CH302 Random Musings April 21, 2009 1. We are rolling downhill to the finish line. In these musings are the question types for Quiz 5, Exam 3 and the Final Exam. Be thinking about the strategy you will be using to earn the grade you want in this course. Some of you will need to think about how to achieve something close to perfection on exam 3 so you can be exempt. Others will need to be concentrating on preparation for the final since they know it will be the way they earn the grade they want. E-mail me if you have questions about the strategy you will use. 2. My office hours are in my office for the next week or so. 3. We will post a worksheet on main group chemistry later this week and two practice quizzes this weekend. This material differs from what we have done the entire year in that basically it is a chance to explore lots of interesting facts about chemistry. You can be sure that what will be on the quizzes and exams will come from the lecture notes and in particular, what I emphasize in class, hence the reason to pay close attention to what we talk about in the Tuesday and Thursday lectures. 4. Deep though on grading--can someone with a 83% and 73% on the first two exams still be exempt? The quick and dirty answer? Yes. Why? Because If you turn in the extra credits you can miss up to 91 points and be exempt. Scores of 83 and 73 percent correspond to missing 13 questions, and at 6 points each, that is 78 points. So you can still miss a couple on the combined quizzes and exam 3. Since exam 3 is by far the easiest, many of you in here in that exam range will be able to just make it over the 609 barrier. 5. The final quiz is next Thursday the 30th. It will cover the material on main group chemistry presented this week in lecture. Traditionally this quiz is intended to give students a very high grade and it has never been the case that a score less than about 90 was earned. It does require some level of knowledge, but it is really a very simple quiz. Here are the question types: • properties and reactivity of alkali metals • properties and reactivity of alkali earths • properties and reactivity of the B family • properties and reactivity of the N family • properties and reactivity of the C family • properties and reactivity of the O family • famous chemical manufacturing processes • famous gemstones 7. Question types for Exam 3 the last day of class are found below: Question Types for Kinetics 1. assigning rate expressions 2. calculating reaction rates 3. units of rate constants 4. method of initial rates 5. integrated rate law calculation 6. integrated rate law calculation (half life) 7. extracting information from straight line plots 8. kinetic theory—collision 9 kinetic theory—transition state 10. Arrhenius equation 11. combined Arrhenius calculation 12. reaction mechanisms 13. reaction mechanisms 14. Ea and energy profiles 15. famous catalysts Descriptive Chemistry 16. properties and reactivity of alkali metals 17. properties and reactivity of alkali earths 18. properties and reactivity of the B family 19. properties and reactivity of the N family 20. properties and reactivity of the C family 21 properties and reactivity of the O family 22. properties and reactivity of the halogen family 23. famous named manufacturing processes 24. identifying famous gemstones Organic Molecules 25. hydrocarbon isomers 26. naming organic molecules 27. naming organic molecules 28. organic polymer chemistry 29 biomolecule structure 30. biomolecule structure8. A reminder that except for about 30 of you who are busting the curve on my exams, the rest should be absolutely getting your extra credits in. Details were posted a couple weeks ago but you need to turn in a description of your experience attending a scholarly lecture or viewing a research poster. 9. I am posting the 60 questions for the final exam today. The source is pretty simple. I took the 3 thirty question tests from the semester and pulled out about 20 questions from each. This is very much a traditional cumulative final covering pretty much everything I have taught. And in keeping with my philosophy that I don’t care when you learn it, as long as you learn it, being able to prove to me on May 13th that you know the material well enough for an A is good enough for me. 10. For those of you taking the final for everything, I will tell you once again, if you want to have a chance at an A, you have to get organized. And being organized means making sure your brain knows what is on the final before you start filling it with stuff that otherwise has no place to go. So memorize the question types, all 60. Do it by sections and it doesn’t hurt as much. If you don’t want to do this, don’t bother coming to me for help and forget about getting a good grade on the final.. 11. Poetry Corner. Let’s talk about Arbor Day. Did you know we have Nebraska to thank for Arbor Day? Arbor Day is a nationally celebrated observance that encourages tree planting and tree care. It was started by J. Sterling Morton in Nebraska in 1872. Although the actual day changes from state to state and even city to city, National Arbor Day is celebrated each year on the last Friday in April (the 24th this year). (Arbor Day is not to be confused with Earth Day which is celebrated in many countries on April 22—I think it is possible for Earth Day and Arbor Day to occur on the same day, but that might be an event of such cataclysmic proportions that the world might come to an end, except that it would be kind of ironic that it happened on Earth Day.) Anyway, the first Arbor Day was celebrated in the state of Nebraska in 1872, in response to a state proclamation urging settlers and homesteaders in that prairie state to plant trees that would provide shade, shelter, fruit, fuel, and beauty for residents of the largely treeless plains. Evidently Arbor Day failed in Nebraska. By the way, do you have any idea how much poetry has been written about trees? Ranks right up there with love poetry I think. To give you an idea, I can actually find poetry by species of tree. For example, listed below is some oak tree poetry. For the tree huggers, a poem by Walt. For those of you who have been dying because of all the oak pollen or those of you who have to rake oak leaves, which simply refuse to be raked, a poem with at best a tinge of grudging admiration from Edna. What
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