BMS1011: BIOMEDICAL CHEMISTRY

15% small group sessions (7.5% from participation and 7.5% from SAQ)
10% Great Metabolic Race essay
15% mid-sem
60% end of semester exam

Overall impression and lecture content: The unit was really well run divided into 4 subtopics; organic chem, enzyme function, catabolism and anabolism. The organic section was basically VCE chem with some CHM1011 content thrown in, I found the overlap a nice surprise. Still surprised that BMS1011 doesn’t prohibit the level-1 chem units. The enzyme function lectures were short and pretty mundane, but Jackie was a quality lecturer. Catabolism and anabolism was by far my favourite block, Nirma knew her stuff inside out and was really approachable to the students. Unlike most lecturers, she bothered to tell you if a concept was examinable or not, even putting prominent yellow “Do not memorise” labels in her slides. Her teaching style was rather slow paced, preferring to check if everyone understands a concept before moving on. Her emphasis on understanding is what really made this unit stand out from the mostly memorisation-based biomed core subjects. It’s where we can truly develop transferable skills (logic reasoning) in a course whose employment opportunities are slim if one fail to get into med.

Small group sessions: They were all pretty chill, so expect full marks for participation (TA even gave out free lollies in the Friday morning session). However, your SAQ mark depends entirely on the TA you have. I had a really harsh marker as my TA (averaged 7.5-8/10), but I’m really grateful for him because this strictness helped me do well in the exam where all the choices were very similar and they were looking for a specific answer. He was really nice to talk to as a person and always gave out constructive criticism so that I’m averaging 9/10 for those SAQs by the end of semester. However, the subjectivity of this biochem course has turned me off doing 2nd and 3rd year units with the biochem department, because catering to the examiner’s specific wording requirements isn’t my thing (attested by my mediocre VCE bio score).

Essay: At the start of the year, the essay was supposed to be 1000 words ± 10%. It was later reduced to 600 words ± 10% for some reason. The whole cohort had trouble with fitting all the information from the catabolism lectures into the essay, where you’re required to identify and describe the metabolic pathways dominant at each stage of intensive exercise. I was able to do so by selectively including information and used the graphics we’re supposed to include to cram as much info in as possible. Be careful, the assessors are really strict on your spelling and punctuation. The only marks I lost were from failing to capitalise “NADH”, random typos here and there as well as too many subheadings. Many people did really well in this essay, despite the initial difficulties. If you have a question, you can ask on the Moodle forums and Nirma is happy to help to a certain degree, without giving away the answer. There’s a dedicated small group session where you can ask for help from your TA, even get them to look over it to check for accuracy (but they’re not allowed to give you any indicative marks). Due to my training from hell with the harshly-marked SAQs, my TA thought I wrote really well and he couldn’t find theoretical errors anywhere no matter how hard he tried.

Mid-sem: The mid-sem was exclusively on organic, nothing special about it except that it has 2 epic typos (eg carbon has 8 e-s when there’s no other correct option). These were removed in the final marking. Dumb mistakes really killed me on the mid-sem, since it’s only out of 23 after the typos were removed.

Exam: 3 hours for 75 multis. The exam was a curveball, I really like the application-based aspect of it as opposed to recall questions and it made the small group sessions relevant to the lecture content. Many questions were based on a case study of a metabolic disorder, while the organic and enzyme function questions were pretty stock standard. The provided data book of metabolic pathways was so useful for picking up easy marks, make sure you know how to use it effectively. There are also recall questions testing understanding on the specifics of several metabolic pathways, but nothing came from the slides marked “do not memorise”. I also witnessed some biomed toxicity when 5 minutes before we walked into the exam room, some kid was telling us that Nirma emailed him to tell him that the small group sessions weren’t examinable. I took it with a grain of salt. Since Nirma said earlier that everything is by default examinable unless otherwise stated, I studied the small group sessions and wasn’t affect by this, but some others walked out of the exam disappointed and mad at that guy.

Tanja Junkers
Jacqueline Wilce
Nirma Samarawickrema

No, loose exam style questions documents provided for each series of lectures

4 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

Many, didn’t really need to use anything

2 x 1 hour lectures
1 x 3 hour Small Group Session

2019 Sem 1

87 HD

-Small Group Sessions (19%)
-Directed Learning Activities (DLA) (4%)
-Professional Development (2%)
-Mid Semester Test (15%)
-Exam (60%)

The unit was subdivided into 4 sections (A,B,C and D). Section A –Structure of Biological Macromolecules consisted of 10 lectures, which was basically organic chemistry, along with a revision lecture. This portion of the unit was relatively simple considering I had completed MUEP Chemistry during year 12. For others chirality was probably the toughest topic for students to understand. The revision lecture consisted of the lecturer going through practice questions for the MST which were indicative of the MST difficulty. Ian made lectures relatively interesting (compared to other lecturers) by making nice links between the content and real life. We were told that for this section was predominately application based which it was; you were able to derive each answer logically. Section B- Proteins: Structure and Mechanism of Action was 6 fairly mundane lectures consisting of basically proteins and then more specifically enzymes. Lectures were boring however usually ended early. Section C and D consisted of 11 lecturers, this was definitely the toughest portion of the unit although the most interesting section as most concepts were related to everyday life or clinical situations. Section C consisted of metabolism of lipids and carbohydrates to produce energy. Section D was about the processes utilised when there was an abundance of energy e.g. gluconeogenesis. Any marks that I lost on the exam were most likely from the last 2 sections.

There were 6 DLA’s, these were small online quizzes which consisted of some MCQ ranging from roughly 5 to 10 or some fill in the blank style questions. We generally got a week to input our answers online however the questions were all available from day 1 in the workbook which was given during the first lecture but could also be found online. These were also quite straightforward to do well in. Most people would double/triple check (commonly known as collusion) with friends so it wasn’t uncommon for students to full mark all of them. Ironically the people who completed them early generally did worse because less information was out. For example, DLA 4 around a 1/6th of the cohort completed it before the content was covered in lecturers. The lecturers had a slight difference (NADH produces 2.5ATP not 3ATP) to what was learnt in high school so many people scored 0%. The unit coordinator was quite nice in then only counting everyone’s best 5 DLA scores, from the 6 DLA’s. As a result, each DLA ended up being worth 0.8% of the total unit grade.

An essay was a part of the assessment – being worth 8% and a word limit of 1500. My essay ended up being 1640-1650 (you can go 10% plus/minus). The Great Metabolic Race as they called it, was where we were required to outline the metabolic processes at rest, at 5 mins and 45 mins into a race. It was very easy to get all the details required (all can be found on the lecture slides or online), which were reactants products and the enzyme required for every reaction in the process. You weren’t exactly forced to speak about every reaction but I was able to fit it in. The hardest part was probably to decided where in your essay you wanted to mention certain processes. For me and most of my friends marking was very fair (if not lenient) with most people scoring 90%+. One of my friends got 100% so it’s possible. The essay was great to review section C of the lectures.

In a very similar style to the MST this was 75 MCQ’s in 3 hours. Most people left early after around 1.5 hours and at the end I think there were only around 20-25% of people left maybe less. Section A consisted of questions 1-14, Section B 15-37 and Section C/D 38-75. Sections A and B were quite straight forward. Section A being very alike to the MST, imo much easier and section B was fair if you had covered the specifics. Section C and D was a combination of application and memorisation of minor aspects of the unit. There were a few questions that I was 50/50 on but nothing unexpected.

-Dr Ian Fraser (Structure of Biological Macromolecules, 11 lectures)
-Associate Professor Jackie Wilce (Proteins: Structure and Mechanism of Action, 6 lectures)
-Dr Nirma Samarawickrema (Metabolic Release of Energy/Synthesis of Macromolecules, 11 lectures)

This was 25 MCQ’s although 2 of them had a mistake in them so ended up being out of 23. The average score was 76%. The practice questions available were indicative of the style and difficulty of the question in the actual MST so do those until you are getting them all correct. We had 45 minutes for the test and was more than enough time, I was able to do the test in around 25-30mins and then had enough time to check over.

Many of the lecturers utilised the Monash Automated Student Response System (MARS). This allowed the lecturer to put up a question for the audience and we could use our devices such as phone/laptop/tablet etc to answer the question. The lecturer could then choose to show us the % of students choosing each answer similarly it could’ve been a word cloud for our answers.
This unit also included a peer wise system where other students and yourself could create questions for the rest of the cohort – you need to create a question to see everyone else’s though. For exam revision Nirma created a document with around 30 of those question and IIRC she said 1 or 2 of them would come up on the exam although I didn’t see any on the exam LOL. Definitely my favourite of the 1st year, 1st semester core biomedicine units with no real major issues in my opinion and was a very smooth transition into university.

None. Although practice questions were available for both the MST and end of semester exam. We also received a list of questions that other students had created.

This was worth 2% of the unit grade and was just bullshitting a worksheet on what we could do to improve employability. I think I put down LinkedIn and some other stuff – but never created an account. From memory there was a lecture associated to this but I didn’t go – only glanced at the slides. I reckon almost everyone got 2/2 of this “assessment”. Even people who submitted late (although not recommended).

5/5

Yes, with screen capture.

Was basically tutorials which occur each week for 3 hours which included a worksheet or a class case study, although most weeks you could leave after 1 or 2 hours if you had completed the worksheet or the class had completed the case study. Each week of work is 1% other than week 11 where in which we completed an essay (outside of class) which was worth 8%. For worksheets, we could discuss answers with other students along with the tutor making it relatively easy to score well. The worksheets we had for Section A were quite good in covering the main concepts taught in lecturers. For section B the work was often too specific to be that helpful and mostly consisted of some MCQs and short answer. Section C and D often included clinical case studies which were very boring to get through. The marking scheme for this was 50% for participation and 50% for a MCQ sheet at the end (in exam conditions – although often broken). Keep in mind each case study is still only worth 1% overall. Each case study included heaps of questions and we would answer them for participation marks. These weren’t helpful for exam study. The MCQ sheet was regurgitation of the general idea of the case study and was doable if you had paid attention and were somewhat indicative of exam style MCQ’s.

-

3 x 1 hour lectures per week, 1 x 3 hour tutorial per week

2017, Semester 1

TBA

This unit was an absolutely splendid introduction to Biomedicine. It was well coordinated, without hiccups and the lecturers made the transition from VCE into Biomedicine smooth and enjoyable. I'll break the unit down into what each lecturer covered first and then I'll move onto the assessments.
Section A of the course is the Structure of Biological Macromolecules. This is covered neatly in 12 lectures and basically is a run through all of the organic chemistry you will have to be aware of within the unit. The first 6 lectures cover VCE content and hence why the transition into the unit is smooth since you're doing revision for a while. You'll go into to bit more depth about Equilibrium with a focus on the Biological aspects and implications. It is in the 7th lecture where you will cover Isomerism, which is a new, challenging topic. Really pay attention here because it forms an important part of the whole course and make sure you understand it well. Since you won't go into a lot of depth it may seem overwhelming, but to Patrick's credit he gives you everything you need to really master what you need to know. The suggested textbook doesn't have a lot of problems relating to Isomerism, so if you want practise I have an alternate suggestion. I used 'Organic Chemistry' by McMurry and this had many problems to work through that were completely relevant to the course. This was my little secret and I would really recommend seeing if you can borrow this textbook from a library. I owned a copy but it isn't worth buying for a semester. It helped me with the whole course and gave really good summaries about everything. Lectures 8-11 are VCE content but in more depth so you will cover things like Lipids, Carbohydrates and Proteins. You'll finally finish off with a revision lecture prior to the Mid-semester which is really worth going to. Patrick was a fantastic lecturer, he definitely knew his content and how to teach. On top of this he was really approachable and hilarious! He made going to lectures totally worth it and if you listen to his advice you should be prepared for the Mid-Semester adequately.

No past exams, but a few practise questions were made available on Moodle.

4.5 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry is necessary and definitely worth the buy. You may not use it a lot in this unit but it is essential for later units I hear, and besides, if you want more depth this textbook is designed for that. If you can't though, you will be fine. Introduction to Organic Chemistry by Brown and Poon is also recommended but it is really unnecessary and not worth spending your money on.

3 x 1hr lectures and 1 x 3hr tutorials per week

Semester 1, 2014

This is a good unit, pretty interesting and full of content. There is a lot to know, but assessment is done fairly and simply, so it's quite easy to score well. Tutorials are long, but often finish very early and you can usually leave as soon as you complete your work.

The unit is split into four sections:

No, but practice questions are available on Moodle prior to the exam.

3.7/5

Yes, with screen capture.

• Synthesis of carbohydrates - gluconeogenesis and regulation of blood glucose, synthesis of glucose by gluconeogenesis, relationship of gluconeogenesis and glycolysis.
• Substrates for gluconeogenesis - lactate (Cori cycle), pyruvate (glucose-alanine cycle), amino acids (protein digestion; muscles) and glycerol.
• Glycogen synthesis - role of UDP-glucose, glycogen synthase and glycogenin.
• Synthesis of lipids - fatty acid synthesis, palmitic acid, the malate shuttle as a source of NADPH for fatty acid synthesis, the pentose phosphate pathway as a source of NADPH for fatty acid synthesis and ribose for nucleic acid synthesis, ketogenesis and role of ketone bodies in long-term starvation.
• The Big Picture of metabolism - tissue specific metabolism

Section A is covered by the mid-semester test, and is therefore NOT on the exam.

The exam consists of 75 multiple choice questions, and is 3 hours long.

All lecturers are of extremely high quality, and are very enjoyable to listen to. All present their material in a very effective manner.[/list]

• Introduction to Organic Chemistry - Brown and Poon
• Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry, 6th Edition - Nelson & Cox
• Molecular Biology of the Cell, 5th Edition - Alberts et al.

None of these are absolutely critical, but Lehninger and MBOTC are extremely good texts and will be used in later units.

Semester 1, 2013

D