The professor (Dr. Nurse) was great. He went slow and was sure to explain his points thoroughly. The TAs and tutorials were wonderful sources of information. Make sure you attend them to do well.

The questions were fair. There was plenty of time to complete questions. Dr. Nurse only...

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Originally Posted by N.Cheng

If anyone wants an 'up to date' full review of this course let me know. But for now, I'll just add my two cents. I took this last year and honestly it was one of my favourite courses in undergrad. I would say it was kinda hard and required a lot of thinking, but everything I learned made a lot of other courses I took before or after make much more sense. This may be because I'm in BioPsych so it was relevant to courses Neuroscience. Overall, I loved the course, material was interesting and Nurse does go really slow. His tests aren't easy though.

I would say, take this course if the material covered seems interesting to you. Other friends I know who took the course did not enjoy it as much as I did so it's definitely a personal opinion thing.

Hi Natalie, can u pls provide and up to date full review of Bio 3P03? Thanks

Okay sure I'll try to get a post up tomorrow!

does anyone know how difficult the tests are/
i heard Dr.Nurse's tests are quite brutual.....

Originally Posted by N.Cheng

Okay sure I'll try to get a post up tomorrow!

you forgot to post an updated review lol

bump, would like to hear a recent review!

Can someone provide an updated review?

Any one? Would appreciate it

I took this course with Dr. Nurse in the Fall of 2014.

The content before the first midterm was relatively easy, consisting of Nerst eqns, membrane and action potentials and just starting to get into voltage clamp experiments. Even within these simple concepts you had to know when to use the donnan equilibrium eqn, how to main osmolarity and electrical neutrality etc. I found much of it review, considering that I took LS 2C03 the year before where all of these concepts were covered. The first midterm average I'd say was in the high 70s. That being said, I scored in the 90s.. and I'm not the 'nerd' student. I scored well because of the other course I took, plus my AMAZING TA! (Natalie) and the practice midterm that Nurse himself posted. It wasn't hard doing well because concepts in the midterm were very similar to the practice. And if possible have Natalie as your TA. She explains the concepts SO WELL and really prepares you for the course.

Material for the second midterm was a little more difficult. I'd say more theory-based rather than formulae. The average for this one was slightly lower, 72%. Again, it's not hard to score well! My mark was in the 80s, but I could've done better had a studied earlier. There were A LOT of second messenger pathways to memorize... The second midterm wasn't cumulative and there weren't any formulae questions as far as I remember. But there was definitely a lot of memorization involved. So don't leave studying for this midterm to the last minute. There was a practice midterm given for this one as well.

The best way to study is with a buddy or group. By explaining to others, you'll be able to gauge how much you yourself understand the concepts. Study the tutorials as well, in a strange way they really prepare you for the midterms. I think a couple questions were relatively similar to tutorial questions. The midterms were largely short answers. But I hardly wrote like 4-5 sentences. There were True and False questions as well and definition questions. For both midterms we were strapped for time. I was ferociously writing till the very last minute, but there was just enough time to think on each question. I'd say maybe between 3 to 5 minutes per SA question. Use abbreviations like DF (Driving force), MP or Em (membrane potential), Eion (nerst potential for ion), g upper-arrow (increasing conductance), etc. to write more quickly. Use terminology connected to electrophysiology (ex. saying conductance increased rather than more ions were flowing..). I think for the second midterm.. I was barely writing full sentences because of time - I still got the marks though.

Tutorials had marks for participation and MC/SA pop-quizzes - each with maybe 3 to 4 questions (the first quiz was a repeated from a tutorial earlier on in the week). Definitely attend these.

Nurse as a prof is so clear in the material he teaches and he's definitely approachable to clarify concepts you don't understand. He stayed back with me and my friend, in the halls one day, for 20 minutes going over lecture material and reviewed them again the next day for the entire class. His lectures too have a logical flow to them which I loved. He's one of the best profs I had. Sit towards the front of the class and pay attention! Attend lectures (especially for the second half of the course)!!

I didn't use the textbook at all for the course, since my lecture notes were quite detailed.

The exam, I felt was a lot easier than the midterm, with more than sufficient time to complete (2 hrs). It was cumulative, but very little memorization. Review lectures, tutorials, practice midterms, the two midterms and Know the blockers for the VG channels! Again group study is the best way to prepare for this course! Email Nurse for concepts you don't understand; he was quick to reply even during the exam period. There's a FB group as well for this course and the TAs are pretty active, so you can get help from there too.

I ended up with an 11 in the course and this comes from an average student. I'd highly recommend taking this course and any course with Nurse! Sorry for the long review Feel free to mssg me for further questions!

I just finished this course with Dr. Nurse as well and I agree with almost all of what the above review said. I also took Life Sci 2C03 last year and found that a lot of the material for the first midterm was covered in that course, but I found that 3P03 tests your knowledge in a different way. It's probably the hardest biology course I've taken only because the emphasis is on application rather than memorization. I did average on the first midterm (mostly because I didn't prepare well enough, not because it wasn't fair or too hard) and I did really well on the second midterm. I found that the exam was much more difficult than the two midterms and it was worth 50-55% so your final grade depends heavily on the exam. Everything on the tests/exam was fair but you really have to understand the concepts and know how to apply them, especially for the exam.

Dr. Nurse is an amazing prof and explains everything really thoroughly and at a comfortable pace. He's very willing to answer questions in class and via email or his office hours. He can speak kind of quietly at times and his mic wasn't the best so it was kind of hard to hear but nothing too bad.

The tutorials were the best part of this course in my opinion. They really helped clarify the concepts taught in lecture and a few times Dr. Nurse put questions on the midterms that were similar to those found in tutorial so these are definitely worth going to not only for the 5% participation/pop quiz mark but also because they were extremely helpful in understanding how to apply the lecture material.

Overall, it's a really interesting course that tests your application skills rather than memorization. This obviously means that it's going to be harder to get an 11 or 12 but it's very fair and if you put the time and work in, a 10 or 11 is definitely manageable.

This course isn't being taught by Dr. Nurse anymore so if anybody took it last year with M.J. O'Donnell please add an updated review

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