[Cristina_n13]

Physics 1L03 deals with physics and applications to biological systems. If you havn't taken grade 12 physics, this is the physics for you. It deals with measurement and estimantion, locomotion, forces, torque & balance, and sound waves. If you have taken grade 12 physics, this course won't be very hard.

Marking Scheme:
CAPA Assignments: 5%
Test: 15%
I-Clicker Quizzes: 5%
Tutorial Quizzes: 30%
Final Exam: 45%

Professor: Dr. Reid and Dr. Nejat teach this course. I can't speak for Dr. Nejat, but I had Dr. Reid. he was amazing, and made 8:30am classes go by pretty quickly with his fantastic examples in class. He dealth with most of the concerns on WebCT and would always answer questions promptly.

Textbook: Physics for the Life Sciences, Martin Zinke-Allmang, Nelson 2008. I didn't buy this textbook, and am very happy. No material from the textbook was tested on, and it was actually quite useless to the people who said they did use it. I borrowed it from a friend to do a reading and the whole time it talked about something like whales.. and I really couldn't understand the point of it.

I-Clicker Quizzes: You're required to buy an I-clicker for this course. The I-clicked quizzes aren't very difficult, you're allowed to discuss answers with your peers but you only have 2 minutes or so for each question. On top of that, at the end of the year, he takes out 5 of your incorrect answers, (out of 69 total answers)

CAPA Assignments: are assigned bi-weekly, they're not too difficult, and help in your understanding of the material a lot. A lot of the questions are discussed on webCT so it's not that hard to answer all of the questions.

Tutorials: Tutorials are ran by TAs. They're quite useful because the questions that you answer in the tutorials are very similar to both the test/exam and the quizzes. This is also the only place where you will have an opportunity to learn how to solve questions. Most of the time, the TAs don't get through all of the tutorial questions, if you attempt them and you can't figure it out go to your TA's office hours or e-mail them and they're responde to how you should go about solving the question. The tutorial quizzes are most of the time conceptual. They're out of 5 so 3 or 4 of the questions are conceptual while the rest (1 or 2) are calculations. You're given any equation you will need for the quiz at the end of the quiz. It's really easy to make a mistake which lowers your mark, but the quizzes aren't very tricky. On top of this, if you complete the diagnostic tests at the beginning of the year & end of the year you get an automatic 2% on your overall grade. (1% for each diagnostic test)

Midterm: There is 1 midterm for this course. It's worth 15% of your mark and there are 15 questions. It's actually not very hard, especially if you can go over the tutorial questions on your own. Some of the questions are recycled from previous years/semesters, so if you have friends ask them if they remember any of their questions and see if you can solve them. Overall, the midterm isn't too hard, but the average for it was about 67-68%. Most of the midterm questions are conceptual (just like the tutorial quizzes), there are only 4ish calculation questions.

Final Exam: The final exam I found quite a bit harder than the midterm. A majority of the questions were calculation questions. Some of the questions however came directly from the tutorial problems & CAPA. As long as you can do the CAPA problems and the tutorial problems and understand how to do them, you will do just fine.


Overall, Dr. Reid posted at the end of the year that most of the students recieved final grades in the As and Bs. If you've taken grade 12 physics it's not too dificult to get a double digit number, however if this is your first physics course, I'd highly suggest spending some time in the help center at Thode to get the gist of how to answer certain types of questions.

I never took grade 12 physics and still found the course to be very very easy. Both the midterm and exam have simple questions that require 2 or less steps to solve.

i can speak for dr. nejat, that man is a terrible, terrible teacher.

i didnt take physics in highschool, and apparently nejat doesn't know how to teach it, so i ended up teaching myself.

lol, if you get him as your prof, id suggest switching asap...

heavy accent and terrible/annoying teaching method

Originally Posted by zango

i can speak for dr. nejat, that man is a terrible, terrible teacher.

i didnt take physics in highschool, and apparently nejat doesn't know how to teach it, so i ended up teaching myself.

lol, if you get him as your prof, id suggest switching asap...

heavy accent and terrible/annoying teaching method

are u serious? first years phsyics 1lo3 is only taught by nejat? should i still take it?

I had dr. Nejat for this course. He was enthusiastic and everything but the material was so boring (doing sig figs for a month). I felt like I learned next to nothing in lectures but the tutorials were usually helpful (but seemed a bit too long). Text book was definitely a waste of money! What else.. CAPA is good practice but most people spend a whole lot of time on it and it's only worth 5% of your mark! There are around 5 capas too so they don't contribute a lot of marks. On the other hand, I found that I was not studying for the quizzes as much as I should have as they are worth 35 %. I wasn't really aware of the course break down (but that was my fault) so I ended up spending a lot more time on things that were not as important. So ya, make sure you remember that when planning your time.

Originally Posted by sinthusized

I had dr. Nejat for this course. He was enthusiastic and everything but the material was so boring (doing sig figs for a month). I felt like I learned next to nothing in lectures but the tutorials were usually helpful (but seemed a bit too long). Text book was definitely a waste of money! What else.. CAPA is good practice but most people spend a whole lot of time on it and it's only worth 5% of your mark! There are around 5 capas too so they don't contribute a lot of marks. On the other hand, I found that I was not studying for the quizzes as much as I should have as they are worth 35 %. I wasn't really aware of the course break down (but that was my fault) so I ended up spending a lot more time on things that were not as important. So ya, make sure you remember that when planning your time.

k so just manage my time accordingly. alrite, i feel better atleast. Im good enough with physics so hopefully i can get by.

are these tutorials mandatroy?

Originally Posted by twitterbird

are these tutorials mandatroy?

well yes, u dont have to go to it though. Its recommended u do though especially for something like physics.

so if you miss like one.. it wont affect your mark?

Originally Posted by twitterbird

so if you miss like one.. it wont affect your mark?

Well there is one quiz per tutorial and they make up a significant portion of your mark. These quizzes are based on tutorial stuff as well from the previous week.

Originally Posted by twitterbird

so if you miss like one.. it wont affect your mark?

I would try hard not to miss one. I think they were like 30% total of your final mark.

if you dont buy the text (since its useless) where are you going to get practice questions from?

Originally Posted by Jenn

if you dont buy the text (since its useless) where are you going to get practice questions from?

Usually tutorials. I think the questions from tutorials usually get posted online before midterms.

Yeah tutorial questions are sufficient practice.

Can u take Physics 1BB3 after getting a specific grade in 1L03? Like with Math 1AA3 and Math ILS3