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SpottyGlassware

SpottyGlassware

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I got my first Orgo 1 test back today and I'm really frustrated with myself. I practiced lots and thought I had a pretty good handle on the material, but I made lots of small errors that added up to a lower grade than I would have liked. Things like drawing the lines wrong in a chair cyclohexane (even though I understand the concepts and normally wouldn't do that), forgetting to include pi bonds when talking about which orbitals interact in different bonds, using wedge-dash notation instead of planar pentagon notation... Little, stupid things.
Luckily, I still have (barely) an A in the class and hope to study more (and change a few things about the way I'm studying) and pull it up, but this is not the way I wanted to start out. I'd love it if anyone had actual advice on how to avoid this in the future, but I feel like it boils down to, "Be less careless." I just had to vent to someone. Kind of sad that this is my first post... :(
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I sympathized up until you revealed that you still have an A.

Chillax bro
 
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Test Remorse should be a real condition. It happens to everyone and its good of you to blow off steam - there's really not much more to do than that. Silly mistakes can only be fixed by more practice questions imo - perhaps you made these mistakes during your practice. That or your practice didn't cover the topics involving silly mistakes enough. Either way, pragmatic thing is to practice more and not live in the past ! This is very normal :)
 
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If you do more practice problems you can get out of bad habits and turn your A around and maybe even get an A by the end of the semester, or at least raise it slightly for an A.
 
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No matter how hard you try, you'll probably always make a dumb mistake or two. I just spent about 30 minutes reviewing our MS2 kidney test before I clicked to submit it, trying to ensure I hadn't done anything stupid. Then I submit and discover I carelessly misread a question about "lowest to highest blood flow in the nephron" as "highest to lowest blood flow in the nephron"...and still got an A. The moral is, nobody is perfect, and we're all always going to make small errors here and there even when we've been practicing physicians for 30 years, but your pursuit of perfection and the gnawing anguish you feel after making such an error will push you to be as successful as you can be and at least help you minimize these errors.
 
You should be able to get rid of those spots with a heated conc. NaOH solution.

Double check your work and watch your score go up in the future.
 
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Imma start a thread to vent about how people call O-Chem "orgo".
 
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Go here:

http://orgchem.colorado.edu/Examarchives/3311.html

Then go here (its for chem majors and much harder) this is the cherry knowledge you need:

http://orgchem.colorado.edu/Examarchives/3351.html

Yes. Spend 1-2 hours extracting out the information which you guys are specifically covering. Screen shot, paint program --> word file.
Your file will be 40-70 pages depending on your class and exam. Probably more. Because mine was averaging 50 pages and it was summer so less material.

do every practice problem you can here and your class. an A+ you get.



Wade book for organic chemistry. kinda old so really cheap. The back of the book problems are SOOO good. My professor pulled some tricks from there. The kind of tricks that he said "stops hundreds of students"

When you get to HNMR :)sick::yuck::blackeye:) dont take this section lightly.
Luckily that website also has practice problems for it !

http://orgchem.colorado.edu/Spectroscopy/Problems/index.html

Good luck !! :cat::cat:
 
Gosh, I really wish I could relate, but I've never gotten anything less than a 98. I'm sorry to say, but, your medical career is over.
 
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J Senpai said:
Imma start a thread to vent about how people call O-Chem "orgo".
Click to expand...
Thread title:

"Why do people call organic chemistry Orgo? Seriously, it's not orgonic chemistry, there isn't a single O that follows after the first one. I'm losing my freaking mind here."
 
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Cpt Ahab said:
Thread title:

"Why do people call organic chemistry Orgo? Seriously, it's not orgonic chemistry, there isn't a single O that follows after the first one. I'm losing my freaking mind here."
Click to expand...
... Good point. :happy:
 
Cpt Ahab said:
Thread title:

"Why do people call organic chemistry Orgo? Seriously, it's not orgonic chemistry, there isn't a single O that follows after the first one. I'm losing my freaking mind here."
Click to expand...
But what about Oxygen
 
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Haha, okay, I may have been a little dramatic earlier. I'm a chemistry major and am used to getting high grades in chem classes, and I know the material is only going to get harder from here. Part of my disappointment is that I messed up on the easiest test. I'll definitely be tweaking the way I study; I kind of slacked off until the week before the test because I was worried about another class.

NotASerialKiller said:
If you do more practice problems you can get out of bad habits and turn your A around and maybe even get an A by the end of the semester, or at least raise it slightly for an A.
Click to expand...
I needed that, @NotASerialKiller. Thanks!

StudyLater said:
You should be able to get rid of those spots with a heated conc. NaOH solution.

Double check your work and watch your score go up in the future.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the advice! If only the glassware and the NaOH belonged to me...

Calling it "orgo" bugs me, too, but no one says "o-chem" at my school. I usually just call it organic.
 
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No hard feelings from this thread, either. We're just a bunch of kidders. Definitely no stressing over an A on an exam. A 93.00000001% and a 313% are still both an A. You could even argue the first test is the hardest. It's all a bunch of new information slammed into your head. Once you get the hang of studying, you're golden. Deep breaths!
 
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SpottyGlassware said:
I got my first Orgo 1 test back today and I'm really frustrated with myself. I practiced lots and thought I had a pretty good handle on the material, but I made lots of small errors that added up to a lower grade than I would have liked. Things like drawing the lines wrong in a chair cyclohexane (even though I understand the concepts and normally wouldn't do that), forgetting to include pi bonds when talking about which orbitals interact in different bonds, using wedge-dash notation instead of planar pentagon notation... Little, stupid things.
Luckily, I still have (barely) an A in the class and hope to study more (and change a few things about the way I'm studying) and pull it up, but this is not the way I wanted to start out. I'd love it if anyone had actual advice on how to avoid this in the future, but I feel like it boils down to, "Be less careless." I just had to vent to someone. Kind of sad that this is my first post... :(
Click to expand...

How to beat ochem (orgo sounds like a steamy scene in a romance movie)

1. Find a good textbook (Wade's is excellent and i recommend it)
2. Do a lot of practice problems

How to remove the spot in the glassware

1. Wear gloves, aprons and goggles
2. Follow what @StudyLater said
3. Provide results of glass purity to your ochem lab TAs/profs
4. Enjoy acing the lab

Good luck!
 
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I think @Lawper is talking about getting an A in orgasmic chemistry.
 
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You people are scrubs. I never received anything under a 105% on my orgo tests and a 20 on the biological sciences section. #doyouevendoctor
 
I saw vent and was looking for PEEP and FIO2 settings. What a sucker I am...
 
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SpottyGlassware said:
Haha, okay, I may have been a little dramatic earlier. I'm a chemistry major and am used to getting high grades in chem classes, and I know the material is only going to get harder from here. Part of my disappointment is that I messed up on the easiest test. I'll definitely be tweaking the way I study; I kind of slacked off until the week before the test because I was worried about another class.


I needed that, @NotASerialKiller. Thanks!


Thanks for the advice! If only the glassware and the NaOH belonged to me...

Calling it "orgo" bugs me, too, but no one says "o-chem" at my school. I usually just call it organic.
Click to expand...
When I saw your avatar I thought you wuz a stoner.
 
The small things in organic matter. If you worked in an organic lab, one small thing could screw up a whole lot. Small things matter bro.
 
I thought this would be about venting a separatory funnel
 
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Personally I bombed my first o-chem test (63% pre-curve), and it ended up being the only test I scored less than 100% in either semester.

Don't let the title of the course or neurotic SDNers convince you the material is more difficult than it is. O-Chem was the easiest class I took in undergrad, including freebies like Intro to Theater. Once it clicks, you'll never have to study again -- it's the same stuff over and over.
 
I spend my time studying one thing, and a test is on a ****load of other crap...or prof will cram a ton of crap in the lecture before the exam, and I have to work 18 hours the next two days before the exam, and most of the test is on the last lecture. FML.
 
orgo was my favorite class |:
 
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I think a lot of people would enjoy orgo if it wasn't for the curve/competition.
 
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I got 0.5 points taken off of my first exam for spelling "carboxylic" as "carbocylic."
There go all of my chances at med school. :unsure:

*Just in case anyone missed it, the last line was written in my sarcasm font.*
 
caffeinemia said:
I saw vent and was looking for PEEP and FIO2 settings. What a sucker I am...
Click to expand...
I was wondering what channel it was on and which group I should join ;) even wondered casually if there was a specific server and inbound setting I should use
 
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