The MC wasn't bad, but the written answer was a bit of a slap in the face, and I definitely felt rushed.

Originally Posted by Angoose

The textbook wasn't too bad, but I don't think the problems prepared us very well for the exam. Maybe it was just me, though. There was essentially no way to prep us for that McLafferty question :(.

I thought it was pretty straight forward. We were shown what the McLafferty rearrangement looks like. You just had to study this by actually drawing the single-barbed arrows to create the two fragments. You'd then apply this to the two carbonyl groups in the compound to give you the possible fragments responsible for MS signals.

To be brutally honest, I thought the textbook was ABSOLUTELY amazing. All the explanations were so clear and then after you learned a new concept, you were given practice problems right away (along with strategies). Then you had review questions at the end of the chapter to tie it altogether, so I was glad they chose this textbook. There were also summaries in the study guide/solution manual, which made for a nice outline of the key concepts from each chapter.

The new textbook is better than Solomons and Fryhle!

Hmm. It actually seems like something worth investing in and purchasing a copy of. I just might.

They mark it in one day, but the MC might be held up if the scantron machine is busy. Then there's entering the marks and all that.... but your TA's do all the written part in one day

honestly i thought the exam was a pain in the a** and i hope i pass. i think part of the reason is that i felt stover didnt really teach the stuff properly.. especially the reagents and stuff... i was looking over the notes after the exam and i didnt see half the reagents he used on the exam .. sure he may have talked abotu them ... and they are in the text... but his notes were so blank.... and like i hated how all of his notes were questions... and not actually lessons... i needed the textbook there beside me the whole time while studying

Yeah I agree with what everyone is saying. I found the textbook very good and useful. I taught myself a lot of the material and the textbook was very useful for that. The only complaint I have is that the end of the chapter questions were pretty easy I found, well easy compared to anything they gave us so that wasn't very helpful. But that's not the textbook's fault.

I actually...used the textbook to study. His slides were direct off of them, and I couldn't follow half his words during lectures, though he's great at explaining one-to-one.

As for the reagents, same story. I realize that you can substitute Na for K, but seriosuly. And the text book has it as tert-BuO. He had half the reagents as tBu, and that confused me so much at first. So much for consistency.

Also, I think the pacing was poorly done, but somewhat understandable given that we were doing different things. We could've spent a lot less time in reading the molecular ion peaks and the IR, as well as naming the compounds.

Agreed, agreed, most definitely. Wish Landry taught Organic too... o___o

I thought he said he hates Organic chem, as he's an inorganic chemist. lol

Also curious, did they not release old exams, tutorials and tests for this year?

Originally Posted by justinsftw

I thought he said he hates Organic chem, as he's an inorganic chemist. lol

Unfortunately, that's true. Wouldn't be surprised if he was still better able to convey the material, though - he taught organic (well, everything really) splendidly last year.

@goodnews.inc: There probably were practice tests etc. online, I didn't use them.

Originally Posted by goodnews.inc

Also curious, did they not release old exams, tutorials and tests for this year?

They released 1 old final, 2 old midterms I believe and there were 5 tutorials throughout the year.

The textbook was amazing. It's all I used during studying. Aside from the McLafferty question, I knew everything on that exam extremely well despite not paying attention in class for the last 2 months. I think I'm gonna hang on it even though I'm not taking 2OB3 just because it seems like it might come in handy.