Originally Posted by Buddastotle

okay, and is there negative marking at mac, for example: If you pick the wrong answer you get -1?

No negative marking in any course that I took, so guessing is always encouraged. The only exception is the written component questions in pretty much any test, where you can have the full correct answer, but say you ramble on and on and add stuff which is incorrect, and they may give you an X that counteracts a Checkmark. I hope that makes sense lol.

Originally Posted by dumbconsumer

No negative marking in any course that I took, so guessing is always encouraged. The only exception is the written component questions in pretty much any test, where you can have the full correct answer, but say you ramble on and on and add stuff which is incorrect, and they may give you an X that counteracts a Checkmark. I hope that makes sense lol.

actually there is negative marking for some courses, but it all depends on the prof. i forgot which course it was but on the midterm/exam if we made a mistake filling out our personal info on the scantron (so like ur name, student number, course code etc.) the prof said she was going to deduct 5 marks....dono if she was serious or not but well it was declared in class haha

Originally Posted by CAHopeful

did you take enviro sci 1a03? if you did, how was it? how did you do?

I took it this past semester. Not too exciting, very very straightforward. I got a 12. With Dr. Bernier, you go to class with his half empty powerpoint, fill it in while he explains some stuff. There's also online quizzes which may also draw some content from the textbook (you just have to look for the answers). The labs were short, one week assignments. You'd to the 'lab' which felt more like a tutorial and the TA explains what you need to do and hand in on the due date.

Midterm was some MC, definitions and SA. Not too difficult if you study the lecture notes.

Exam was basically the same format. Though Dr. Bernier did give us an outline to what content we could expect which was really nice. He has these end of lecture questions which he picks some of and puts on the exam.

If you're look for a chill course, this is it. At least with this professor. All the material was new to me and it gave insight into the theory about weather and climate.

Was one of the biology's easier than the other? Was one of the chemistry's easier than the other? Is PSYCH 1X03 an online course only? And is MATH 1LS3 similar to high school Calculus, easier? harder?

Originally Posted by jen-power

Was one of the biology's easier than the other? Was one of the chemistry's easier than the other? Is PSYCH 1X03 an online course only? And is MATH 1LS3 similar to high school Calculus, easier? harder?

My two cents.

Bio 1M03 was easier but far more boring. I got a worse mark because I found myself simply not wanting to put in the effort.

Chem 1AA3 was easier than 1A03 but that's because I'm good at Organic Chem and it was part (I think around 1/3rd) of Chem 1AA3.

Math 1LS3 is easier than high school calc because it doesn't have vectors. It covers some new material, but nothing you can't handle if you did alright in high school calc. My mark went up about 10% from high school calc to 1LS3.

What are you going to do if you fail to get into med school?

Originally Posted by djRAIN

What are you going to do if you fail to get into med school?

who are you asking that too? ever life sci first year? ... well i dono i never planned on joining that bandwagon (ok maybe i did for a while and then i got realistic)

... all jokes aside

if your going into life sci, from what i hear, most ppl want to go into med. in bio 1a03, and physics 1b03, and chem 1a03. our profs asked us how many of us wanted to do med. at least 90% from each class put up their hands. now imagine, some of these classes have 300ppl in them, and out of those 300 only about 10ish at most well get into med. so what do the other 96% of the medschool hopefuls want to do? well haha idk but i sure hope they have back up plans.

im assuming that a lot of them will either go into research or teaching. and even then there are a whole bunch of other careers out there of lifescis, bios, and chems, u just wont find them until ur out there in the workforce in 4 years time (or 8 if u do grad/phd or w.e)

Anyone here take the other enviro courses? Not the 1a03 one. And how are some med physics courses in first year?

Originally Posted by Silver

Anyone here take the other enviro courses? Not the 1a03 one. And how are some med physics courses in first year?

I heard the med phys course in first year was easy

Have you checked the course reviews for 1B03 and 1G03:
http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...tr=E&t=22 057
http://www.macinsiders.com/showthrea...tr=E&t=26 991

I'm gonna be in life sciences next year and am really interested in the environment, protecting wildlife, etc, so what courses besides enviro courses would be like that? Thanks for those links btw.

Originally Posted by jen-power

Was one of the biology's easier than the other? Was one of the chemistry's easier than the other? Is PSYCH 1X03 an online course only? And is MATH 1LS3 similar to high school Calculus, easier? harder?

I found that 1A03 Bio was easier, just because it was more of repetition of concepts from high school that we went into in great depths (i.e. mitosis, meiosis, macromolecules etc.)
be that as it may, I enjoyed biology 1M03 (about genetics, evolution & biodiversity) much MUCH more.

I found the chemistry courses to be of equal difficulty/easiness. haha. I liked orgo better in 2nd term and you have to do less calculations.

The calculus course was weeeeeirdddd in my opinion. I did not like it lol. It had some similar concepts from high school but also some new stuff. It was particularly aggravating for me because we used more of "ln" and "e" functions and less "x" variables when compared to high school. Unfortunately you actually need to keep up with your work... which I found to be really difficult for me since math is not a priority of mine... mind you the ONLY work i did for this course was look-over (note i did not say actually complete) the practice questions before the tests and exams and still managed a 10. So it is not that difficult (assuming you did well in HS math )

HOWEVER, i have to stress that for a lot of courses whether it was easy or not- or whether it was "review" -varies greatly from HS to HS.
I recall in my Chemistry class 1st term we did Quantum Chem.... and i had never seen it before in my life! lolll

Originally Posted by Silver

I'm gonna be in life sciences next year and am really interested in the environment, protecting wildlife, etc, so what courses besides enviro courses would be like that? Thanks for those links btw.

http://registrar.mcmaster.ca /CALEN...12/pg1525.html
thats a really good resource to look at for taking upper year courses-- it might be helpful if you look at some stuff on the course list and trace backwards to see if you need any first year prereqs and consider taking them to allow you to take more upper year courses on your program list (that is if you want H. Bio & Environmental sci)

& also so you know what courses you need for admission!

Is it a big deal regarding which computer system you get (Mac or Windows)? I know some of the programs for engineering only work on Windows (from what I heard), but I haven't found anything about Life Sciences. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but I was curious as to whether it matters.



(If you noticed my username changed to not having a hyphen, it's because apparently I'm not entering my password correctly and it's taking too long to send to my e-mail, so I just made a new one for now.)

Originally Posted by jenpower

Is it a big deal regarding which computer system you get (Mac or Windows)? I know some of the programs for engineering only work on Windows (from what I heard), but I haven't found anything about Life Sciences. Maybe I haven't looked hard enough, but I was curious as to whether it matters.

Well, I had Windows, but I didn't really use my computer for anything much. I mean, any computer work I had to do was online, so in the long run, it didn't really matter. And those online assignments are optional too, now, like Mastering Chem and WebAssign (for maths). So just go for something that you're more comfortable with.