Is more orgo prof even harder than normal?

[Jennyollio]

So I'm starting organic this semester. My professor gives absolutely no curves. It is also on a regular grading scale. Ex. 93-100=A, 90-92= A-. Exams have no multiple choice. Just wondering cause I'm pretty damn scared!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Schaden Freud]

Well he needs to make sure that most of the class passes. My bet is that he either will curve, or the tests will be cake.

So I'm starting organic this semester. My professor gives absolutely no curves. It is also on a regular grading scale. Ex. 93-100=A, 90-92= A-. Exams have no multiple choice. Just wondering cause I'm pretty damn scared!

 

[R.P. McMurphy]

So I'm starting organic this semester. My professor gives absolutely no curves. It is also on a regular grading scale. Ex. 93-100=A, 90-92= A-. Exams have no multiple choice. Just wondering cause I'm pretty damn scared!

I would take written over multiple choice any day (partial credit!)

 

[OofWillis]

I think O. Chem gets a hard rap. For me, gen chem was definitely a lot harder. In O. chem there is a lot of memorizing so if you struggle with memorizing vast amounts of information (especially with no multiple choice questions), you'll need to spend more time studying. If memorizing comes easy to you, I wouldn't worry too much.

 

[dfk]

i can't imagine that a class that may average well below passing (given law of averages regarding this type of class) will reflect well on the instructor. i had orgo with a prof that was supposedly the hardest grader, no curve, etc... worked out just fine, for me anyway, that he did curve (thank heavens !!!) and listened to our occasional whining and the like.. please let us know what prevails...

 

[Erina]

i actually really liked having no multiple choice in my ochem 2 class. it forced me to really learn the mechanisms and other material. plus, partial credit rocks

 

[sunflwr85]

i actually really liked having no multiple choice in my ochem 2 class. it forced me to really learn the mechanisms and other material. plus, partial credit rocks

Agreed. I survived on partial credit for free response questions in Orgo II! Our tests were a combo of multiple choice and free response, and the multiple choice were just evil - they could have more than one answer and if you either didn't pick all the correct choices or picked one that wasn't correct along with the correct ones, you didn't get any credit for the question at all. Maybe that's common elsewhere, but I've never had it before or after.

 

[zimmie256]

i can't imagine that a class that may average well below passing (given law of averages regarding this type of class) will reflect well on the instructor. i had orgo with a prof that was supposedly the hardest grader, no curve, etc... worked out just fine, for me anyway, that he did curve (thank heavens !!!) and listened to our occasional whining and the like.. please let us know what prevails...

Mine was just like this... We started with 22 people in the class, and were down to 9 by the end of the semester... People either failed, or dropped out because they knew they couldn't possibly/realistically pass. He never curved the exams, and they were only 50 min long with about 4 involved questions only. Which meant that if you forgot a critical part for even 1 question you were down to a C. I'm proud to say I survived, although it certainly did not do my GPA any favors... Despite that, I'm glad I took the class. He was very good at explaining material in lecture, and absolutely amazing in the lab... Moral of the story, work hard and just try to survive it...

 

[illixir]

If your professor has taught organic chemistry before even once, then his curve is based on experience. This means that he expects for the class average to be at a high 70 or so, this actually means that he is a very easy organic chem professor. First quarter, our professor had a similar grading curve to what you just described and it had to be because the average on his exams was an 80. A 92 was required to pull an A. Second and third quarter, the professors I had were much more difficult with the average on their exams being in the low 60's, and thus only an 84 or so was needed to pull an A. This is not a general rule, but in my experience thus the steeper the curve, the easier the professor generally.

 

[.surgical.]

Even if he "says" he won't curve, I'd argue that this means he won't let the class average fall below 70% on exams.

Non-multiple choice orgo isn't so bad. It will all be mechanism and synthesis problems most likely. This can be both bad and good. Good if you understand everything, bad because you can't guess.

Best of luck to you.

 

[DenimDanCO]

I had a similarly GPA-lowering experience...An A was considered 80% or higher. Good right? Not exactly.

The class average was a C-, which was in the 50s... A good mix of involved questions and shorter questions, but NEVER enough time to really get through it and feel confident. There were people who'd be in the 90s, and people who'd be in the 10s on every test. I was pretty shocked about it, and it really sucks when you work hard and do "ok" and you're still getting barely over half the test correct...messes with you psychologically for sure.

Bottom Line: Don't think about it...Like everyone has said, just try to survive!

Mine was just like this... We started with 22 people in the class, and were down to 9 by the end of the semester... People either failed, or dropped out because they knew they couldn't possibly/realistically pass. He never curved the exams, and they were only 50 min long with about 4 involved questions only. Which meant that if you forgot a critical part for even 1 question you were down to a C. I'm proud to say I survived, although it certainly did not do my GPA any favors... Despite that, I'm glad I took the class. He was very good at explaining material in lecture, and absolutely amazing in the lab... Moral of the story, work hard and just try to survive it...

 

[adam64897]

So I'm starting organic this semester. My professor gives absolutely no curves. It is also on a regular grading scale. Ex. 93-100=A, 90-92= A-. Exams have no multiple choice. Just wondering cause I'm pretty damn scared!

If you put in the reccomended hours that profs usually give you (~3 - 4 hours out of class/1 hour in class or about 10 - 11 hours per week), there should really be no reason you can't get an A in the class. In my experience it hasn't been that much studying to get an A in the last few semesters but for O. Chem, I am thinking it will probably take about that much.

Good luck to you!

 

[DrBowtie]

So I'm starting organic this semester. My professor gives absolutely no curves. It is also on a regular grading scale. Ex. 93-100=A, 90-92= A-. Exams have no multiple choice. Just wondering cause I'm pretty damn scared!

That's how my organic 1 was. 8 A's or A-'s out of 60 people.

 

[63768]

orgo was hard but good for me. i leanred how to not rely on multiple choice exams where the answer is there, you just have to find it. it'll be hard, i bet, but i don't think your prof is harder than normal.

 

[Writer1985]

My chem sequence started out with about 150 people and finished with around 40. Those of us who made it all the way through got to know each other really well.

Orgo's tough, no doubt about it. My prof would assign weekly problem sets that took about 30 hours to complete (I timed one once), and the exams were 3 hrs long and 18-20 pages with extra blank pages in case you ran out of room. Grading was unforgiving: the highest grades on the problem sets never broke 70%, and the class average on our second exam was 37%. It sucked. A lot.

So there we were all freaking out about our grades, and in the end she had to curve very heavily, so that an A was about 60%. A prof has to ensure that at least half the class (usually more) passes; otherwise the department starts asking uncomfortable questions.

Good luck in orgo. For two semesters, chemistry will be your life, but no class after that (until med school, maybe) will ever seem hard again.

 

[Jennyollio]

Unfortunately I know from talking to students retaking the class that no, he doesn't curve no matter what, and if you have a failing grade, you fail. I know like 10 people retaking the class from last year, and that doesn't include whoever I don't know!

 

[jackieMD2007]

Unfortunately I know from talking to students retaking the class that no, he doesn't curve no matter what, and if you have a failing grade, you fail. I know like 10 people retaking the class from last year, and that doesn't include whoever I don't know!

Okay, so switch professors or stop b!tching. What do you want us to do about this? There are plenty of people who take Orgo and have hellish profs (or profs that barely speak English and as such are completely unintelligable in other core BCPM competencies) and still do well.

Focus on your OChem. Get a tutor if you need one. Study. Do the best you can. STOP blaming the professor/curve/the weather/etc. The onus is on you to do well.

 

[DoctorPardi]

Unfortunately I know from talking to students retaking the class that no, he doesn't curve no matter what, and if you have a failing grade, you fail. I know like 10 people retaking the class from last year, and that doesn't include whoever I don't know!

Also take into account the authority of the people giving you this information. You're talking to people who previously failed or did poorly in his class. Maybe go talk to the people who passed and made A's?

So many times in college I have had other students tell me how impossible a professor is only to make an A and know several other people in my class who did as well. Frequently these people are not studying, are not doing the homework, and are trying to wing tests.

It may be the case that this professor is awful, but take into consideration that you're taking advice from people who did poorly.

 

[Zoom-Zoom]

I wouldn't worry too much about how it's graded. In my class, and classes before me, there were always enough students in the 90's to not really change the number of A's. But the distribution was scewed by the overacheivers, so the lower grades tended to be curved even though the higher grades were'nt (for example, a typical curve was A (90-100), B (75-90), C (60-75), D (40-60), etc. So, getting an A would probably require being in the 90's anyway. But, getting a B might be a little harder than your average B distribution.

And yeah, it's hard to write orgo tests as multiple choice. My tests were all conceptual questions, giving products, intermediates, reagents, etc. for a given reaction, syntheses, and mechanisms.

 

[salmanjafri]

Multiple choice questions for any chemistry class, whether general or organic, are killers. I'm a pretty decent test taker, and multiple choice questions have always hurt me. The thing about organic chemistry is that its kind of a combination between learning a foreign language and learning math. The best way to learn the material is to see it often (that means doing multiple problems every day), and to practice as much as you can. Practice especially helps for the synthesis problems.

 

[ERdok2b]

learning Organic Chemistry is all about memorizing. If you're good at it, you'll be fine.

 

[dfk]

Okay, so switch professors or stop b!tching. What do you want us to do about this? There are plenty of people who take Orgo and have hellish profs (or profs that barely speak English and as such are completely unintelligable in other core BCPM competencies) and still do well.

Focus on your OChem. Get a tutor if you need one. Study. Do the best you can. STOP blaming the professor/curve/the weather/etc. The onus is on you to do well.

that's funny. i had a real treat of a prof. he decided to, for the first time, do class differently, and stated to us on the first day: "there won't be any formal lecture. you can come if you want, and i can answer question if you have them. basically, here's your syllabus, do the work at home and come to "lecture" at your leisure." we were all like WTF. if i wanted a 'do at home' orgo, which isn't the best class to do at home, alone, in my opinion anyway, then i would have searched for one. to top things off, we all came to lecture the first class day, and he never even showed up. wasn't even in his office. we all waited 45 minutes, then went to the dept. head and told him. our next class, he said he got some interesting news, and that we only waited 15 minutes, and that he was there. what a bunch of BS !!! anyway, to say the least, he never missed a class after that. glad that's over. ended up with a B+.. whoo hoo !!