<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>Do any of you know how the chem lab practical will be like?
I've heard very negative things about it (i.e. everyone fails)</p>
<p>Thanks in advance</p>
<p>yeah i am wondering this too… ><</p>
<p>and does anyone know of the lab practicals are all the same for all chem 1b students or do they differ by ta?</p>
<p>The lab practicals are usually the same for all chem 1b students, because they are written by the course instructor and not the TA’s, but there are several versions, so not everyone gets the same one. The practical usually consists of 3-4 short experiments, followed by calculations. The short experiments are parts of full experiments you’ve done in lab throughout the quarter. And yes most people do fail, due to the time constraint and the amount of work you have to do in 2 hours, but the class is curved, so as long as you get a score above the mean you’re probably good.</p>
<p>Yeah, pretty much everyone fails. But it’s not as bad as it sounds because if everyone fails that’s still a decent grade after the curve. Most people “fail” because there’s not enough time to do all of the experiments, or don’t remember how to do calculations, or couldn’t get the experiment to work properly, OR you were unlucky and had spartan (and instructions aren’t given so you either remember how to do it or not).</p>
<p>There are no directions for spartan? at all?</p>
<p>just took it, it was really hard.</p>
<p>Instructions for Spartan will be very vague. Like create this molecule and record it’s blah blah and compare blah blah. Obviously you’re gonna have to remember how to constrain it, all the little steps and whatever (this was a year ago so it’s all a blur to me now).</p>
<p>heard the mean of the practical is 50 out of 200, is this correct?</p>
<p>Hm…that’s a lot lower than when I took it. But it really depends on how everyone in all of your labs does so you can’t really use past labs as a reference.</p>