Random Musings—April 5, 2011 1. The scores for exam 2 and the make-up were within a point of each other round 70%. The grades broke down nice and flat—about 30 perfect scores including about 100 As, 100 Bs, 200 Cs, 50 Ds and 50 Fs. For the level of difficulty of the material, this is about where things should be. I believe we have killed the questions that needed to be killed and that these are true scores, but I can entertain concerns that you e-mail me. 2. Some good news--the last third of the semester prepares you for the last exam of the semester, one that typically has the highest averages, often in the mid to high 80s—and it is worth twice as much as the second exam (240 points). So why is the exam average so high? There is a lot of descriptive chemistry to end the course and this means a lot of qualitative material that students tend to manage well. To help you get started studying for exam 3, the question types are found at the bottom of the musings. 3. This is where I remind you once again to never give up. Many of you came to see me in preparing for the second exam after struggling on the first—some did much better. Some are still getting used to how to do well on this kind of exam. But you have to keep after it—this second exam is not a good marker for improvement since it is a much more challenging set of material that exam 1. But remember that all it takes is getting everything under control and in your head for just one glorious 3 hour period during the final exam in May, and you can have your A for the course as well. To help you prepare, I provide the question types from the final exam at the bottom of the musings. 4. We will be finishing up electrochemistry today and having delayed testing on it for exam 2, we need to start coming up to speed with it. I encourage you to take advantage the worksheets (11-13 and their video clips), and the lecture videos (lecture 17 is already posted). I should have lecture 18 and most of the worksheet clips up by this weekend. 5. The 8 electrochemistry question types for quiz 5 that will be given on Thursday the 14th are found below. As always I will provide an electrochemistry practice quiz this weekend and the TAs will provide another Sunday or Monday. • Identifying oxidation and reduction in a chemical reaction • Balancing a chemical reaction in acid or base • Assigning cell convention in an electrochemical cell • Understanding the table of standard half cell reduction potentials • Calculating a standard cell potential • Nernst equation calculation • Ranking oxidizing and reducing agents • Stoichiometry calculation using the Faraday 6. Painful as this may be, to stay close to on schedule I will give my last lecture on electrochemistry today and be moving on to kinetics on Thursday. Any material on electrochemistry that sort of flew by you because you were focusing on exam 2 material can be found in the video clips. 7. Oh, and here are the question types for quiz 6 which is coming up in a few weeks • assigning rate expressions • method of initial rates • reaction order from rate constants • Arrhenius calculation • integrated rate law calculation • half life calculation • collision and transition state theory • reaction mechanism8. Extra Credit assignments and your course grade. No, I don’t curve. But as mentioned, I will be offering three extra credit opportunities in this class, each worth 1% of your grade. This is what I do rather than “curving” because I am sure that no one in here wants to get a grade they haven’t earned. So here are the details on earning your 3 extra credit. Procedures for turning in extra credits all follow the extra credit process used for Extra Credit 1--you must follow these in order to get the points--please don't make my life difficult by not doing what you are told. Procedure: • Complete the extra credit task below. • Write it up (probably 100 words or so, but write as much as you want to tell the story.) • Submit it as plain text in the body of the e-mail (no attachments!!) • Include your uteid when you identify yourself in the e-mail. • Send it to [email protected] by the deadline • Jump for joy at having earned 1% of your course grade Extra Credit Assignment 1: • Title: EC1s11 uteid (If you do not use this subject you will not be filtered into the file from which I assign extra credit.) • Due Date: I have set this twice and about 97% of you have gotten it in. The rest should do so as well, ASAP. Instructions. During spring break I want you to teach a science-hater something interesting about chemistry that you have learned in this class. To get the points, the person you teach has to say to you, “gee, I had no idea chemistry was that interesting” when you have finished (you can make them say it even if they don’t mean it.) You can choose what you teach but I would recommend that it be something of interest and utility, like the complications of cooking at high altitude if you happen to be skiing at spring break or why fish explode if you happen to be at the beach, or why South Park was wrong or the value of adding salt to water to boil your pasta or why you shouldn’t add pure antifreeze to your car or why water balls up on windshields or how neutral water isn’t always pH 7 and on and on. It is your choice. Extra Credit Assignment 2: • Title: EC2s11 uteid (If you do not use this subject you will not be filtered into the file from which I assign extra credit.) • Due Date: Saturday May 7 at 3 am Instructions. Go to the undergraduate poster session on Friday, April 8th, sometime between 11 am and 3 pm in the Welch Foyer (right outside this classroom.) For details, see: http://cns.utexas.edu/research/undergraduate-opportunities/undergraduate-research-forum Find a poster you like, talk to the person standing in front of it for 5 minutes, and then going home and email me about your experience. Spend a few sentences telling me who did the poster, why you liked the poster and how neat it is to see that students your own age are doing world class research that you could also be doing with a little initiative. For those of you who can’t go to the poster session, an alternative bonus opportunity is to walk through a science building on campus on the upper floors, staring at
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