<p>well, the chem 21 tests are largely multiple choice, and that is a pretty common class for people going into sciences/pre-health</p>
<p>but anyway, i had focus first semester and it was easy. my chem 23 grade was a B, although i would probably have gotten a B+ had my lab TA not screwed me (lab grades are supposed to be normalized, and my lab period averaged a B+ while other TAs' averaged A+'s, which is important when lab is worth like 20% of the grade). and i feel like i didn't do too much work. i got A's in my other classes, went out on weekends, played a club sport that traveled. given, i had an easy schedule and might be taking 2-3 "hard" classes next semester (econ 55, math 103, a bio or chem class) and it will be more difficult, but i can pick up my work ethic to make it manageable.</p>
<p>Arti: I'm slightly confused about how the lab grade screwed you over? The fact that the grades are normalized and that your TA grades harder should have added points to your total whereas some other TA sections would have seen their point total subtracted from. That should have helped you instead of hurting you? I remember my Chem 23 lab TA was a fairly hard grader and my lab section needed to add a few point while friend's TA was an easy grader. My friend got completely screwed because they had to subtract a lot of points.</p>
<p>Yeah- the grade you see on Blackboard with your lab grades isn't the grade that factors into your final average. The Blackboard sites are maintained by individual TA's. Before finals we submit our grades to the lab managers who then figure out what to add/subtract in order to normalize. The TA's have no idea how many points are added/subtracted from each students grades and they are never updated on Blackboard.</p>
<p>Yeh, I think Arti is just a little confused as to how lab normalization works in the chem department. (I would always prefer a hard lab grader to an easy one)</p>
<p>well this is quite a late response, but anyway...yes, i know lab grades <em>should</em> get normalized, but the problem is that i'm pretty sure they never were (and i have very good reason to believe this, but it would take a while to explain, and i don't think anyone actually cares). point is, the lab grade i refer to was the one on the blackboard page put up by the lab manager, NOT the blackboard site maintained by the TA, and i don't believe it ever got normalized</p>