CHEM10006: Chemistry for Biomedicine

3 hour written exam 75%, Online Mid Semester Test 5%, Practical Work 20%, 3 x ILT (hurdle requirement)

This subject ought to have a motto, You love Chemistry? Yeah we'll see about that. Particularly for your first semester at Uni, Chemistry for Biomedicine was tough. The concepts are fairly easy to tackle. The subject, at first, seems like the natural extension from your VCE of studies. Thus, you are lulled into a false sense of security that lasts until the MST. You are expected to know everything. This is a very important thing to remember with this subject. Every little detail can pop up on the exam, whether it is bond angles/lengths, or the number of iron atoms in a ferritin molecule (I'm not even sure if that makes sense?)...you are expected to know it.

Practicals: These are pretty frustrating at times. There's a particular practical (I think it was number five) that is nigh impossible to finish in time, so that causes a hell of a lot of problems. Some of them are quite good, some are quite bad. It's a bit of a mix! Unfortunately, how you enjoy practicals tends to be based upon your demonstrator. Some of the demonstrators are absolutely fantastic (like mine Kris), though others are completely unwilling to help or provide any guidance whatsoever. The practicals form a part of assessment and are a hurdle requirement, so don't miss them. Some of them do not relate at all to the lecture content, so it is really important to do the preparation. You won't be pulled up for bringing in some of your report already written, so make sure you get a bit of a head start on that. You don't want to spend your time in the prac writing your reports. Follow the instructions about report writing carefully, and also pay particular attention to the marking schemes at the back. Your demonstrators should give you some idea about how they'd like the report to be written, though it is fair to say this was probably the greatest source of frustration for everyone—Merinda was particularly painful for this! The pracs are easy marks with the right preparation. They also don't seem to depend on how well you understand the lecture content either (as my prac results seem to indicate!)

ILTs: They are a hurdle requirement, though it is really, really important that you do them. Zumdahl's textbook is the most useful for these, or the interwebs will have lots of stuff to teach you how to do the stuff on the ILTs. Frankly, they are a gigantic pain in the arse. They do, however, contain a stack of examinable content (presumably what the lecturers deemed necessary to know but couldn't fit in the lectures) so make sure you do them properly. There are some ripper notes that explain all the ILT content floating around students somewhere, so make sure to get onto those if you can. I'm guessing they were authored by god they're that good.

Lectures: There's not really a lot to say about the Chem lectures. All of the four lecturers were pretty capable of teaching. Comparing to other subjects, they were actually all pretty good. Brendan was a stand out. He really made an effort to explain concepts and to actually teach. It's quite sad actually that his area is probably the least involved—that is, it's just heaps of rote learning. Spencer was a pill, though some people did like him. I can't say that he was a particularly bad lecturer, he was just overly pompous at times and had the annoying habit of trying to make his language as syntactically complex as possible (he also loved the word intuitively, which I presume was his nice way of saying OH MY GOD THIS IS SO OBVIOUS...it wasn't). David was fun and seemed like a nice guy. He had a bit of a grandpa quality, but I think that endeared him to most people. Personally, I found his lectures the easiest, so I didn't have any troubles with him. Though, there is a hell of a lot of rote in his cycles stuff (yes you do have to remember all the stages and the properties of all the chemicals). He also proves to everyone that, no, indeed we had no idea how to draw a Lewis Structure. If you're like me, you'll probably never know. Craig's not bad. Though his first lecture was just cruel, and I think that left a sour taste in most people's mouths. He redeemed himself a bit with his German accent though (you'll see). Essentially, you need to know all of the lecture content, so do make sure to go—they are actually well attended.

Tutorials: Go to these. The tutors are fantastic, everything is well organised and you will learn something.

The Bottom Line: as I hope you've noticed by now, I really didn't do all that well at Chemistry. I can safely say that this subject has completely turned me off Chemistry. Having said that, I do not despise it for doing so. It is a very strong example of how certain areas of study can change from VCE to university. There is a very strong emphasis on really knowing the facts. There's no need for a reference when it's in your head seems to be the way with a lot of things. If you're like me (and there are a lot sadly), you'll feel on top of things, until you sit down for assessment. You can feel as though you've done well, answered all the questions correctly and be really proud of that, then have the shock of your life when you've nearly failed that assessment. This is very much the way with it. Personally, I was too lazy. I didn't have the commitment or the interest to do the amount of work that you need to do for success in this subject. Some people love this subject, the other half are left absolutely defeated by it. It's certainly passable, but you'll be glad you're rid of it by the end—unless you're that brilliant percentage who managed to kick arse!

Yes with screen capture (the lecturers also tend to use the document camera for problems as well!)

Craig Hutton, Spencer Williams, Brendan Abrahams, Brendan McFadyen

Four past exams. Three with brief solutions. Last year's we had to post our own solutions to an exam wiki

3.5 Out of 5

Organic Chemistry (McMurray), Chemical Principals (Zumdahl). Unless you're suffering from insomnia, save your money.

3 x 1 hour lecture, 1 x 1 hour tutorial, 1 x 3 hour practical (practicals are not weekly, 6 per semester)

Semester 1 2013

65 H3

3 hour written exam 75%, Online Mid Semester Test 5%, Practical Work 20%, 3 x ILT (hurdle requirement)

The subject consists of organic chemistry in the first 6 weeks and then focuses on inorganic and physical chemistry in the last half of the course. I found that throughout the semester that chemistry was a bit of a drag. Whether it was because it was the 3rd lecture of the day and by 11am we had enough or just sometimes you question if you're learning anything at all. By the end of semester when I did my revision I started to realise that this subject is probably more enjoyable than what my impression throughout the semester. The exam is actually pretty straightforward and the lecturers tend to recycle their questions but tweak it a bit. But there re always one or two tricky questions as always! The exam varies from year to year but the recent trend has been approximately 50 multiple choice questions and 5 extended answers.
For me personally practicals were boring and draining. Since chem for biomed is a mixture of science's chem 1 and chem 2 we only do 6 of the 12 experiments that they do. Honestly probably only one or two related to the content that we were learning. Most of the time we just wanted to hand the damn lab report up and get out of there. A tip for future biomed kids is to prepare for pracs by writing a procedure (if it's an organic synthesis reaction) or just drawing up the tables or a pre written results and discussion etc. It will save you plenty of headaches.
We have 3 ILT tasks that we complete and they're fairly simple. 3rd ILT was the most difficult since it involves learning completely new content - properties of solutions. Google and Zumdahl textbook are your friends. One multi choice from content in each ILT will be on the exam. The lecturers themselves were very passionate about what they taught and usually made it fairly interesting. I think the only criticism that I have is sometimes they did start ranting on about something pointless that was unrelated to chemistry but other than that they were very clear about what they were teaching. Chemistry is a fairly hard subject to teach so I think they did a decent job. A word of warning is to learn pretty much everything they teach. I know for a fact that myself and many others became complacent with this subject and didn't pay attention to Professor Abraham's material but it is all vital for the final exam. e.g. carbonic anhydrase, ferritin, siderophores such as enterobactin, transferrin etc. He does give a list of stuff we need to know for the exam which is nice of him . Tutorials aren't compulsory and you get solutions to the tutorial problems before MST and during swotvac for revision but it's in your best interest to go since you do learn a great deal and the tutors usually go through how to answer problems. Overall the subject has been pretty enjoyable and the workload really isn't a lot. A lot of the content we cover come from VCE units 1-4 witha slight extension but you get 3 hours in the exam which is more than enough time to do well in.

Yes, with screen capture

Craig Hutton - Organic Chemistry
Spencer Williams - Organic Reactions and Carbohydrates/Sugars
Brendan Abrahams - Redox reactions and electrochemistry, Solubility (Henry's Law, Solubility Product), Transition Metals, Metal Proteins David McFadyen - Main group chemistry, acid-base chemistry, DNA chemistry and intermolecular forces

We were given 4 past exams. 3 of which had brief solutions. The most recent exam (last year's 2012) had no answers but instead an exam wiki was posted on LMS for students to contribute to and lecturers went over all answers in a 2 hour tutorial during swotvac

4/5

Organic Chemistry by McMurray and Chemical Principles by Zumdahl are prescribed texts. You definitely don't need either one. Biomed only has one semester of chemistry in first year so it's definitely not worth the money. If you want them on pdf they are available to torrent online but you'll rarely ever look at it anyway. Also required to buy(or print out) tutorial workbook and buy the lab prac manual. Safety glasses or goggles and a lab coat needed in all pracs.

3 x 1 hour lectures per week, 1 x 1hour tutorial per week and 6 x 3 hour practicals throughout the semester

2013 Semester 1

H1

A 30-minute on-line mid-semester test (5%); practical write-ups from labs (20%) and a 3-hour written exam (75%). Must pass labs and ILTs to pass the subject.

Personally, I really enjoyed this subject. I found it interesting and it wasn’t one of those 100% rote learning subjects. Some people found it challenging but I think it’s only a small step up in content difficulty from VCE chem. I think it’s just that there is double the content to learn in half the time so you have to be organised with your time.

The lecturers for this subject are quite good and enjoyable to listen to. The subject coordinator who took the orientation week presentation was horrible and monotonous so thank god he didn’t take any subjects. (A/Prof Hutton’s New Zealand accent amuses me. Dr. Williams reminds me of Dexter from Nickelodeon. A/Prof Abrahams reminds me of Tweedle-Dee or Tweedle-Dum. A/Prof McFadyen mentions “Prof Abrahams” once a lecturer so I think they’re BFFs. #irrelevant)

Simple VCE chemistry things like significant figures and unit conversions often pop up in ILTs, the MST and the exam. One of the ILTs had questions that were completely irrelevant to the exam but it was pretty easy to get by reading the textbook or just Googling. ILT content is examinable and there is at least one question related to molality or the freezing/boiling point change stuff, which A/Prof Abrahams mentioned only 22% of the cohort got that question right in 2010. There was also these ChemCAL tutorials that are unassessed but recommended but personally, you don’t need them and they are a waste of time.

Heaps of people disliked pracs because of their demonstrator but I got a great demonstrator who was very helpful with questions so I found it quite easily to score highly in the write-ups. (Just a heads up, you lose marks for getting a lower-than-expected boiling point.) Tutes are not compulsory but I found them helpful.

Yes, with screen capture.

Craig Hutton, Spencer Williams, Brendan Abrahams, David McFadyen.

Yes, exams with solutions available from 2008. Also, there are answers for relevant questions in exams prior to 2008 but I couldn’t find the questions. Perhaps in the Ballieu library as hard copy?

5/5

Prescribed texts are McMurry’s Organic Chemistry and Zumdahl’s Chemical Principles.
I bought both books but, in hindsight, I didn’t really need them and wouldn’t get them again. I only used Zumdahl for the last ILT with content that wasn’t taught in the lectures but that stuff is easily Googled. The lecture notes are enough for the exams; the textbooks were more for if you enjoyed chemistry and wanted a more thorough explanation for some things. These books come with the molecular model kit that can be brought into the exam if bought together at the book shop. But really, it’s fun to play with for 5 minutes but otherwise useless and unnecessary.

3 x one hour lectures per week, 1 x one hour tutorial per week, 6 x three hour lab/workshop throughout the semester, 3 x ILTs.

2012, Semester 1

H1 (94)

There were aspects of this subject which I really did not like. It is meant to be a biologically focused fusion of Chemistry 1 and Chemistry 2. Whilst the lecturers tried to put a biological focus on the content, a lot of the time they just went off on pointless tangents. At the end of the day this subject is still chemistry so be prepared to learn stuff that in the eyes of many is unrelated to biology. What annoyed me the most was the amount of content which was left out of the course. As they are trying to teach first year chemistry in only one semester, they have to chop bits out, which I really didn't like. I feel as if I have learnt some half baked version of chemistry. Topics such as Entropy/Gibbs free energy, instrumentation as well as other important aspects went completely uncovered. I don't really feel as though I can say I have properly learnt first year chemistry. Moreover, if you are planning to sit the GAMSAT, you are going to have to learn the topics which they have left out yourself.

On the plus side, it is nice to get the chemistry requirement out of the way in one semester for some. The assessment for this subject was very fair. Many people complained about chem pracs being boring and unrelated to the content which was often true, but at the end of the day, it is a very easy way to pick up 20%. The mid semester test being conducted online was annoying as there was a lot of collusion between students. But it was very easy to prepare for by completing some of those pre-2008 exam multi choice questions. Save the other exams for later on if you can. The tutorials for the subject were well run, and the tute content well-prepared you for the exams. Answers to tute problems were made available for download towards the end of the semester. The faculty also offers several help classes run by tutors/lecturers in the Chemistry Library which I highly recommend you get down to and ask questions. Try to go early in the semester because it will not be busy, so odds are you can sit down with a tutor for like half an hour and they will just be able to help you out. As the exam period approaches, it gets very busy and you have to wait a long time for help, so don't leave all of your questions until then. There are also online tutorials which you can complete which help to reinforce the lecture content. I think they are okay and worth doing if you have the time, however they are somewhat outdated so a lot of the content in them is not relevant. They are certainly not necessary.

The lecturers for the subject were decent. It is pretty hard teaching a subject like chemistry, and I think they did a good enough job. Professor Abrahams was particularly good. He was very sincere and gave a list of content to revise for the exam. The exam itself was pretty fair. It consisted of 50% multi choice questions and 50% short answer questions. It was however by far the longest exam this subject has ever had. The content was not difficult, but it was a very long exam so you had to work fast.
Although I would have liked the subject to be more complete in terms of a first year chemistry course, I think it was a pleasant change to the type of content covered in VCE. Whether or not you did well in VCE chemistry is irrelevant in this subject, as well as in other first year chemistry subjects. So work hard and you will do well![/list]

Yes, with screen capture.

A/Prof. Craig Hutton, Dr. Spencer Williams, A/Prof. Brendan Abrahams, A/Prof. David McFadyen

Yes. All exams since the subject commenced in 2008 are available. Solutions were provided, but they did have errors. Exams for pre-2008 versions of the subject (Chemistry for Biomedical Sciences A/Chemistry for Biomedical Sciences B) are also available if you are very keen.

3.5/5

The lecture notes are more than sufficient to do well in this subject. Early on I read the recommended texts (Organic Chemistry 6th Edition by McMurry and Chemical Principles 6th Edition by Zumdahl), however in hindsight this was a waste of time as they often went into far too much detail. I ended up focusing on the lecture slides only. The textbooks were occasionally useful for some additional problems or an explanation/definition here or there, but IMO still not worth buying. Also, unless you really struggle with visualising molecules, you probably don't need the Molecular Model Kit. You are premitted to bring it into the exam, but who has the time/patience to stuff around assembling molecules in that type of situation. You are required to either purchase or download the practical and tutorial manuals and will also need a lab coat and safety glasses for pracs.

3 x 1 hour lectures per week, 1 x 1 hour tutorial per week (commencing in week 3), 6 x 3 hour practicals throughout semester

2011, Semester 1

96% H1