Hey

I was wondering about tests and quizzes... do they occur sometime during lectures? Tutorials? Or do they even happen at all? I heard from my friend's brother who is in Business some unpleasant news that tests occur during weekends (which can be somewhat of a nuisance if I am commuting.)

If it helps, my courses are all science and math

Thanks

Hey Sinthusized,
Tests and quizzes usually occur during lecture. Occasionally your tutorials will give you either a scheduled or a pop quiz, those in tutorials are often very quick and only one or two questions. Any quizes that I had in tutorial only amounted to about 5 % of my final mark, if that. Tests in class are usually scheduled and are only as long as the class (usually 50 minutes) or if you're in a night class the prof will either give you the whole class or a portion of it to complete the test.

Exams will either occur in the class room or in an assigned room (Ivor Wynn Center is most common or large rooms like those on the first floor of the Micheal Degroote Center for Learning and Discovery... yeah a mouthful, we all call it MDCL). Sometimes you can have an exam on a Saturday but you won't have an in class quiz or the like on a Saturday because there are no classes on Saturdays.

Science courses last year had alot of tests on Fridays so get ready for that. Also, science and math courses usually have their tests at night.

You can have tests on Saturday if you're in engineering, I believe.

I wasn't in business, but I do remember people grumbling about how that faculty did tend to schedule tests on Saturdays sometimes. I was in science, and I never had one - but yes, first year chemistry tests traditionally are on Friday nights.

I was in Business first year.. and yes; if you take Economics (1B03 or 1BB3), your tests will be on Saturdays.

Coming from someone who just finished first year Science...
Biology and Chemistry tests are on Friday nights (since so many people are in these courses, Friday nights are the only time when there's enough space on campus to accomodate so many people writing at the same time). With 2 chem term tests, and 3 bio term tests (one of them being a lab test), that's 5 Fridays each term that you're going to have a test on. The plus side is (particularly if you're in res) that you're usually done by 9 or 930 at the latest, so you still have tons of time to get your weekend started on a high note
Calculus I had 5 tests, every other week, on Tuesday nights. These were only an hour long. Calc II had 2 tests, which were longer, but also on Tuesday nights (I think!).
Physics....I only took 1B03, but that had 2 tests, one on a Wednesday and one on a Thursday, but were only an hour long.
Psych I and II each had a midterm, one written in class, and one on a Tuesday night.
My elective was a social science, and that test was written during lecture time.

Basically, first year science has a ton of tests. I had one brutal week during first term, with a calc test, a physics test, a chem test, and all the regular lab and class work in one week. Unlike high school, when teachers might move tests around to accommodate tests in other courses, profs usually work around their own schedule when scheduling tests. It's during times like these when you realllyyyyy need to hope that your time management skills are at par (or work at getting them there! )

Oh....and quizzes are mainly done online (for bio and chem at least), and you have a set amount of time to complete them at your own pace before you aren't allowed to access them anymore. But there isn't going to be anyone to remind you when they're due, so it's usually a good idea to take a stab at them when they first become available, so that you aren't stuck struggling with concepts at 1145 when the quiz is due at midnight.

Business courses have the tendency to have tests on the most inconvenient night (the friday before thanksgiving) or tests on friday nights/ saturday morning.

Tests on Saturdays? awwww.

How early in advance do we have knowledge of scheduled test/quiz times? like a week or a couple weeks?

Hi! From what i remember first year most of my classes had the test/quiz dates on the course outline which they hand out first day of class. Or sometimes they just have a rought timeline on when a test will be written. And yes tests on saturdays are a big AWWWW...in addition to exams on a saturday night.

The worst 'pop quizzing' that should ever happen first year science will happen in any class you have to buy an iClicker for - they like to do little quizzes fairly often, but they are worth almost nothing ( so no penalties for wrong answers save embarrasment, since the answers usually go up right away ), and the only reason for these are as a teaching aide.

I found that physics tends to like to give them the most, and that they tend to be worth the least, so don't fear. They are there so you can know that you actually understand what is going on (since first year physics [kinematics] tends to involve deciding what a graph will look like, or a direction something will go, and it's really easy to get turned around)