Overview
Chemistry 1A03 covers basic assumed knowledge from highschool (bonding, gases, atomic theory, etc), electrons in atoms, periodic table trends, acids & bases, equilibrium, aqueous solutions and thermochemistry. This is a rather large first year class, so it's taught by 3 or...

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I remember I did VERY well on the first midterm, and then got approx 15% lower on the second midterm. I felt like the second midterm was awful when I was writing it, but my mark didn't end up being THAT bad and now that I've written many more midterms/exams, in retrospect even the second midterm was good.
To this day, I've never done as well on a midterm as I did on the first chem one. It was the best thing ever
The exam was pretty fair, though...maybe more along the level of the second midterm than the first. I do remember my friend telling me that a girl in her exam room was crying throughout the whole thing...but it really wasn't nearly THAT bad. They tend to focus much more on concepts than memorization, and I do infinitely better on tests like that

i think what kills everyone on the second midterm is acid/base. it can be a difficult concept for some, and if you don't understand it the first time around make sure you go for office hours / do extra questions until it's drilled in your head.

I was just wondering, what mark do we need in Chem 1A03 to qualify for Chem 1AA3. I am pretty sure I didn't do that well on the first midterm, and judging from comments it only gets more difficult. At this point, I'm terrified that I won't meet the minimum requirement to take 1AA3.

http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /CALEN...764.html#49205

It looks like you only need to pass to be able to take 1AA3.

A pass would be a 6/12?

Originally Posted by AngusLee

A pass would be a 6/12?

Pretty sure pass is 1?

Originally Posted by AngusLee

A pass would be a 6/12?

A pass is a 1 (=50-52), but a 6 or 7 is about standard for prereqs.

A pass is a 1/12. Goodluck !

pretty sure a pass is anything over 50, so 1 and above on the 12 point scale. a 6 = a C+

a pass is over 49% so over a 0

A pass would be 1/12. A 6/12 would be 67-69%. Mac's grading scale is not like 6/12 = 50%, its a range of marks. 0 is a fail, 1 is a pass. To stay at Mac, I think you need a CA of greater than 3.5 or something.

http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /calen...ent/pg145.html

Yeah I found the second midterm much harder than the first (for both 1A03 and 1AA3) but some people I talked to thought it was the other way around - the second midterm actually brought up their final mark. It totally depends on what you consider to be easy. The second midterm was all acid/base, salts, equilibrium, pH calculation- stuff that never clicked for me in 1st yr, but a lot of people somehow knew how to do intuitively :\

Just be sure to practice, practice, practice (tutorials and past year's midterms. Don't bother with the textbook questions). I think the average last year for the first midterm was in the fifties, and the second midterm in the low-to-mid sixties, but I'm not totally sure, I could be wrong.

I hated this course with a passion.... sooo glad it's done. First year chem sucks if you don't have a strong high school background (Not as in grades, but I mean actually having a gr 12 teacher that didn't skim over material/skip over entire units...) I'm in 2nd year orgo right now, and so far I'm finding it a lot easier than chem 1A03/1AA3, oddly enough. Maybe it's because everyone is on equal footing

Originally Posted by marcie

Yeah I found the second midterm much harder than the first (for both 1A03 and 1AA3) but some people I talked to thought it was the other way around - the second midterm actually brought up their final mark. It totally depends on what you consider to be easy. The second midterm was all acid/base, salts, equilibrium, pH calculation- stuff that never clicked for me in 1st yr, but a lot of people somehow knew how to do intuitively :\

Just be sure to practice, practice, practice (tutorials and past year's midterms. Don't bother with the textbook questions). I think the average last year for the first midterm was in the fifties, and the second midterm in the low-to-mid sixties, but I'm not totally sure, I could be wrong.

I hated this course with a passion.... sooo glad it's done. First year chem sucks if you don't have a strong high school background (Not as in grades, but I mean actually having a gr 12 teacher that didn't skim over material/skip over entire units...) I'm in 2nd year orgo right now, and so far I'm finding it a lot easier than chem 1A03/1AA3, oddly enough. Maybe it's because everyone is on equal footing

It's good to hear you're finding orgo easier, I heard it was really difficult! Well, everyone who walked out of the midterm on Friday said how easy it was, and I was just thinking to myself..."Wow, I thought it was pretty challenging." Now for the past few days I've been pretty upset/frustrated over the mistakes I made.

im actually hearting orgo right now

Well it is much easier than 1AA3 for sure. Enjoy!