<p>How do you get an A in his class when he is known for giving unseen questions on the final?</p>
<p>what do you mean by "unseen" questions?</p>
<p>and btw, isn't the class on a curve? that would be how you get the A...</p>
<p>memorize the book.</p>
<p>Haven't you read some of the reviews on bruinwalk about Lavelle throwing complex problems on the midterm that no one has seen or are those reviews not credible.</p>
<p>And memorizing the book is a little too much</p>
<p>i have to memorize a book...... i have to memorize parts of dead economists essays... and there is NO curve. UCLA sucks.</p>
<p>Damn...that's a *****</p>
<p>like one of the posts suggested on bruinwalk: "you have to make love to the chem book day and night," and you'll get an A." :rolleyes:</p>
<p>You fools...try getting an A in Lin's Chem 20A class. Our masochistic idea of fun is to derive the two time-independant Schrodinger equations from his original equation or maybe calculate the wave function for a particle in an infinite potential well.</p>
<p>Whoop de doo.</p>
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i have to memorize a book...... i have to memorize parts of dead economists essays... and there is NO curve. UCLA sucks.
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<p>Wait...you think that this is different at other top schools? :confused:</p>
<p>(the thing that sucks is that i have an upcoming math class that goes over that)
i hate hate loathe despise my major.</p>
<p>edit: i dont care how it is at top schools, i never wanted to go to a top school, i guess i am just not passionate about my education.</p>
<p>dont worry about those curve ball problems. just take your best stab at them, but most people probably wont get it right either. getting an A doesnt mean you have to get 100% on everything (though that would defnitely help). you just need to do a couple notches better than everyone else. especially in chem, where the class averages for exams are usually in the 60-70% range depending on course/professor. </p>
<p>just study study study study and do many many many practice problems. this will help because you might come across a practice problem that is similar to a curve ball the professor might put on the test.</p>
<p>
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i guess i am just not passionate about my education.
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<p>That's fine. Just don't try to turn this into a "UCLA sucks" sorta thing, because that's not fair either.</p>
<p>yah, i dont like it, i am leaving at the end of this quarter. Should be intresting.</p>
<p>omg i had lavalle for 14b. the final was the hardest test i've ever taken in my life.</p>
<p>study? Practice problems from book? office hours?</p>
<p>iono, I have 14A w/ lavelle this quarter but the material doesn't seem hard. It's just the problems themselves taht are hard and im hoping doing the practice probs will perpare me?</p>
<p>well, its definitely better than not doing practice problems. :D</p>
<p>anyone here know the curve for chem14A? i'm feeling desperate. how many get A's and how many get A-'s?</p>
<p>isn't it 20% A/A-?</p>
<p>or maybe that's the math dept policy..</p>
<p>I don't know this particular instructor but let me chime in anyway ;) </p>
<p>First off, a hard test can be your friend. It's hard for everyone, not just you. The better you've really mastered things, the better you'll do relative to the class. A hard test is better IMHO than losing a few points on an easy test to a simple mistake and having that cause your grade to slip. On a hard test you'll still lose a few points for those simple mistakes, but if you've shown you're grasping the concepts you'll be getting points that those who can merely regurgitate what they've seen before will not. </p>
<p>Second there's the matter of what these curve-ball tests are preparing you for. I know its more comfortable to have a grading system where the expectations are laid out in advance, you know exactly what will be asked, and your score of 90 or above shows you did quite well. But the real world (eg. your job) won't be that neat and clean when you're vying for raises and promotions. Often expectations for what you're supposed to do are vague or change mid-stream, the criteria for success or failure isn't well explained, office politics plays a role, and so does blind luck. The person who can roll with the punches, handle the unexpected, and marshal what they've learned in novel situations is the one who gets ahead. Think of it this way: later when you're faced with some tough situation you'll be able to think back and say "if I could handle Lavelle's tests, I can handle this!"</p>
<p>Third, have you gone to office hours and talked over your concerns with him? Not in an accusatory "hey, why do you give unfair tests!" way but simply explain that you've heard that he likes to ask new questions and how he's seen students in the past successfully prepare for his tests. You're not sucking up, and you're not trying to get tipped off to what he'll ask. You're simply asking about methods and strategies you can use, and college is about learning after all.</p>
<p>did u guys find the midterm hard? I thought some of it was really hard some of it was pretty fair.</p>