<p>Any hints, advice, etc on getting by in chem 1A, quizzes, labs, exams?</p>
<p>Its a time consuming class, but as long as you do the work and put some effort you can easily get a B. She is just a real ***** when it comes to getting an A because her tests are pretty hard, not like o-chem, but still really hard. I think the final for Chem 1A was the worst thing ever in my opinion. I never picked it up because when a test drops your grade by 8-10% it can never be good news. Ugh! Damn you soda and paint!</p>
<p>Midterms were alright if you put time into it. But I agree with calbear. **** that final. My middle A turned into a B. What the flying ****.</p>
<p>yo hand out chocolate laxatives to all the people in ur class before the final or sneak a few rats in ur backpack and release them a quarter of the way during testing. it will lower the curve mang</p>
<p>thanks for the advice im thinking about the rats</p>
<p>calbear2012: Many people in the past have argued that organic chemistry is in fact harder than general chemistry. Students have been previously exposed to general chem in a high school setting and/or the AP exam, and thus still retain much of that knowledge. On the other hand, organic chemistry is a brand new lingo that demands more out of the students. I won’t go into detail about Chem3A, but let’s just say that you will be spending twice as much time studying for the exams. Back to Chem1A with Stacy-just put in the same effort you applied in high school honors/AP chemistry and you should do fine. Remember that a big part of your performance freshman year comes from how well you adjust to a college surrounding, managing time, and avoiding distractions.</p>
<p>I don’t know everybody is different. My friend and I agree that Chem 1A was harder than 3A because it seemed that the exam questions for 1A where really strange and required a high level of abstract thinking. For me 3A was better as it was more straightforward, here is molecule now name it, do this with it, or change it and didn’t really trick you as much as 1A. Also I found 3A to be more fun since a lot of the questions were like puzzles making it better for me to learn and the curve also helps. I think for a lot people they find 3A difficult because of the large volume of material that is covered in lecture.</p>
<p>I think what really made 3a difficult for me was the fact that frechet just flew through the end. he went too slow in the beginning and then wanted to squeeze the end in, so whenever he gave examples he just went flip this, this goes away and yada yada there we go. next chapter. and at 8 am, i just can’t function that fast. the midterms, while straightforward, were definitely harder than 1a in my opinion. retrosynthesis is such a *****. 1a midterms really weren’t that difficult (except for multiple choice grr) imho, but the final was definitely a killer curveball while the 3a final was at least doable.</p>
<p>^I agree. He started speeding through things towards the end. Which is sort of understandable actually. I mean, we were supposed to have understood it the first couple times he went over it. That’s just how the class is supposed to be I think. He can’t keep going over the same topic every time he starts a new one. But I’m a slow learner, so I got screwed over by that.</p>
<p>Sooooo many reactions…</p>
<p>wait til you get to 3B 
if you’re taking it with vollhardt, he speeds through it even quicker… though his exams are really easy b/c they’re nearly identical to his previous ones. </p>
<p>and batman, good luck with bio 1a/1b, those are at 8am, including the midterms for 1a. idk if they’re webcasting this semester?</p>
<p>yeah, they decided to webcast 1A and 1AL. thank god.</p>
<p>I’m waiting to take 3B with pederson in the spring. good or bad idea?</p>
<p>it depends on the person - if you found synthesis, NMR, and memorizing tons of reactions easy, then vollhard will be easy. you have to basically memorize all the rxns (there are a lot more than in 3A).</p>