were run by different lecturers who put more effort into the subject. I would say the content isn't too difficult, but they do assume quite a lot of prior psychology knowledge so it can be difficult to understand what they're taking about if you've never done psychology before. However, if that's the case I think you can still ace this subject even without having done psychology before if you just work hard. It is very memory and recall based in the final exam, although I think some questions were just so poorly worded having the lecture notes and a textbook would not help at all. If you wanna try psychology out, then don't do this subject it'll put you off the field I'd say.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 10:42:08 pm by Slumdawg »
2010 ATAR: 98.35 - Psychology [50] Media Studies [47
2011-'13: Bachelor of Biomedicine [Neuroscience Major] at Melbourne Uni
2014-'17: Doctor of Medicine (MD) at Melbourne Uni

#### Slumdawg

• Victorian
• Part of the furniture
• Posts: 1531
• Respect: +65
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #94 on: July 19, 2012, 01:55:02 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: PSYC30012 The Unconscious Mind

Workload:  1 X 2-hour lecture per week, 1 X 2-hour tutorial per fortnight.

Assessment:  10% Take Home Short Answer Questions, 45% Essay, 45% Final Exam.

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture.

Past exams available:  No past exams and no practice questions were given beforehand!

Textbook Recommendation: There is no textbook.

Lecturer(s): Prof Haslam, Dr. Carter, Prof Macmillan, Prof. Saling, Assoc Prof. Boldero, Dr. Fine, Assoc Prof. Hulbert.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012 Semester 1

Rating:  4 Out of 5

Comments: Overall I did enjoy this subject, I took it as my breadth which was probably not the best choice considering most people choose bludgey breadths whilst I chose a third year subject (silly me). But the topic really interested me, and I think the teaching approach of the subject was quite interesting. Each lecturer focussed on a different aspect of the unconscious mind, e.g. neuroscience, history/freudian theories, neuropsychology, social psychology, marketing, clinical psychology and ethics. No topic was taught for more than 2 weeks, the lecturers regularly rotated which was good. I really enjoyed Dr. Fine's lectures on marketing and ethics, as well as Dr. Carter's neuroscience lectures and also Assoc Prof. Boldero's lectures on social psychology.

The coordinator Prof Haslam is a top bloke and was constantly answering questions on the discussion board and was really approachable. He was just filling in for Prof. Kashima, who normally coordinates the subject and you're lucky he does because he gives out the short answer questions before the exam! My year wasn't as lucky, as Prof Haslam didn't think it was appropriate to give them out before the exam, which is fair enough I also thought it was kinda strange but heck I wasn't gonna complain. Although I do see why they were given out beforehand, I felt like most of the short answer questions could have been better answered by researching proper research articles.

A major disadvantage was that we had no practice questions whatsoever, all we knew is that there would be 48 multiple choice questions (4 per lecture) and 6 short answer questions. The exam ended up being quite fair I thought, there were a few tricky multiple choice but the hardest part was definitely short answer as the questions were quite broad so it was hard to know exactly what they wanted you to discuss.

The tutorials were completely pointless, I think it's hard though to run tutorials for a subject like this because every week the topic is completely different and the tutors were generally only experts in one field (mostly social psych). So they didn't really know that much when it came to advanced neuroscience, clinical, history and marketing lectures. There was also a lot of assigned journal articles and each tutorial we would need to go through them, these were extremely difficult to read as they were describing quite advanced concepts and ideas.

The final essay was worth 45% and is 2000 words, so if you did poorly it'd be a real uphill battle to salvage a good mark. This was really worrying because psych tutors are generally quite frugal with giving out high scores on essays, they'll take marks off wherever they can. There's two topics provided by each lecturer so there's 14 topics to choose from. I chose to do mine on the marketing topic as the lecturer was great and I think there was heaps to discuss. The topics did vary in difficulty but it was good to have the option of writing on whatever area you liked best.

I would recommend this subject to others but I will say that you definitely need to have some prior experience with psychology otherwise it will require a lot of work to keep up. I did like the fact that many different specialities were combined to give you many different perspectives on the role of the unconscious mind. Some I enjoyed more than others but I think this approach was quite good. If you're looking for an easy subject then definitely stay away, it requires quite a bit of work as the concepts described are quite advanced and it's not all multiple choice assessment in the final exam like second year subjects. All in all, a rewarding subject that definitely gives you a new perspective on how our mind operates.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 10:42:58 pm by Slumdawg »
2010 ATAR: 98.35 - Psychology [50] Media Studies [47
2011-'13: Bachelor of Biomedicine [Neuroscience Major] at Melbourne Uni
2014-'17: Doctor of Medicine (MD) at Melbourne Uni

#### ReganM

• Victorian
• Forum Obsessive
• Posts: 227
• What is being active?
• Respect: +8
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #95 on: July 27, 2012, 09:37:00 am »
+5
Subject Code/Name: PHYC10005: Physics 1: Fundamentals

Workload:  1x3 Lectures a week, 8 pracs, 1 hr tutes a week, and HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENTS every week.

Contact Hours: 3 x one hour lectures per week; 1 x one hour tutorial per week; 28 hours of practical work (8 x three hour laboratory sessions and up to 30 minutes of pre-laboratory activity) and 10 weekly assignments of 30 minutes each during the semester. (from handbook)

Assessment:

Ongoing assessment of practical work during the semester (25%); ten weekly assignments (10 x 1.5% = 15%); a 3-hour written examination in the examination period (60%).

Satisfactory completion of practical work is necessary to pass the subject (i.e. attendance and submission of work for at least 80% of workshop sessions together with a result for assessed work of at least 50%).

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with with screen capture. However, the second lecturer (Christopher) said he "hated" using Lectopia, and would walk around the lecture theatre as he talked (without the mic), pretty much screwing over anyone who had a clash or wanted to wag.

Past exams available:  Yes, but some were outdated. I think they tend to change the subject around a bit each year, but I'm not sure.

Textbook Recommendation:  R Knight, B Jones and S Field, College Physics: A Strategic Approach, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 2010.

However, I looked for a torrent online and downloaded the eBook. Depends on how much you want to use your book really, I know many people who didn't get it at all. I felt that the book was better at explaining some concepts than the lecturers.

Lecturer(s): Martin Sevior and Christopher T. Chantler.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 1

Rating:  1 of 5

Really disliked this subject. I did it because I didn't do VCE: Physics and you need to do Physics 1: Fundamentals as a prerequisite fr Vet Science if you haven't done 3/4 Physics (Yes, this will fulfill the prereq). In my opinion it consisted of 45% people who wanted to do a Vet course, 45% people who wanted some Physics knowledge for GAMSAT, and 10% (or less) people who were actually interested in Physics.

I'm not much of a maths nut, but I did alright in mathematics in VCE. I found this subject to have lecturers that sucked at explaining new concepts! They didn't seem to understand that most of us had NO PHYSICS KNOWLEDGE. The slides themselves were scary, with copious amounts of formulas with little or no explanation. They moved pretty quickly, but like any Fundamentals subject, they were trying to teach us 2 years of Physics in 1 semester. The only good thing about the lectures were the demonstrations, and there was like, one every lecture. I guess the lecturers did explain the demonstration to explain to us why they were showing us the demonstration, but sometimes I felt like they were wasting time and that time could have been better used to explain the core concepts.

Every week there's a tute, and my friend and I (who had different tutors) found that out tutors also sucked at explaining the new concepts. Maybe everyone had a high expectation of what Physics we were supposedly taught in Year 10? By the end of the semester the 20 or so people in my tute class had dwindled to maybe 5 or 6 people. The tutors do show up at the Physics First Year Learning center, and they're actually really helpful there. There are all sorts of tutors that show up there, so unless you set a time with your tutor, you'll probably see tutors you don't know there, however they're still happy to help out.

The pracs aren't too bad actually, they were at least semi-interesting and helped me to understand what we were learning, the pracs were not too hard to understand, and if we were stuck our demonstrator was happy to help us (and with the correct prodding give us answers). They lasted for mostly the whole 3 hours, which sometimes did feel like the longest 3 hours of my life, haha.

Now the homework assignments, man, there's one every week. I struggled with these, or at least I did with the first half. I felt like I hadn't learned enough to be able to apply the concepts and formulas to the questions they were presenting. The program they use to present the homework questions was pretty good, it would give you hints which kind fo started from the basics to help you out, however you'd lose marks for using them. You got more marks by completing a question first go etc etc. There's also an assignment you have to do, which was easy compared to the weekly homework tasks, I got 37/40 for it. You're basically given scenarios and asked to explain the Physics concepts behind them.

The exam was 3 hours long, and I wasn't feeling well pre-exams so I didn't do much study, however there were practice exams available to do. The exam itself is no multiple choice, it's essentially all short answer, and you write your answers into a little booklet.

Overall, this subject was really hard and really boring. I was so glad that I got a pass so that it fulfilled my pre-req. The best thing about this subject was that I made some great friends solely due to our mutual dislike for Physics.

On the flip side, my other friend who did Specialist Maths and Physics 1/2 got a H1 in this subject. Part of the reason why I got 65 was that I was completely overwhelmed with new uni stuff in first semester, and I didn't do questions from the book (which I felt could have helped). However, he did still find the subject boring, I guess he just worked harder at Physics than I did.

GOOD LUCK.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2014, 11:00:14 pm by ReganM »

Bachelor of Science at Melbourne. Biological Science subjects.

#### yearningforsimplicity

• Victorian
• Posts: 540
• Former ATARNotes HHD & Psych Lecturer & Author
• Respect: +131
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #96 on: November 12, 2012, 01:39:53 am »
+4
Subject code/name: LING10002- Intercultural Communication
Workload: 2 x 1 hour lectures and 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week
Assessment:
-> 1500 word “Address Terms” assignment – 35%
-> 1500 word “Narrative Inquiry” assignment – 35%
-> End of semester 1 hour Multiple Choice Exam – 30%
75% attendance at tutorials is hurdle requirement – you can afford to miss out on 2-3 tutes

Lectopia enabled: Yes
Past exams available: We didn’t have any but future years might?
Textbook recommendation: Language and Culture, Claire Kramsch; Oxford Introductions to Language Study (1999) – a small cute book which is not essential to buy but sets out the content nicely
Lecturers: Celia Thompson, Janne Morton, Hyejeong Kim (takes one lecture), Sara Cieseleski (takes one lecture). Tutorials are taken by Hyejeong, Sara, Eleanor and Janne.

Year and semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

« Last Edit: January 12, 2013, 05:27:59 pm by yearningforsimplicity »
2011: English | Methods | Psychology | Health & Human Development | Legal Studies | Texts & Traditions
2012: B.A. (Psychology) @ UniMelb
2015-16: Master of Teaching (Secondary: Psychology/Health) @ UniMelb
2017- Teaching Psych & HHD

Happy to help out with; Health & HD(48), Psych(48), Qs about UniMelb Psych or MTeach courses

*Doing Health & Human Development in 2018?*
yearningforsimplicity's HHD 3&]4 EXAM REVISION PACKS :)

#### yearningforsimplicity

• Victorian
• Posts: 540
• Former ATARNotes HHD & Psych Lecturer & Author
• Respect: +131
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #97 on: November 12, 2012, 01:44:03 am »
+3
Subject Code/Name: UNIB10009- Food for a Healthy Planet
Workload:   2 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x one hour tutorial per week
Assessment:
-> 3 Forum Reports which are each worth 5% and must be submitted 1 week after the forum lecture has been held.(15%) Forum lectures are held throughout the semester
-> Mid-Semester test which covers lectures 1-10 and goes on for 1 hour (15%)
-> Research Essay of 2,000 words from a list of topics or you may choose your own topic related to content studied in class nd get it approved by tutor (25%)
-> 2 hour Exam which has multiple choice and extended answer questions for which you are allowed to bring in one A4 sheet of information (back and front) (45%)
Also attendance is a hurdle requirement and you've got to show up to 75% of tutorials - i.e. you can miss out on two or three

Lectopia Enabled?  Yes, but forums are not recorded (though forum lecture slides are put online)
Past exams available: Yes, past exams from 08 were available as well as mid semester tests from past years.
Textbook Recommendation: No actual textbook but there is a (quite thick) subject reader. I didn't buy it though and some of the readings are put up online
Lecturer(s): Mohan Singh, Frank Dunshea, and the forum speakers. Nanette Esparon is the head tutor

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 1
Rating:  5 Out of 5

« Last Edit: November 12, 2012, 02:05:18 am by yearningforsimplicity »
2011: English | Methods | Psychology | Health & Human Development | Legal Studies | Texts & Traditions
2012: B.A. (Psychology) @ UniMelb
2015-16: Master of Teaching (Secondary: Psychology/Health) @ UniMelb
2017- Teaching Psych & HHD

Happy to help out with; Health & HD(48), Psych(48), Qs about UniMelb Psych or MTeach courses

*Doing Health & Human Development in 2018?*
yearningforsimplicity's HHD 3&]4 EXAM REVISION PACKS :)

#### yearningforsimplicity

• Victorian
• Posts: 540
• Former ATARNotes HHD & Psych Lecturer & Author
• Respect: +131
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #98 on: November 12, 2012, 01:50:51 am »
+3
Subject code/name:  EDUC10050 – Understanding Knowing and Learning
Workload: 1 x 1 hour lecture and  1 x 2 hour Tutorial per week (for the first 5 weeks)
Note though that for the first 5 weeks, your tutorials run for 2 hours. For the 7 weeks after that (when you’re settled into your tutoring arrangement), the tutes run for 1 hour.
Assessment:
-> 1500 word essay about your tutoring/learning situation informed by your tutoring experience – a quite reflective essay with no references (35%)
-> 2500 word essay (with references) about your philosophy of learning informed by your tutoring experience and past learning experiences as a student (65%)
-> Hurdle Requirement: 80% attendance at tutorials. Also MUST complete 7 sessions of tutoring a student (of any age) and fill out each session on the “Tutor Record” sheet. Also must obtain a Working with Children Check card prior to tutoring.

Lectopia enabled: Yes, lecture slides are available and lecture audio recordings can be accessed.
Past exams available: This subject has no exam component.
Textbook recommendation: No textbook was required when I did this subject – the lecture slides were enough I thought. However, if you really want to get a textbook then I’d recommend this one: http://books.google.com.au/books/about/Perspectives_on_Learning.html?id=rh8QRlzBozQC&redir_esc=y – my tutor was always carrying it around  and promoting its greatness haha though no one bought it
Lecturers: John Quay; Amanda Burritt and Viviana Ferrari take the tutorials

Year and semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Edit: Also, at the end of the subject the coordinator will send you a certificate for contributing to the tutoring of your student(s) which you can attach to your resume
« Last Edit: January 12, 2013, 05:26:20 pm by yearningforsimplicity »
2011: English | Methods | Psychology | Health & Human Development | Legal Studies | Texts & Traditions
2012: B.A. (Psychology) @ UniMelb
2015-16: Master of Teaching (Secondary: Psychology/Health) @ UniMelb
2017- Teaching Psych & HHD

Happy to help out with; Health & HD(48), Psych(48), Qs about UniMelb Psych or MTeach courses

*Doing Health & Human Development in 2018?*
yearningforsimplicity's HHD 3&]4 EXAM REVISION PACKS :)

#### VivaTequila

• Victorian
• Part of the furniture
• Posts: 1137
• Respect: +130
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #99 on: November 15, 2012, 07:33:28 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: CHEM10004: Chemistry 2

Semester 2 Only
Weekly: 3x 1hr Lecture, 1x 1hr Tutorial
Throughout the Semester: 6x 3hr Laboratory Practicals

Assessment:
75% - Exam
20% - Laboratory Practicals (note that each practical is worth 3.3%! That's substantial!)
5% - Online Mid-Semester Test

Lectopia Enabled:  No.

Past exams available: Yes, there is no lack of past exams available and solutions are provided.

Textbook Recommendation:
Laboratory Manual (or retain from Chemistry 1; it's the same book for both), and therein, you'll need a lab coat and some protective glasses.
Tutorial workbook (E-Copy provided on the Learning Management System [LMS] so if you have a laptop, don't buy it)
The prescribed textbooks. There's one for general Chemistry (Zumdahl) and there's one for Organic (Mc. Murry). They are both EXCELLENT textbooks, and will no doubt be highly useful for you. But, on the flip side, they are both highly expensive. Do a cost benefit analysis - I did have both of them but only because I got them new for half price. I probably wouldn't have bought them both if they were full price, because I didn't use them all that much.

Lecturer(s):
Professor Richard O'Hair - Organic Chem
Professor Carl Schiesser - Organic Chem
Associate Professor Trevor Smith - Quantum Chem
Associate Professor Michelle Gee - Kinetics (she's awesome)
Dr. Paul Donnelly - Redox Chemistry and Coordination Chemistry

Year & Semester of completion: 2012 - Semester 2

Rating:  4 of 5

Despite everything you are about to read, I just really like Chemistry, and the subject was pretty well coordinated - the Chem department has done a good job of picking topics that are highly applicable and relevant to studies in Chemistry. The way the tutorials are structured is great. The Learning Lab is also fantastic. Really, there's not much to complain about. But I did have some major disagreements with the way in which some of the topics in this subject was taught. So what you'll read is mostly negative, but rest assured that this IS a good subject - I just want to voice my opinion.

Okay so basically, in contrast to Chemistry 1 which mainly elaborated on aspects of the VCE course, Chemistry 2 covers 5 topics - 4 of which are (for the most part) brand new.

The topics, in order of instruction, are:
1. Organic Chem (2 lecturers)
2. Quantum Chem (1 godawful lecturer)
3. Kinetics (1 awesome lecturer, such a chiller)
4. Redox Chemistry, and;
5. Transition Metal Chemistry (one lecturer for both and he's a pretty cool guy too)

So I'll elaborate on each and every topic, just to give prospective students a feel for what you can expect.

Organic Chemistry

Organic Chemistry was all about teaching us different mechanisms of reactions - where the electrons go, and some qualitative explanations for why they do so. Now the lectures for this section of the course weren't bad - the lecturers were clear, and the material made sense - but that was only in the lectures. Outside of the lectures (i.e. in SWOTVAC), the material became grossly complicated when nobody had any idea what the heck was happening in Organic.

A few things led to this problem.

The first was that lectures were not recorded. The second is that there were no lecture notes for Schiesser's part of the topic. The third is that there were very limited resources provided to learn the material. But, probably the biggest problem of all is that they didn't teach us anything surrounding the reactions; we learnt the reactions - then next thing you know, we're studying quantum. Nobody was there to teach you how all of these reactions led to organic syntheses, or indeed, dynamic problem solving when you get things wrong. There was no "This reagent probably should be used in preference to this one because of reasons x and y" - it was simply reaction mechanisms, so when it comes to guessing what's happening in the syntheses during the exam, it was literally just best guess.

You had to learn an odd 15-20 functional groups (no problemo) and then understand how and why they react in the ways that they do. In the examination, they normally give you a series of steps in a synthesis, and you need to identify missing reagents and structures in order to figure out the parts that they aren't giving you, based on what you are supplied with before and after. THIS WAS NOT TAUGHT IN THE LECTURES.

Whilst Organic Chemistry could have been very interesting, what was assessed was completely unfair; it was not taught, so they shouldn't be allowed to examine it. Hopefully this changes in future years.

The next topic was Quantum Chemistry.

And it was a shitstorm of useless information.

Now before I get slammed for launching a baseless polemic against the Chem dept, I want to use an analogy to show why I believe the university's methodology in teaching Quantum was fundamentally flawed.

My analogy is this: you don't need to know how a combustion engine works in order to drive a car. You don't need to be able to understand it's internal mechanisms in order to behold, utilise, and appreciate the result - that is, a highly useful outcome of being able drive a car.

This will apply in what what you're hopefully about to read. Still here?

Quantum Chemistry is concerned with understanding the development of atomic theory and our model of the atom. The outcomes are undoubtedly useful - energy is quantised, just as energy levels are quantised. The wave equation allows us to solve many things about the atom; for instance, the mathematically derived (and now well understood) shapes of orbitals that form chemical bonds and account for the chemical properties which you've (until now) taken for granted.

So it's all good and well to study Quantum Chem. But unfortunately, the way it was presented to us was completely redundant and superfluous.

The fundamental problem with it is that they tried to explain the trials and tribulations of the academics of yesteryear - those chemists who were debating the nature of the atom and establishing the groundwork of quantum mechanics - to first chem students without philosophical doctorates in particle physics. It's just not going to work.

In fact, there isn't a snowball's chance in hell that first years are going to be able to understand what is wrong with Quantum Mechanics. It actually is impossible for this to occur without an appreciation of much more sophisticated theory.

Now why is this a problem? Because they tried to teach it to us under the pretense that we'd be able to understand. What do I mean?

Well, the subject was basically taught to us as a chronological progression of the historical evolution in atomic theory. First there was Democritus and his infamous cronies, and it all made sense up to the Bohr Model. They logically explained every shift in thinking and the experiments which disproved the previous versions of the atom.

And then what happens? Quantum Mechanics. Why? Neither the lecturer, nor the textbook(!!!) made us privy to the answer. To paraphrase the textbook, the transition from Bohr to Planck/Quantum Theorists basically said at the start of the chapter "It was becoming apparent that the Bohr model was incorrect."

And that was all that was said on the matter.

The rest of Quantum continued in a similar fashion - learning abstract equations which held little relevance to a first year Chemistry student (and indeed, rote learning for the sake of salvaging a Chemistry 2 score), and it was shit all around.

Now back to my analogy:
If the farmer who earns his dosh from his tractor can utilise the end result of the scientific revolution that was the combustion engine without much understanding of it's internal mechanism - then great, the world is a better place. Let me liken the farmer to the first year chemistry student. The farmer has no way of knowing, living rurally without an education, how the combustion engine works, just as the philosophical doctorate deprived first year chem student doesn't have the groundings to understand how quantum mechanics is going to work. There's simply no way in hell that either of our two friends are going to understand it. So what are the options:

1. You can teach them from the ground up how it works, or;
2. You can show them the end result and how to utilise it without understanding how or why, because it will still yield a useful outcome.

The university went in between both of these options. They tried to teach us everything from first principles, but there were gigantic Grand Canyon sized gaps in understanding. It was taught to us under the pretense that it all makes sense to us, when really we didn't have a chance of getting it. This has special significance for the next topic, because Michelle Gee did in fact realise that her audience of first year's didn't have a chance at understanding some of the material she was to present to us, so she went with the second option.

Finally, Quantum was shit because the lecturer couldn't explain anything. The infamous "Photoelectic Effect" was elaborated on and explained over the duration of about 4 weeks in VCE Physics, and given less than a 1hr lecture in Chemistry 2 - and even then, it was OBJECTIVELY ill-explained. I was paying special attention to the lecturers explanation of the Photoelectic effect, and he didn't adequately explain it at all - everything he said was ephermeral and incomplete; there was no logical introduction to what it was, how scientists arrived at the conclusion, and what the implications of it were - yet it was still assessed in it's finest detail (most definitely not covered in the lecture or the lecture notes) by the lecturer. Thank you, VCE Physics, for allowing me to have some chance at guessing the Multi Choice for this topic.

But I'm ranting heaps - let me progress onto the next topic, which was Kinetics.

Kinetics was relatively well taught - simply by virtue of the fact that the lecturer was switched on to her audience.

Kinetics is the branch of chemistry that is concerned with how fast reactions progress due to their intricate mechanisms - which are often much more complicated than they seem thanks to Collision Theory. She taught everything so well from first principles that EVERYTHING was left making sense.

Now, Kinetics has a fundamental prerequisite of differential equations - something not touched on in VCE or Calculus 1. This meant that 90% of her audience wouldn't have had the faintest clue of what she was actually doing when it came to integrating what's known as rate laws. You could copy exactly what she did, but it didn't mean you understood it.

Now, she recognised that it was beyond the scope of the course to learn differential equations and differential integration. So what did she do? Well, she couldn't have gone with the first option and taught it from first principles. So she just decided to give us the answer to the problem and yield and utilise the ultimate result - formulas that come from differential equations. Students were given 6 formulas to remember if they couldn't derive them - which was perfectly fine. One, apparently, does not need to understand how differential equations work in order to calculate useful rate information about chemical reactions. This is like our farmer friend who doesn't need to understand the combustion engine that propels his tractor in order for him to do something useful. It was fantastic that she actually realised this, unlike the Quantum lecturer. Kinetics was an eye opener and highly enjoyable if you like Chemistry - it's the only real section where algebraic calculations came into play. I'd liken the problem-solving aspect to Stoichiometry - you need to analyse what you've got to figure out how to get what's asked for in the question using similar techniques.

Redox

...was highly enjoyable. What was monstrously difficult in VCE actually becomes quite easy in Uni. There's only a few advancements, like concentration cells and the establishment of the Nernst equation (should have been taught in VCE IMO) which really rounded off the idea of galvanic cells. Would have loved to see some electrolysis, but they skipped over it.

Transition Chemistry
MgCl2 -> Mg2+ + 2Cl- is a lie.

Introducing Ligands and what metal ions actually do when in solution. This was a real eye-opener and it explains a hell of a lot - like how rust removers work, and how biological systems interact. The lecturer is highly educated, not only in science but also in arts and philosophy, and it was a pleasure to listen to him. Nothing to say here - just great lecturing in a brand new topic that really opens your eyes.

So with that.... Advice for doing well in Chemistry 2
- Get on top of your Organic reactions early; make exhaustive notes on everything and generally focus your attention to this subject when it's being taught because it will come back to bite you on the ass in SWOTVAC if you leave it too late
- Go to tutorials to learn what Quantum is all about because the lecturer is hopeless. Get your questions answered from tutors at the Learning Centre often.
- Actually strive to do well in the Chemistry pracs because they're worth a substantial amount. A great way to improve your yield in first year is to find any similar-coloured white powder that you've been trying to produce and simply add it to your bag at the end. Worked for so many people, so many times - and an extra mark or two on each practical really adds up.
- With Organic, spend less time learning all of the introductory Organic - focus more on the redox aspects and how to identify redox organic reactions because they take up the majority (60% on organic redox alone) in the exam.

Wow, this ended up being a lot longer than I initially intended.

#### Starlight

• Victorian
• ATAR Notes Superstar
• Posts: 2955
• Respect: +274
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #100 on: November 15, 2012, 09:37:40 pm »
+5
Subject code/name: LING10002- Intercultural Communication

Workload: 2 x 1 hour lectures and 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week

Assessment:
-> 1500 word “Address Terms” assignment – 35%
-> 1500 word “Narrative Inquiry” assignment – 35%
-> End of semester 1 hour Multiple Choice Exam – 30%
75% attendance at tutorials is hurdle requirement – you can afford to miss out on 2-3 tutes

Lectopia enabled: Yes (with screen capture)

Past exams available: No, see my comments on why this may be the case when I discuss the exam.

Textbook recommendation: Language and Culture, Claire Kramsch.

Students probably have some conflicting opinions as to whether it's essential that you buy this book.

The reasons why I regretted buying the book are as follows:

- It didn't cover much of the assignment-based content and hence I didn't use it as a reference.

- There was literally one question on the exam that was related directly to the book, thus 98% of the exam was lecture- based.

- You're paying about \$30 for a book that contains like 100 pages.

Lecturers: Celia Thompson, Janne Morton, Hyejeong Kim (takes one lecture), Sara Cieseleski (takes one lecture). Tutorials are taken by Hyejeong, Sara, Eleanor and Janne.

Year and semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating: 3 out of 5

Comments: I have quite a few things to say about this subject, so i'll just split what I found enjoyable and what I did not.

What I liked about the subject:

Lectures: Not too content heavy, just the way they should be. It turned out to be pretty relaxing away from the BsC course.
The information followed a sequential order, where the lecturer on Tuesday might have discussed the topic Socialization and identity 1 for example, and then Thursday's lecture was Socialization and Identity 2, so essentially you got two different perspectives on the one topic.

The Exam: In my opinion, the exam covered the most basic concepts that were discussed during the semester so it was more that you understood the concepts as opposed to memorizing slabs of information. It was one hour long and was quite straightforward (multi-choice), I assume that past exam questions are recycled.

Tutorials: I found extremely helpful mainly in reference to the assignments. We were able to address our tutor (and the assignment marker) on some ambiguous instructions that were outlined in the assignment description and marking guide.

Assignment marking:

Assignment 1:
Initally, I thought the tutors were pretty generous with their quite detailed explanations on what could be improved on assignment 2, so I wasn't overly concerned with missing out on a H1 since it was only my first year and I was still learning some things about how to write up a proper assignment, for example using the appropriate APA reference style.

Assignment 2:
I had improved 0.5 marks from my last assignment.

This was a let down.

Why?

-  I treated assignment 1 as a learning experience. I had looked at where I lost marks for the previous assignment and had made sure not to repeat the same mistakes

- I had followed the marking criteria that was outlined for assignment 2. During lectures and tutorials the teachers consistently explained that the marking criteria was the best indicator for getting a good mark, for both assignments I found this hard to believe. I just felt as if no matter how hard I tried, the marks didn't pay off. I checked in with my tutor for both assignments and both times I was given a response something like "That's great, you're on the right track, I look forward to reading your assignment".

However this may not always be the case:
Of course, it's subjective. It seemed to me as if assignment marking had poor inter-rater reliability, and had I been assigned to a different tutorial class than perhaps I may have received different marks. I don't want to sound all bratty about not receiving a H1 for either assignment, but it honestly felt this way.

Ultimately, as a student you pick subjects that you believe you can do well in. Having studied English language during VCE I thought I had some of the tools to really get a good grasp of this subject, but a lot of the time it was incredibly ambiguous in how it was you could actually excel academically.

The bottom line: Having completed two arts subjects as breadth units this year, I have been swayed into pursuing a university breadth subject in future. I would recommend this subject to anyone who was thoroughly interested in linguistics, has some background knowledge in the field and would be content in receiving marks that were lower than expected at some times (and it doesn't help that arts subjects are marked on a bell curve).

Thanks to: Yearningforsimplicity, haha as you can see I stole some components of your review.

« Last Edit: December 20, 2013, 09:02:41 am by El2012 »
2012-2014. BSc: Neuroscience. University of Melbourne.
2015-2018. Doctor of Optometry. University of Melbourne.

Unlikely to respond to any PMs these days.

#### Starlight

• Victorian
• ATAR Notes Superstar
• Posts: 2955
• Respect: +274
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #101 on: November 17, 2012, 07:50:57 pm »
+8
Subject Code/Name: PSYC10004 Mind, Brain and Behaviour 2

Workload: 3 x 1hr Lectures and 1 x 2hr Lab session/ Tutorial

Assessment:

-  Laboratory assignment(s) of not more than 2000 words to be submitted during the semester (+ - 10% rule applies) (35%)
- Laboratory class participation during a lab report presentation of a class-conducted experiment (5%)
- One three hour examination comprising multiple-choice questions (60%)

Lectopia Enabled:  Yes, with screen capture

Past exams available: No, Sample exam questions are given out by the lecturers during the semester (for example for 2/6 topics, the exam questions were identical which were social psychology and quantitative methods. Note that these have no solutions so i'd advise joining a study group or checking the posted solutions by students on the discussion board. The other 4 topics had questions that mainly gave you an indication of how they would be worded or some possible content to study for ahead of the exam)

Textbook Recommendation: Essentially you won't need a textbook for this subject. One of the topics (social psychology) had a few questions from the textbook that were on the exam, but you can probably just consult with a study group about those particular answers.

Lecturer(s):

In order of presentation

Dr Judi Humberstone: Developmental Psychology (8 lectures)

Professor Yoshi Kashima: Social Psychology (8 lectures)

Christopher Groot: Quantitative methods (3 lectures)

Professor Nick Haslam: Personality Psychology (9 lectures)

Professor Nick Allen: Clinical Psychology (8 lectures)

Orientation lecture: The first lecture was just an introduction to the subject, given by Dr Simon Cropper who from my understanding took some of the lectures for MBB1.

Year & Semester of completion: 2012 Semester 2

Rating: 4 of 5

Comments: This was my first glimpse into the world of Psychology, having never studied the subject during VCE nor semester 1 (MBB1). There were maybe one or two times where I felt a little disadvantaged, for example Quantitative Methods, and for these cases I consulted the staff on the discussion board (where lecturers and the head tutor regularly check in to answer students questions), and my problems were solved

I'll be honest, for most of the time I didn't really enjoy the subject, I just found a lot of it to be full of content that was completely irrelevant to the exam so they could have condensed the content in the lectures. The parts I did enjoy were: Social Psychology, Personality Psychology, Quantitative Methods and just research in general on the essay (essay topic was based on social psychology it may change next year).

The Assignment:

2000 words. The topic (No Man Is an Island) was a little ambiguous at first since I had no idea where to start but after the lab session which was based on an introduction to essay writing helped clear up a lot, and gave some direction. I guess I was pretty lucky to be assigned to a class where the average was H1/H2A, I know for some of the other classes this wasn't the case though. You are given a LONG time to write the essay (like a month and a bit), so if you work efficiently it's not too bad

Lab sessions

These were 2 hour sessions held each week from week 2. A lot of the time, I thought what was discussed was a little disconnected to the lecture content (for example we looked at children's display rules which was literally a lecture slide during developmental Psychology). However there were also times where I thought the tutorials were very helpful, for example outlining different ways of measuring personality and the disadvantages/ advantages of each which was based on one of the lectures.

The Exam

About 50% of the exam was based on multiple choice questions which were assigned by the two lecturers from social psychology and quantitative methods, so definitely check the discussion board for student posted solutions or form a study group for discussion.
I thought the questions that were given from clinical and developmental psych were a little difficult however.

All in All: Having done this subject I know that Psychology is not something i'll be pursuing during my future studies, however other people may enjoy this subject. I thought it was fairly well organized and the staff were always helpful, hence my rating
« Last Edit: December 20, 2013, 09:03:07 am by El2012 »
2012-2014. BSc: Neuroscience. University of Melbourne.
2015-2018. Doctor of Optometry. University of Melbourne.

Unlikely to respond to any PMs these days.

#### Guo

• Victorian
• Fresh Poster
• Posts: 1
• Respect: 0
• School: University of Melbourne
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #102 on: November 20, 2012, 01:04:17 pm »
+3

Subject Code/Name:PHYC10001

Workload: Weekly: 3 x 1 hour lectures, 1 x 3 hour practical (8 of the 12 teaching weeks)

Assessment: 10 x Mini Weekly Assignments, 1 Major assignment, 8 Practical reports and final exam

Past exams available:  Yes. With solutions

Textbook Recommendation:  Physics for Scientists and Engineers: A Strategic Approach with Modern Physics, 2nd edition, Addison-Wesley, 2008  - Very helpful - You should really buy it!

Lecturer(s): Dr. David Jamison - This guy is awesome, Dr. Robert Scholten - He is alright

Year & Semester of completion: 2011, Semester 1

Rating: 5/5

Comments: If you are really good at physics and problem solving, then this subject is right for you. However, it is very fast pace compared to all the other subjects I had due to it being the advanced stream. But if you want a challenge, then choose this subject

#### QuantumJG

• Victorian
• Part of the furniture
• Posts: 1750
• Applied Mathematics Student at UoM
• Respect: +73
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #103 on: November 20, 2012, 05:42:18 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: MAST90011 Modelling: Mathematical Biology

Workload:  1x2hour lecture per week, 1x1 hour practice class

Assessment:  3 assignments (worth 25% each), 1x2hour exam (worth 25%)

Lectopia Enabled:  No

Past exams available:  No

Textbook Recommendation:

Edelstein-Keshet, L. Mathematical Models in Biology. McGraw Hill, 1987.
Murray, J. D. Mathematical Biology. Springer Verlag, 1990 (or the new 2 Volume Third edition, 2003).
Britton, N. F. Essential Mathematical Biology, Springer, 2003.
Dr Vries, G., Hillen T., Lewis, M., Muller, J. and Schonfisch, B. A Course in Mathematical Biology. SIAM, 2006.

These are only recommended for learning a bit extra on the material.

Lecturer(s): Kerry Landman

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:  5/5

I thoroughly enjoyed this subject. Kerry is a great lecturer and you get a taste of what mathematical biology actually is, and what it tackles.

Mathematical biology is a relatively new field of maths, and in this subject you'll look at:

- population growth
- epidemic modelling
- biological invasion
- pattern formation
- tumour modelling

At the start you look at discrete models (e.g. the discrete logistic equation $x_{n+1} = \lambda x_{n}(1-x_{n})$)

To be expanded on
2008: Finished VCE

2009 - 2011: Bachelor of Science (Mathematical Physics)

2012 - 2014: Master of Science (Applied Mathematics/Mathematical Physics)

2016 - 2018: Master of Engineering (Civil)

Semester 1:[/b] Engineering Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics, Engineering Risk Analysis, Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering

Semester 2:[/b] Earth Processes for Engineering, Engineering Materials, Structural Theory and Design, Systems Modelling and Design

#### QuantumJG

• Victorian
• Part of the furniture
• Posts: 1750
• Applied Mathematics Student at UoM
• Respect: +73
##### Re: University of Melbourne - Subject Reviews & Ratings
« Reply #104 on: November 20, 2012, 06:00:56 pm »
+2
Subject Code/Name: MAST90069 Introduction to String Theory

Assessment:  2 assignments (worth 20% each), 1x1hour exam (worth 60%)

Lectopia Enabled:  No

Past exams available: No

Textbook Recommendation:  http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/tong/string/string.pdf

Lecturer: Omar Foda

Year & Semester of completion: 2012, Semester 2

Rating:  2/5

This subject is not for the faint of heart. I come from a physics background, but I found the subject difficult from the first lecture.

You're introduced to tensor notation that (I found) is difficult to grasp, and the problem lies in not having masters level physics subjects as prerequisites (i.e. General Relativity and Quantum Field Theory). The lecturer tries to get around this, but (in my opinion) it didn't work.

Due to the difficulty of the content, the assignments were changed to summarising the lecture notes and expanding on calculations given in Tong's notes (and a chapter from a textbook).
« Last Edit: November 27, 2012, 05:24:32 pm by QuantumJG »
2008: Finished VCE

2009 - 2011: Bachelor of Science (Mathematical Physics)

2012 - 2014: Master of Science (Applied Mathematics/Mathematical Physics)

2016 - 2018: Master of Engineering (Civil)

Semester 1:[/b] Engineering Mechanics, Fluid Mechanics, Engineering Risk Analysis, Sustainable Infrastructure Engineering

Semester 2:[/b] Earth Processes for Engineering, Engineering Materials, Structural Theory and Design, Systems Modelling and Design