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Chem Bio 2P03

 
Chem Bio 2P03
Published by SciMania
12-17-2010
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Join Date: Oct 2009
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Chem Bio 2P03

Chem Bio 2P03 is a required course for Biochemistry and the Chemical Biology programs. It can also be taken by anyone else with 1st year chem. It's a requirement for pharmacy schools, which was the reason I took it. Initially I was dreading this course because math and chemistry were not my thing...but by the end things turned around.

It is taught by Dr. Kruse, and this was his first time teaching it so things were a little choppy. His lecturing style was okay but often you would need to read the textbook for clarification. He is a great professor and if you seek extra help he always is willing to explain and clarify.

There were 5 tests, each worth 20% and were non cumulative. So if you got a mark that you were happy with by the end of the term, you could potentially not have to write the exam.

The course was split into "modules", comprising of about 2 weeks of lecturing, followed by a midterm test. The tests were 16 questions, so each question was worth slightly more than 1% of your grade. The tests were initially difficult, but Dr. Kruse really wanted everyone to do well and wanted to help everyone succeed so he took feedback and made the next tests more doable and less challenging. Regardless, the test averages were approximately 67-70%.

The first module covered the 1st law of thermodynamics, the 2nd covered the 2nd/3rd laws, and then the 3rd and 4th covered chemical and phase equilibria, 5th kinetics and 6th advance kinetics. Essentially this course was an extension of 1st year chem, but more difficult.

The exam was split into 3 parts, and you had the choice of writing any part or none at all. Each part was worth 20% individually. So in the end you write 8 evaluations, each worth 20% and only 5 count towards your grade. This gives you the opportunity to potentially really mess up on 3 and still get a good mark.

This course is extremely flexible wrt the grading scheme, so you should be able to do really well. This year the lectures were slightly disorganized but things made sense once you seek extra help.

Most of the TAs from this course were useless, with very little knowledge, however a few were very helpful. Every week there are non-mandatory tutorials, in which one week you go over practice problems and the next week you go over a practice midterm. Practice midterms were provided for every portion and were extremely indicative of the real midterm.
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Old 01-19-2011 at 07:48 PM   #2
h9i9j9
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Basically agree 100% with what was said above....

Just want to add that my year (fall 2010), the course was rather disorganized. Although I found the course material very interesting, the way in which the course was taught was not optimal. The course involved a bit of math....which would be fine...but its 2nd year calculus math. As the math is required to understand the derivation and in the end use the result, it was rather hard for most of us to actually understand the material. This made the course one of those, "memorize these equations and kinda understand what variable was what" instead of one of those, "derive all the math and actually apply the equation" (which I'm pretty sure is what was implied when the course was made.)
In the end, the prof just dumbed down the questions so that there was little calculations and it was more conceptual. I feel this took a lot away from what the course could of been.
If anyone's looking actually understand the material more (ie. anyone who's interested OR has to take 3P03), I'd suggest taking calc III along with this course....
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Old 06-28-2011 at 09:02 PM   #3
nithla55
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Were there no labs in the course? only a tutorial that was optional to attend?
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Old 06-29-2011 at 07:01 PM   #4
s.ma
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thank you i was looking for someone to review this!!
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Old 07-05-2011 at 01:54 PM   #5
biochemer
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nithla55 View Post
Were there no labs in the course? only a tutorial that was optional to attend?
Nope no labs. When I took it 2 years ago, there were optional tutorials. But, we had assignments, that were due every week, and so tutorial was good cuz the TAs practically gave us the answers. 2 years ago the course was really poorly structured. This new structure could go either way, it may be used again, or scrapped and re-formatted. But my suggestion, go to tutorials...the TAs will help you with the practice problems.
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Old 08-05-2011 at 12:25 PM   #6
britb
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Anyone want to comment on the text (if there is one)?
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Old 08-05-2011 at 10:03 PM   #7
SciMania
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Quote:
Originally Posted by britb View Post
Anyone want to comment on the text (if there is one)?
not needed for practice questions, but MAY be useful if you need clarification on lecture material. there are practice exams and tutorial questions which are more than sufficient practice.

i found the text pretty useless.
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Old 08-05-2011 at 10:07 PM   #8
britb
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Originally Posted by SciMania View Post
not needed for practice questions, but MAY be useful if you need clarification on lecture material. there are practice exams and tutorial questions which are more than sufficient practice.

i found the text pretty useless.
Thanks. <33

12stupidchars
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Old 08-16-2011 at 11:09 PM   #9
nh007
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Does anyone have the notes for this course and would be willing to upload them? I wanted to get a head start on reviewing for next year.
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Old 08-21-2011 at 07:49 AM   #10
h9i9j9
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hmmm, although he did post the course notes on the internet, I doubt many people kept a electronic copy... Also, his notes might change from last year (as it was not exactly the most welcomed). sorry.
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Old 01-03-2012 at 01:35 PM   #11
littlebird88
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This course was interesting if you are looking to take something different (this coming from a life science student) and I found the textbook very helpful when it came to fully understanding the concept of what Professor Kruse was teaching. His lecture slides weren't very clear, and a lot of the equations given he would just read out in lecture and give a brief description about what it's used for. I would recommend buying the textbook not only for that reason but it does a good job of explaining concepts for other courses as well.
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Old 12-20-2012 at 04:20 PM   #12
naval23
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Do I need to know second year calculus for this course? I'm only taking Math 1LS3.
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Old 12-21-2012 at 01:05 PM   #13
khano22
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Calculus probably won't help. Its more about understanding concepts and plugging them into equations. There are not a lot of math proofs

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Old 12-27-2012 at 11:51 PM   #14
naval23
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Thanks. If I did well in Chem 1A03 and 1AA3, should this course be that difficult? I know the tests are more theory, so is the theory that much harder in Chem Bio 2P03 vs. first year chem? I've heard from upper years that this is a better chem elective to take if you don't want something too difficult.
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Old 12-28-2012 at 04:09 PM   #15
Alomar12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by brady23 View Post
Do I need to know second year calculus for this course? I'm only taking Math 1LS3.

No. One term of calculus is sufficient.
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