Hey guys,

I was wondering what are your thoughts on Biology 2F03. I've heard good things about this course judging from the course reviews section.

How are the labs in this course? How many presentations do you have to do in this course, are they time consuming, how hard are they marked?

For example, I heard that even if you read your notes in a presentation, you can still score a good mark on them, and I also heard this course is kinda fun.

Do you recommend this as an elective?

Very easy course! The mark scheme is extremely flexible. Nothing in the course is mandatory except the final exam, which was easy so a 10+ I'd definitely attainable. The tutorials were decent, we had 3 tutorials and had debates in them which were fun. It's best to participate in all components of the course cos the final exam has questions from the tutorials too.

The lectures were dry though, as is the prof. His slides are very disorganized and it's hard to get down everything he is saying but the textbook was great and the prof is very approachable so you can always talk to him for extra help.

I took bio2c03 with Dej, and found it to be alright. Her questions are very straightforward if you read over her lecture notes. There are tutorials with assignments, where similar questions can show up on the midterms/exam. I found the exam to be a bit more challenging, but that may be because the midterm averages were quite high. Dej's a great professor, though so I'd recommend either one of your choices.

While I completely loved Genetics cause I have always been interested in it, I don't know what it was about the course when I took it that it screwed over most of the people in class (I did it Sept 2012) especially the people who weren't too interested in Genetics. The midterm average wasn't high when we did it, we only had one midterm. Our exam was probably the hardest exam I have ever done....well except for physics 1b03 :p Interest wise, this course was great but whether it'd be worth it as an elective is questionable.

Originally Posted by IqzFendi

Very easy course! The mark scheme is extremely flexible. Nothing in the course is mandatory except the final exam, which was easy so a 10+ I'd definitely attainable. The tutorials were decent, we had 3 tutorials and had debates in them which were fun. It's best to participate in all components of the course cos the final exam has questions from the tutorials too.

The lectures were dry though, as is the prof. His slides are very disorganized and it's hard to get down everything he is saying but the textbook was great and the prof is very approachable so you can always talk to him for extra help.

Thanks! So in this course, is the exam either worth 100% or the normal weight of 35%. If I decide to not complete the assignments which are worth 15%, can I make the exam worth 50% instead?

Or is it only, you either have the original marking scheme or have a 100% exam and no in-between?

I think the way the course works is whatever portions you decide to complete will be used to to calculate the highest possible mark. If your mark without the assignments is higher than with them included, then they'll just take your mark without the assignments. Pretty sure there's an in-between .

Originally Posted by Angoose

I think the way the course works is whatever portions you decide to complete will be used to to calculate the highest possible mark. If your mark without the assignments is higher than with them included, then they'll just take your mark without the assignments. Pretty sure there's an in-between .

AMAZING, thanks so much

So does that mean that my 3 hour tutorial is optional, and if I want to, the only parts of the course I have to complete are the midterm and the exam?

Ahaha, that's the way it sounds. Technically you don't even have to do the midterm, just the exam.

Originally Posted by Angoose

Ahaha, that's the way it sounds. Technically you don't even have to do the midterm, just the exam.

Thanks a lot, wow the grading scheme is really lenient. I really don't want to do those creative presentations but if I have nothing to lose, there's way less pressure!