<p>Is our whole entire grade in Chem 3A (lecture) dependant on the midterms and final? Is it also true that if your good at puzzles you are one up from the competition. A previous student told me that and I dont really understand what he means by that statement. So is this true and what does that mean?</p>
<p>For Frechet, Chem 3A was 100 for each midterm (2 total), and 200 for final, for a total of 400 points.</p>
<p>I think that being good at puzzles is helpful but if you’re good at puzzles but don’t know any of the reactions, it won’t be much help. For Chem 3A and 3B especially, you need to know all the reactions first and then be able to apply those reactions to create a compound. This is the hardest part for most people and this is where the puzzle skills can be useful.</p>
<p>So not only is it just as conceptual as Chem 1A, but there is also a lot of memorization @_@ Now I see why it is called a weeder class. I hear that his test are freakishly hard and that the curve is usually lowered…like a lot. Does anybody what the cutoffs where…seeing how the averages on his midterms are in the 50’s-60’s I would assume that they are substancially lowered.</p>
<p>Chem 3A is more conceptual than 3B. 3B was almost entirely memorizing reactions. If you understand the conceptual parts of 3A/3B, you will have less memorization to do.</p>
<p>I don’t think the final grades were released so its hard to determine the cutoffs. However, I would guess that if you score above a 70 on each midterm, you are in the A range. Above an 80 on each midterm, you are in the A+ range. So don’t worry too much if you aren’t doing too well in the class raw-score wise.</p>
<p>The most important thing is to understand why electrons move the way they do–this will be helpful in learning the various mechanisms as well as answering those “provide a mechanism for this rxn” type questions on exams. The puzzle skill probably won’t be <em>that</em> important for 3A; it mostly comes in when you do synthesis problems, which aren’t a big deal until the end of the course.</p>
<p>I don’t know too much about Frechet, but I just took Chem 3a with Pedersen and did really well. Key to success - don’t memorize, work on your problem solving skills and do a lot of practice problems. Practice is key. I sit in at the SLC drop-in sometimes and people tend to get overwhelmed by the amount of information that they feel they “need to learn.” In reality, you only need to know what the hell happens in ~10 mechanisms for the whole semester. </p>
<p>I dumbed it down, drew connections to the 4 base types of mechanisms and ended up with the highest grades for the first and second midterms. Best of luck with OCHEM :)</p>