Anyone who has taken Life Sci 3M03 (Cellular Dynamics) with Dr. Dej and Dr. DaSilva, can you please give me some insight about this course? Is it difficult to achieve 10+ and how is the workload? Thanks!

The tests were pretty tricky sometimes and the difficulty was mainly in the short answer questions. They were like a harder version of Bio 2B03's short answer questions.

There's a group essay you have to write at the end of the term which was a little annoying since you want to start studying for other courses, but it did help that you didn't have a formal final exam.

Definitely not a bird course. The tests require some extra thinking and application. Because of how picky the TAs could be (and were), I'm not sure many people got 12s.

Originally Posted by 5.98e24

The tests were pretty tricky sometimes and the difficulty was mainly in the short answer questions. They were like a harder version of Bio 2B03's short answer questions.

There's a group essay you have to write at the end of the term which was a little annoying since you want to start studying for other courses, but it did help that you didn't have a formal final exam.

Definitely not a bird course. The tests require some extra thinking and application. Because of how picky the TAs could be (and were), I'm not sure many people got 12s.

Is it similar to Bio 2B03 short answer questions? I found those questions fair.

And is multiple choice out of 30 and short answer out of 15?

My friend and I took the course last year. We both ended up with double digits, but the course is definitely not a bird course. HOWEVER , if your a fan of molecular biology, this course provides lots of insight into material which is not covered in molecular biology 3b03. Both profs not only teach theory, but many practical uses of imaging, and cell testing etc. It's very informative, and different compared to other cell bio classes I have taken.

There were 4 tests, and a research proposal. They took your best 3 tests. I found the tests to be relatively fair, aside from length of the test(usually very long for an hour test). It may be hard to achieve a 12 in the course, but 10s and 11s should be very possible to achieve if you put the work in.

I personally received a 12 in this course, but it definitely took a decent amount of studying and hard work in order to do so. As mentioned above, the course consists of 4 tests covering 4 modules, where your best 3 out of 4 tests are counted to make up 90% of your mark. The other 10% of your mark is derived from a research proposal/project, which also took a decent amount of time in order to do well. Below, I will describe each component of the course in more detail.

Tests (4 tests, where 3/4 count for 90%)
Each test was around 40-45 marks, and was divided into multiple choice and short/long answer questions. The multiple choice questions were pretty straight forward if you studied the material, but most people found the short answer/long answer questions to be more challenging, since it required you to apply the knowledge you gained in order to design experiments to answer specific scientific questions. At times, I felt very rushed since it took some time to think of an experiment, and what tools I would use to carry it out. I found Dr. Dej's tests to be a bit more challenging than Dr. DaSilva's, since her questions were more open ended, while Dr. DaSilva's short answer questions were much more specific, and could be answered by recalling the course content. For Dr. Dej's short answer questions, she would provide you with an outline of what she expects, such as the hypothesis for 1 mark, the experiment for 2 marks, the results and conclusions.

I took this course the past year as well and received an 11. However I agree with everyone else and it was by no means 'easy' to do so. It was one of the courses that I studied the hardest for. However, it was my favourite course and found I got a lot out of it.

The tests required a lot of thinking because they required you to design experiments. This is mostly challenging in Dr. Dej's part since her material was more content heavy (at least in my opinion). I recommend taking this course in place of advanced cellular biology but not as a bird course.

How is the research proposal for this class? Is it marked hard?