- Joined
- Jul 5, 2013
- Messages
- 16
- Reaction score
- 0
Hi all,
So, I am a non trad taking a summer intensive gen chem class. It's 30 weeks of gen chem squashed into 9 weeks at a well known university.
The first midterm I got a 94, but today was the second midterm and I was completely destroyed (don't get grades til monday). I'm pretty upset about it. I am confident most people had a rough time so there will be some sort of curve, but I realize that I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and recover on the final. I've never failed anything in my life and it feels terrible. I feel very overwhelmed right now. But, I need to pull myself out of my pity party and do better next time.
I studied so much for this test. I studied the entire 4th of July, and I study/do lab/commute/go to lecture 14-16 hours a day every weekday. I study 10 hours a day on the weekends. It's not as if I just didn't put the work in. My homework was flawless.
I can do basic titrations, redox reactions, solubility reactions, limiting reagents, gas law, etc. However, we have integrative questions that combine around 10 principals together, and they were very, very tricky. I failed to break them down properly and I didn't do well on the midterm. I got thrown off my the crazy integrative questions and lost my focus for a time and wasn't able to finish all of the multiple choice.
Our first midterm wasn't nearly this challenging, and this was a very rude wakeup call.
It sucks to do poorly on a midterm when there's only 3 tests in the class (2 midterms - 22% each) and a final (46%) and 3 quizzes (about 10% of grade). The final is in 1 week.
The rub is that obviously this class is very compressed and mastering concepts in a few days (or A day) is hard enough, but I having enough time to get comfortable with the concepts to the point where you can integrate a whole bunch of them together is another animal.
How do you get comfortable with these integrative problems when there's nothing like this in the book and you only have a finite time to study? I am starting to see a tutor this Sunday, but I am all out of ideas. Any books/resources?
Sincerely,
A stressed non trad premed
So, I am a non trad taking a summer intensive gen chem class. It's 30 weeks of gen chem squashed into 9 weeks at a well known university.
The first midterm I got a 94, but today was the second midterm and I was completely destroyed (don't get grades til monday). I'm pretty upset about it. I am confident most people had a rough time so there will be some sort of curve, but I realize that I need to pull myself up by my bootstraps and recover on the final. I've never failed anything in my life and it feels terrible. I feel very overwhelmed right now. But, I need to pull myself out of my pity party and do better next time.
I studied so much for this test. I studied the entire 4th of July, and I study/do lab/commute/go to lecture 14-16 hours a day every weekday. I study 10 hours a day on the weekends. It's not as if I just didn't put the work in. My homework was flawless.
I can do basic titrations, redox reactions, solubility reactions, limiting reagents, gas law, etc. However, we have integrative questions that combine around 10 principals together, and they were very, very tricky. I failed to break them down properly and I didn't do well on the midterm. I got thrown off my the crazy integrative questions and lost my focus for a time and wasn't able to finish all of the multiple choice.
Our first midterm wasn't nearly this challenging, and this was a very rude wakeup call.
It sucks to do poorly on a midterm when there's only 3 tests in the class (2 midterms - 22% each) and a final (46%) and 3 quizzes (about 10% of grade). The final is in 1 week.
The rub is that obviously this class is very compressed and mastering concepts in a few days (or A day) is hard enough, but I having enough time to get comfortable with the concepts to the point where you can integrate a whole bunch of them together is another animal.
How do you get comfortable with these integrative problems when there's nothing like this in the book and you only have a finite time to study? I am starting to see a tutor this Sunday, but I am all out of ideas. Any books/resources?
Sincerely,
A stressed non trad premed
Last edited:
