CHM1011: CHEMISTRY 1

10% Weekly pre-workshop quizzes
5% Tutorial assessments
30% Lab assessments
55% Examination

Overall impression: Personally, I found this unit to be average in enjoyment, perhaps it was due to all the labs being reduced to a short video demonstration or the lack of face to face interaction with the teaching of content. Thinking that doing well in VCE chemistry and my overall chemistry knowledge would suffice for this unit and consequently failing to summarise content each week was a huge shortcoming on my part. Although, the final few topics were very much tied to VCE chemistry, the initial weeks, especially quantum numbers felt intimidating at first glance, though during revision, I found my apprehension to be misplaced. I highly recommend posting on the forums and maximally using the available resources such as attending PASS and perhaps if understanding the topics is still difficult, going to Khan academy and Crash course.

Pre-workshop quizzes (10%): Multiple choice, 10qs, unlimited time, 2 attempts
I found these relatively easy to full mark, especially given that there are two attempts and if I remember correctly, the second attempt contained the exact same questions. However, they definitely were a pain, some weeks had a ton of pre-workshop content, that you’re likely unfamiliar with. The concepts took me a while to understand, let alone grasping which particular equation applies to which question. Some questions were directly from the internet, so it definitely didn’t hurt to search each qs up, given there’s no time limit. These quizzes were essentially testing condensed pre-readings for the workshops, but I found it so annoying that the recorded workshops simply went over the same concepts with an added few questions and rarely some added content. Though I found these to be boring (the 2x button helped), they are useful in solidifying and applying your knowledge to the problems given. Make sure you don’t fall into the trap of never watching the weekly workshops due to the lack of content testing after the pre-workshop quiz.

Labs (30%): includes Pre-lab quizzes (2%): MCQ + SA, out of 5 marks, unlimited time, 2 attempts
Lab reports (3.15-5%): MCQ + SA + discussion and conclusion (350 words), out of 45 marks, unlimited time
Each lab was presented with a video demonstration, discussion slides, a Q&A video and its corresponding pre-lab quiz. The pre-lab quiz tested some key concepts as well as identifying the aim of the experiment and these were relatively easy to full mark, if you understood the concepts and read the corresponding experiment background and outline from the lab manual. The lab reports consisted of two main sections, the first being MCQs and SAs of the overarching concept as well as calculations and excel graphs related to the given results and the second section being a discussion (300words) and a conclusion (50words). Beware! These are due at midday on Monday and as a result of having a HD in the art of procrastination, I used to stay up the entire night, trying to rush these while also wanting solid results.

Tip 1: Try to allocate your lab session with the TA closer to the middle or the end of the week or whenever you are likely to have already completed your pre-reading and pre-lab quiz for that week’s lab. This will give you some time, to check out the qs in the lab report and find out what you need more help with and ask the TA about the difficult areas.
Tip 2: The art of writing perfect discussions and conclusions, is to give exactly what they want (listed above the discussion in bullet points, in the lab assessment. There’s no need to summarise the entire concept or be too wordy, I tend to start with:
1.If the aim was reached – yes or no – why – link to possible errors (written later)
2.The results gained and if possible, the margin of error compared to the literature value in the lab manual
3.The answers to the dot points, they “recommend writing about” (my TA used to mark us based on these – maybe ask them what their marking structure is during the zoom session)
4.Errors and improvement – not necessary unless they had a high chance of affecting the results
-Be direct with your writing as the word limit is sometimes tight and for the conclusion, simply state the aim and if it was accomplished and the accompanied results.

Tutorial assessments (5%): MCQ + SA, 40 minutes, 15-23qs, 1 attempt
These were the typical numerical questions requiring application of the equations and tests the concepts of the previous week (only 3 tutes for 3 corresponding weeks for this semester). I recommend attending the tutorial zoom session each week, they go through the tute sheets and explain the working out for each qs, I got lazy halfway and had to complete all the tutorial sheets during revision. I also encourage attending the PASS sessions and attempting their qs as well, to make sure your knowledge is solidified, during these you can also form separate study groups with peers in the breakout rooms. The PASS website also has a lot of links to videos and additional practice qs if you need it.

Exam (55%): 50% multiple choice and 50% long answer qs, 2 hrs and 10mins, open book and non-invigilated
My revision for this exam consisted of redoing the tutorial and PASS sheets, attending the SWOTVAC zoom sessions by the unit and the one by PASS. The mock exams were relatively representative of the exam, but the time limit does creep up on you especially when you’re nervous and some of my peers didn’t complete the exam. There were a couple of qs based on some random workshop video which sort of surprised me in a bad way and I had to reserve some precious time at the end to find (as it was open book), watch and answer the qs based on the video.
Tip 1: kind of a seemingly obvious yet important tip, have a periodic table and a formula sheet printed out and taped in front of your computer during the exam and assessments.
Tip 2: Ask for help! Seek out peers, FB group chats, PASS leaders, tutors, forums and lecturers; a variety of knowledgeable people that usually get paid to help you. I didn’t do this as much and I really should’ve reached out, especially when certain topics took me multiple YouTube videos to understand.
Goodluck!

Dr Sara Kyne (Unit Coordinator)
Assoc. Professor Chris Thompson
Dr Toby Bell
Professor Alan Chaffee
Assoc. Professor Katya Pass
Professor Bayden Wood
Assoc. Professor Jie Zhang

No, 2 mock exams provided

3.5/5

Workshops and complementary videos (including a demonstration) for labs were recorded, tutorials and lab discussions with TAs were only through zoom and

Chemistry Blackman et al, 4^th Edition – an online copy (2^nd ed) is provided

2 x 1hr workshops weekly
1 x 3hr lab
1 x 1hr tutorial weekly
Approx 1-1.5hr online activities

2020, Semester 1

87 HD

10 x 1% pre-workshop quizzes
2 x 2.5% reflective self evaluation quizzes
30% from all labs
55% end of semester exam

Overall impression and lecture content: As a biomed student, I initially picked this physical chem unit as a form of complimentary GAMSAT tutoring and as a bludge unit (no 4-hour CHM1051 labs and super similar to year 12 lol). I must say that this unit really blew me away because it’s taught nothing like high school. Chris was literally Morpheus from The Matrix, proving almost everything we learned about atoms in high school as inaccurate generalised models. His teaching style was really innovative with a bunch of interactive analogies and thought experiments. Under him, the Chinese puzzle that was atomic physics/quantum mechanics suddenly became a breeze. It was because of his teaching that I decided to major in chem with my electives to become a high school chem teacher should I fail to get into med. I later found out that he’s heavily in education research, so I’m planning on doing CHM3990 with his research group as a part of my major. I stopped going to workshops after his section finished in week 4, because the subsequent workshops were not so interesting, however still solidly taught with relevant example problems.

Pre-workshop quizzes: Really easy to full mark, some exact solutions can be found on Google but make sure you understand the concept yourself first.

Self evaluation: I have no idea why this is an assessment. Basically it lists all the learning objectives in the course so far and asks you to honestly say how confident you are in that topic from a scale of 1-5. You won’t be penalised if you say you’re feeling unconfident in something, but they do ask “choose 2 so that we know you’re reading everything”. I ain’t complaining about free marks though, easiest 5% of a unit grade I’ll ever get.

Labs: The first few weeks were pretty mundane with a Lewis drawing dry lab and a chemical techniques circuit. It was my TA’s (Alex) first year as a demonstrator and he was pretty lenient on the lab marking. He was really supportive of the kids in my group who didn’t do chem in VCE, while also catering to my preferred pace, so I’m definitely taking cues from him for a potential MTeach. There were IDEA experiments in 2 labs where we had to design our own experiment, I usually came up with a pretty comprehensive plan before the lab. Our self designed calorimetry and iodine clock experiment both failed epically, but we didn’t get penalised in terms of marks since we did a good job explaining the unexpected results. I must also mention that some labs like the iodine clock use concepts not yet covered in lectures, but it really trained my independent learning skills and I encountered no issues in understanding the theory. The last week was a TEKE (thermodynamics, equilibrium, kinetics, electrochem) experiment where we have to observe a bunch of weird reactions and get assigned randomly to do a presentation on each one. Luckily my group worked relatively well and we pulled the highest mark in my group with 43/50, while many groups failed. Our reaction was the coloured cobalt complexes one and unfortunately for us, the relief TA who was assessing us did his honors in cobalt chemistry, so we couldn’t get away with any BS at all.

Exam: 2 hours for 120 marks SAQ. The sample exams were really indicative of the content on the actual exam. I’d even say that the real exam was easier than the practice ones because it didn’t have any of the harder questions that the lecturer had to explain in detail in the revision lectures. The lecturers also drop big hints on what’s going to be on the exam in the SWOTVAC revision lecture, so make sure you get all the intel you can.

Toby Bell
Chris Thompson
Kellie Vanderkruk
Philip Marriott
Alan Chaffee
Bayden Wood

No, 3 sample exams provided

5 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

Blackman Chem, digital copy was given to us for free

2 x 1 hour workshops/lectorials
1 x 3-hour lab
1 x 1 hour tutorial (optional)

2019 Sem 1

96 HD

Examination (2 hours): 55% (must achieve 30% to pass the unit)
Laboratory Work: 30% (must achieve 50% in this to pass the unit) There is 1 lab per week, about 7 regular labs and 1 TEKE Experiment.
Pre-workshop Quizzes: 10% (each quiz is worth 1% and they are graded)
Reflective Quizzes: 5% (Yes, they grade your reflection.)

Coming from a non-chemistry background, however having studied VCE Physics, I found this Unit to be particularly challenging in the beginning. If a small bridging course had been provided prior to the beginning of the Unit, I feel as if I'd be more inclined to say that I enjoyed the unit. The content is quite interesting. If you are particularly motivated to do science, please hold on to that motivation as this unit will destroy it for you if you don't. I found that Labs and the Workshops did not align content-wise which made it extremely difficult to sufficiently type up a Lab report without knowing or understanding the background Chemistry behind it. It became extremely annoying having to learn two completely different things from different ends of the course, although in the end some of the knowledge from the Labs helped when working through the content to prepare for the Workshop/Lecture.

What is interesting is the pre-workshop quiz is due on the Monday the week of your workshop. (i.e. Pre-workshop Quiz for Week 3 must be completed by Monday 9 am in Week 3) and this would be great and all if your workshops started on Monday and finished at another time. But considering they have Monday/Friday workshop pairings, or Tuesday/Friday workshop pairings, you spend your entire weekend working on next week's content whilst also trying to revise last week's content. The lab reports and pre-lab quizzes (not graded, but must be completed to gain access to the lab) must be completed about 30 minutes before your next lab.

The coordinators of this Unit are (supposedly) quite keen to better the Unit. It appears this is the first year they are teaching the content in this order, however the second year they are teaching in this style and though I quite like the amount of contact hours there are, it gets tiresome having to constantly teach yourself content that was supposed to be taught to you during Workshop hours. In a sense, you learn the entire week's content before appearing in a workshop, to which (depending on the lecturer) they may expand, or it may be a complete waste of your time.

The tutorials are not compulsory, but worth going to since they are your only source of knowledge of what may or may not be on the exam as they provide exam-like questions and some lecturers do spill on how the exam is structured. They put the question sheets onto Moodle so perhaps it isn't quite as necessary to attend. You remain clueless to what could possibly be on the exam until Week 10, when they put up 1 Mock Exam. I'm sure in Weeks 11&12 They will try to put up more.

I've heard content wise it is similar to VCE Chemistry excluding Valence Bond Theory & Molecular Orbital Theory. I feel as if they could convey the information in a much better way than they have, but for now I put in extra hours of study and attend free PASS tutorials (run by students who got a HD in the unit) in hopes of getting a sufficient grade.

Dr Toby Bell
Dr Christopher Thompson
Dr Kellie Vanderkruk
Professor Philip Marriott
Professor Alan Chaffee
A/Professor Bayden Wood

No, apparently it is university policy to not hand out past exams. Instead, they have mock exams available from Week 10.

2 out of 5

Yes, with screen capture

Chemistry 4th Edition by Allan Blackman is the prescribed text. I touched it like once and may use it for revision. It came free in PDF form, so no need to buy it.

1x 3hr Lab (compulsory every week)
2x 1hr Workshop (must have 80% attendance)
1x 1hr Tutorial (optional)
The compulsory pre-workshop study turns your 6hr week into a 12hr dedication to chemistry.

Semester 1, 2019

TBD

10 x online quizzes (10% total)
Before the start of each week, we were required to do some pre-reading in preparations for the week's lectorials. The pre-readings also each had an associated quiz (which was assessed for weeks 2-11). These were relatively straightforward, and you can do relatively well on them provided you take the time to read through the relevant notes. Each quiz was worth 1%. Post-lectorial quizzes were also available at the end of each week, but these were not assessed.

5 x tutorial assessment (5% total)
Assessed tutorials typically ran every second week, and involved a 20-minute worksheet, completed in table groups. Afterwards, our tutor would then go through the answers to the questions. Each assessed tute was worth 1% each.

8 x laboratory assessment (30% total)
There were 8 laboratory exercises throughout semester. The first 7 were mostly experiment-based, and required some assessed pre-lab work before you came in to class. Be sure to read your lab manual and do the pre-lab before you come in, so you know what you'll be doing (also you won't be let in if you don't do the pre-lab ). The actual lab time involved conducting the experiment, and collecting data/results. After each lab, a templated lab report was to be submitted via Moodle before the next lab class. The final lab assessment was a bit different, and involved us presenting a poster (as a group) about one of many short experiments which was performed by the demonstrator the week before.
Lab assessment was a hurdle, with a minimum overall mark of 50% for the lab work to pass the unit.

End of semester exam (55%)
The exam ran for 2 hours, and covered all weeks equally. You are allowed a scientific calculator, which must have an approval sticker. The exam was also a hurdle requirement, with a 30% mark required to pass.

This is probably one of the most popular first year science units at Monash, with a massive cohort. It is a prerequisite for higher level chemistry units at Monash, but surprisingly, it is not a prerequisite for CHM1022 (Chemistry 2) in semester 2.

This year was also the trial of a newly structured first year chemistry course, so you might notice a few differences if you read past reviews (e.g. my CHM1022 review from last semester, and others). In terms of assessment, there is now less weighting on tutorials, only pre-lectorial work is assessed, and lab work submission is via a Moodle quiz (rather than you having to print, fill out, and scan a proforma). In terms of classes, the lectorials have adopted a more blended learning approach, with group activities embedded into the lectures (all the lectorials were held in one of the new blended learning lecture theatres in the new LTB). The teaching staff have definitely tried to make this unit more engaging, and I noticed lecture attendance was much higher this semester (even towards the end of semester) .

There were four different lecture streams, with each lecturer teaching for four weeks each. Some lecturers were also tutors.

Weeks 1-4: Structure of the Atom | The Periodic Table | VSEPR Theory | Valence Bond Theory
- Dr Christopher Thompson
- Dr Toby Bell

Weeks 5-8: Molecular Orbital Theory | Gases & Intermolecular Bonding | Chemical Thermodynamics (2 weeks)
- Dr Kellie Vanderkruk
- Prof Philip Marriott

Weeks 9-12: Chemical Equilibria (2 weeks) | Chemical Kinetics (2 weeks)
- Prof Alan Chaffee
- A/Prof Bayden Wood [unit co-ordinator]

None, but three mock exams (with answers) was made available on Moodle.

3.5 out of 5. A few kinks which needed to be fixed, but overall a good level 1 Science unit.

Yes, with screen capture

Per week: 2 x 1 hour lectorials, 1 x 1 hour tutorial, 1 x 3 hour laboratory class

Prior to each week's lectorial, we were required to complete some pre-reading, and complete a short, assessed quiz. The lectorials themselves usually involved the lecturer talking and/or performing a demonstration for about half the time, and allowing the other half for students to work on questions in groups.

The tutorial structure varied depending on the tutor. Some tutors liked to summarised the week's content, while others preferred to jump straight into the set of questions for that week. Answers to the questions were available on Moodle the week after. There were also assessments every second week or so during tutorials (see below).

The laboratory classes are exactly what they sound like - they involved you doing experiments (either in groups or individually) which were somewhat related to the content taught in lectures, under the instruction of a demonstrator. For these, you must supply your own safety glasses and lab coat (the chemistry department usually sells them relatively cheap during O-week, or the Monash bookshop also has them). If you forget to bring either, you can rent one (at a cost) from reception.

Semester 1, 2018.
This unit is only available in Semester 1.

Not yet available

Lab: 20%
WILEYPlus Assignments: 5%
MOODLE Web-tests: 15%
End of Semester Examination: 60%

Yes, from 2007-2011

5/5

Yes

CHM1011 Lecture Notes from Monash Bookstore (didn't buy)
Chemistry 2nd ed by Blackman et al (didn't buy)
Chemical Principles, the Quest for Insight; Peter W. Atkins , Loretta Jones (the textbook for Pharmacy)
Introduction to Organic Chemistry; [William H. Brown, Thomas Poon

3x 1 hour lectures
1x 3 hour lab

2012 Semester 1

92 HD

Yes, plenty of years

4.5/5

Yes

(per week)

2012 Semester 1

91 HD