[moops]

I took this course with Dr. Beston in 2008-2009.

This course looked at behaviours shared by humans and most other animals. It looked at natural selection, cultural transmission and learning theory.

The mark breakdown was:

Assignments - 15%
There are 3 assignments and the best 2 out of 3 are used for this mark. We were mostly given journal articles and the assignment was to write a 2 page critique or discussion on the paper.

Term Tests - 15% and 20%
Both term tests were multiple choice and short answer. We used the scratch cards for the multiple choice questions.

Final Exam - 50%
Again this was multiple choice and short answer.

Overall, I found this class to be really interesting. Dr. Beston was funny and engaging. The slides were put up before lecture but watch out for the smiley face slides. Those are the ones he shows but are not put on WebCT. The information that was tested was almost entirely from lecture.

was the textbook needed?

With Dukas, yes. He tests small details from the text,

Took it with Dr. Dukas in 2009/2010 second term.
it was a 2.5 hour night class though with a 10-15 min break in between

Prof
Dr. Dukas has an accent which bothered me in the beginning cuz i had to listen more carefully but got used to it pretty quickly. He has many slides that aren't in the lecture notes that are worth taking down and is also very nice. Because some people didn't do very well in the 1st midterm, he changed the weighting so that if you did better on the 2nd midterm, he made that worth 40% of your mark instead of 15% for 1st and 25% for second.

Lectures
I love the videos the showed in class, they were interesting, some were sad though (like watching baby sea turtle being eaten). Only downside sitting there for a such a long time. Don't skip lectures, he has many graphs in his notes that don't have descriptions and are NOT in the textbook so to understand you had be there.

Tests
First one was tricky because didn't know his question style (tests a fair amt on graphs and interpreting them). Second one had questions from the first midterm. He didn't post the 1st midterm but went through answers in the lecture following the midterm so another reason why you should attend class. He even used those questions in the final exam.
Some questions were even like: In class, we talked about this experiment. What was the main idea behind this graph.

Weighting
1st midterm 15% (or 0%)
2nd midterm 25% (or 40%)
Final 60%

since this course had no tutorial, labs, the workload was pretty small.. just keep up with the textbook reading. I found the textbook really interesting itself (really cool pictures) though we didn't go through some topics in it that seemed pretty interesting.

I also took the class with Dr. Dukas. His accent bothered me a bit as well, but not because it was hard to understand. It had a soothing quality that really made me want to sleep. Combined with the fact that this is a night class, that's not a good thing. I fell asleep on more than one occasion. Bring coffee!

If you stay awake though, the material is very interesting. However, after taking the class it really feels like we touched very little material. I'm sure it would have gotten even more interesting as it went on, but we stopped short.

The tests aren't difficult, but they focus a lot on specific examples, as well as on graphs. Make sure you can go over every graph from the lectures and textbooks, and be able to re-draw it, as well as knowing general trends. In general we had 25 MC, and 2 graph questions (worth about 10 marks each). One of the things I liked most though were the bonus questions. A few weeks before the test Dr. Dukas would post a research article online, and we would have a chance to answer 2 questions, for a chance to get more marks added to our final mark. However, if you got them wrong, there was a penalty (to prevent guessing). Most people didn't even attempt to answer them, which I felt was a bit of a waste. They weren't that hard if you read the articles, and the articles really weren't that bad. The first one we got was about mating chirps in crickets (not that bad) and the second was about negative feedback loops in bees (very interesting). Its well worth taking the time to study the articles, they're a great source of easy marks.

The exam was very similar in terms of content and difficulty to the tests, just longer. I did find it a bit more difficult though. He will re-use a few questions from the tests, so make sure you go to the office hours to review your old test in the days before the exam.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this course. It is extremely possible to get a 12, and probably with less work than is required for most courses.

I took this course last summer with Dr. Beston. There were no assignments and the midterms/exam were all very straight forward. I read all required parts of the textbook (a very old edition) but he mostly tested what he'd covered in class. This is an easy course to get a good grade in.

I have Dukas next term. Would you guys say that the textbook would be pretty much required for him if I want to get a 12.0?

Took this with Dr.Dukas in Winter of 2011. It was a night class with a break as mentioned previously. His accent definitely made it hard to pay attention and sometimes he would mumble or talk very quietly which made it worse. Being a night class it was hard to pay attention the second half of class. The videos that we saw in class were very interesting and sometimes funny.
Lectures- You have to go to class or you miss a lot. He always has extra slides on top of lecture notes and those extra slides always appear on midterms and the exam. The course load for this class is pretty light though.

Midterms- There were two midterms for the class. The first one was worth 15% and the second one was worth 25%. As always the multiple choice was doable but the short answer always threw you for a loop mainly due to the graphs we had to intepret or draw. Definitely pay attention to graphs in his lectures. I lost a lot of my marks from the short answers.

Exam- It was worth 60%. The multiple choice worth 70% of the exam was pretty easy and as long as you studied well, bound to do very good on the multiple choice section. Now the short answer section was definitely tricky especially with the graphs and a lot of marks were lost there.

Overall I would say this course is pretty interesting and if you attend every lecture and study well you are bound to get a good grade.

I must say that I enjoyed Animal Behaviour and I would consider it one of the top 3 easiest classes I took in second year. That's not to say it's a bird course. Although the workload is very minimal, I agree with the previous poster about the short answer section being tricky at times. Here's a tip: anytime you do an in-class exercise where you draw a graph, know it for the evaluations!

I personally felt that the tests got progressively easier (79 on test 1, 87 on test 2, and 92 on the exam). One reason is that you learn that you must study the graphs and thus don't blank out on the short answer sections. Another is that QUESTIONS ARE REPEATED in the multiple choice. Remember, all behaviours (discussed in the course) have a heritable component -- this is one of the many core themes of the course. Also, remember to read the articles for extra-credit questions -- it will definitely boost up your grade and it's very unlikely you will truly be penalized for being wrong. In fact, it was because of these bonus marks that I 12ed the course.

The only drawback is that the professor's mic was never loud enough and coupled with the fact that people would never STFU, it was hard to hear the majority of the time. Also, we had class in HSC 1A1, which was very dark and warm -- this made staying awake difficult at times. However, the material is pretty interesting and the testing isn't too hard, so I would definitely recommend this course to others!

Originally Posted by N.Cheng

I have Dukas next term. Would you guys say that the textbook would be pretty much required for him if I want to get a 12.0?

TBH, probably not. I don't recall all that many textbook questions, especially on test 2 and the exam.

What this course is about:
Experiments on animals. Experiments on animals. Experiments on animals. Experiments on animals.

Pros
Textbook – gives good supplementary information on experiments discussed in class
Cool topics: foraging, sexual selection, antipredatory behaviours
Video clips shown in class

Cons
Short answer questions were hard. I found it hard to remember specific details for every experiment.

Tips
-Practice writing a mini paragraph for each experiment because most SA questions on the test will ask you to describe the experiment and the significance of it.
-As you’re underlining in the textbook, put stars next anything that related to fitness/describes the SIGNIFICANCE of the experiment. That way when you’re scanning the textbook before the exam, just look at the stars. If you can’t remember all the points for an experiment, just remember the significance. Helps to create table with all the experiments and their significance.
-Make test questions for yourself before the mid-term. Look at these questions before the exam. It will help you remember a lot of pre-midterm information in an active way rather passively re-reading your notes again.

Commentary:
This course was not as interesting or easy as I thought it would be.
But we learned about some really cool topics like facial attractiveness, MHC complex, why we eat so much, why we’re lazy when it comes to exercise, why hot climates use spices in recipes, frog eggs automatically hatching when being attacked, gazelles approaching lions intentionally. All the cool topics were in the second half of the course.

Main Themes:
Evolution, Learning, Foraging, Fight/Flight, Sex

I just completed this course in the Spring 2011 term with Dr. Beston, and I really enjoyed the class. I found it both interesting and easy to apply to our day to day lives. Since it was such a short timespan to go through the lecture material, he gave us an optional 60/40% weighting on the one midterm we had and the exam. There were no assignments, and I personally didn't think the textbook was necessary at all. He tested us from lecture material, but if needed the textbook could help explain concepts.

Though it was supposed to be a 3 hr class he only taught for 2 each class, with a 10-15 minute break in between. Overall I'd say this course reminded me of Bio 1M03 but was a lot more interesting, and pretty easy if you have that background. I'd definitely recommend it, and I think Beston is a great lecturer, though he sometimes contradicts himself while lecturing so be sure to correct him if something he says sounds counter intuitive, and I believe he only teaches this course during the summer. I think during the year Dukas teaches it.

I didn't find the tests to be difficult, just make sure you really understand the concepts, and the meaning behind the results of experiments, not just what happened and how they performed it. Memorizing definitions is also helpful, as on the midterm there was a question like "define evolution and explain Darwin's theory of natural selection". All and all, interesting and easy course with not a lot of work involved if you take the time to understand concepts instead of just memorizing information.

this course wasn't too bad. dukas!

The course wasn't so bad at all actually

I found the course to be preety good with Dr.Dukas.