People keep on saying that it’s difficult to get As in Chemistry at Vandy. What is so challenging about it? I mean, the textbook seems to be covering relatively basic material.
Our hometown valedictorian from 2 yrs back- a smart girl - got D’s in chem last year, essentially burying her dreams of med school. Apparently there was a killer curve - a plethora of gunner students snatched up the few A’s at the top while everyone else was curved down. At least, that was her mom’s take on it.
The course is curved, meaning that the majority of students will not get As, regardless of how difficult the material is.
I didn’t take the course but my I recall friends complaining that questions were intentionally tricky and that free-response grading was not very generous.
The questions are designed to trip you up if you’re not careful. The MC/matching/TF etc sections are also worth a lot of pts (100 pts total, each MC is 3pts and so each question is 3% no partial credit) so it is very easy to lose points fast.
Apparently (according to Todd), in year before me, 33% of people got an A/A-. Honestly I didn’t think it was too bad.
How are the tests structured? (ie. are they entirely multiple choice? etc.)
Also, how much of the book work and online problems are included in the test? (ie. some or most?)
Thank you!
It’s the tricks/subtle things: I’m looking at one from f2014 and it has some of the oldest tricks in the book such as asking a basic question that first involves a unit conversion not explicitly mentioned or asking students to calculate “blah blah blah” of a reaction being described in a word problem while not writing the reaction out, but instead requiring the student to write it out and balance it before “plugging and chugging”. Initially you may look at the problem and be lost because, unlike in HS and AP, they don’t necessarily write out the reaction, but only kind of describe it and then tell students what they want. You have to be careful…and yes, a huge chunk is MC/matching and T/F, about 56/100 points…you have to be on point. I also see one very annoying trick where in one of the matching (or is x greater than or less than y), it seemed like they expected students to memorize the relationship of heat capacities between two substances (water and Iron- I suppose people are supposed to know that water has one of the highest heat capacities?) and then right below it in an free response problem, they give away that water’s is much greater than Iron’s, essentially giving the answer to the question above (which fell within the 56% for which there is no partial credit!). None of the free response problems were overly tedious or difficult, but a couple just had those issues I mention, where if you don’t recognize to do “x” first, then you won’t really get the problem right in many cases and in the “write and balance first” case, even be able to start. Be sure to look out for stuff like that and I bet you’ll be fine. While a little annoying, it doesn’t look like they are trying to have low averages. If you are well practiced, I imagine people will generally have more problems with the 56%. If a concept or detail is foggy…best of luck and there will be no partial if you screw it up.
@Nerdyparent : No surprise…very common scenario in gen. chem at elites and always disappointing.
They actually give you a lot of the formulas so it’s less memorization and more knowing concepts (I think there is something that explains the water/iron thing but I can’t remember specifically). The tests come with an equations sheet with a bunch of formulas, values, and a periodic table but they don’t include those on the pdf that they post.
@Daisy246 A lot of the concepts on the homework are included on the exam. The recitation problems (which they make you do because it’s included in your grade) are also very helpful in terms of preparing you for the exam. Some problems on the exam are formatted very similarly to the questions on the hw/recitation.
Exams are MC, >/</=/?, TF, and free response
Good for Daisy and students taking the class I suppose, but the free response still needs to be approached with caution. You have to look at it and figure out if there are any additional steps before plugging and chugging. I’m sure this throws folks off.