CHEM 14A - FALL 2015 FY

1- Don't take this as an easy GE, only if you need it for your major. With that said, if you need it for your major it's not that bad if you have high school background in chemistry.

2 - topics: history of periodic table, stoichiometry, quantum chemistry, shapes of molecules, trends in periodic table, equilibrium, acids and bases, and pH, Kc, Ka, etc, and transition metals.

3 - workload:
40% final (cummulative - everything form day 1)
30% 1 midterm (this year half of it was identical to Lavelle's). 8 questions with a-d or something like that.
15% 3 written homework - 5/6 page exercises, about 1h to complete really not that bad
15% 4 thinkwell quizzes - online quizzes of 25 questions without timer and with the chance to repeat up to 3 times and choose your best score. Most of the answers are on google. I scored 100% on all except 2 (24/25!)

4. Class is PODCASTED - you can skip lecture and just watch it later, although they usually pile up if you're not on top of things!

5. You can attend any discussion, your TA simply grades your exams/work, and if you have a clash with your discussion you an easily change it another student who's willing.

Overall I had a pretty solid chemistry background form A2 in Chemistry so I knew most of the topics coming in. However if you don't have any bases I think he complicates things a little bit and you will probably need to put in some extra work to study at home. So far I only did the homework and quizzes and studied for the midterm the night before and day of and got a B+/A-. Hopefully I actually put in the effort for the final and get an A. If you know chemistry form before and put in normal amount of effort (i.e. revise topics after they're done and make simple notes to go over for midterm/final) you shouldn't struggle to much. If you don't have a chemistry background you can obviously still learn, but things will be new and therefore probably take a little longer to make sense.

Scerri VS. Lavelle - haven't taken Lavelle so can't say for sure, but the myth is that Scerri is better!

Winter 2015 grade distribution:
15% Thinkwell quizzes
15% written homework
30% midterm
40% final

Professor Scerri:
I don't think he's mean like some people say. He can be sarcastic, and if you're disrupting his class he'll call you out on it. You don't need any of the books except for his course readers. YOU NEED THOSE. His lectures go over exactly what's in the course readers. You can get old ones, but I recommend getting the new ones so that they aren't marked and are formatted most currently. I thought he was pretty good at teaching, though lectures could get boring at times. His lectures are podcasted too, one lecture would be just audio while the other would be audio and video, so you could essentially skip class and learn on your own, except for turning in homework.

TA:
I had Amal Katrib and she was sort of helpful. I didn't go to discussion that often, but she was mildly good at TAing. Not much else to say.

Thinkwell quizzes:
There were like 25-question quizzes online every so often. You have to pay a small fee to register. You can take it up to three times, and the highest score is your grade. The questions are mixed up every try, and you can't see which questions you got wrong until the deadline. These were very easy and you just needed your notes to get through them.

Written homework:
There were also written homeworks inbetween Thinkwell quizzes. These were just assigned problems from the course readers and/or attachments to emails he sent out. These were fairly straightforward too.

Midterm grade: 47/58 81.03%
The midterm was out of class for an hour. It was 4 questions with multiple parts. Number 4 was all multiple choice. This wasn't too difficult of a midterm. There were review sessions hosted by TAs, but I didn't attend.

Final grade: 104/154 67.53%
The final was 8 questions with multiple parts, with questions 7 and 8 being all multiple choice. This was a lot more difficult, and 60% of the test was on material after the midterm. There were also review sessions hosted by TAs.

Overall grade: B+
Overall, I think the class was mildly challenging. Not impossible, but it took a lot of effort to get a good grade. It's curved a lot, so you just need to work a little harder to get above the class.

This has by far been the hardest class I have taken here at UCLA. Maybe my brain cannot function conceptually or something. Not sure. But I have gotten an A- both in 14B (Lavelle) and 14BL (Wilson). I got a f'ing C in this class the first quarter of my college career! I was f'ing BUMMED. This guy took a crap on my GPA and I will never forgive him. He was quite cocky as well from what I saw going to his office hr and just his attitude/tone in general in lecture.

So beware folks, if you like math, take Lavelle!

Selling everything you need for Chem 14 A
Email me at *************

SELLING Atkins textbook with solutions manual! Condition is like new! Also including Scerri's Periodic Table Book! Great Price!
Contact me at: **********

(textbook is good for 14A and 14B)

Selling my textbook for 14a and 14b. Make me an offer. Also, selling my lab notebook with more than half the pages left untouched and the labs.

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Scerri is actually a good and knowledgeable lecturer, he focuses more on conceptual things. Some people found his accent sexy but it always made me sleepy lol. I think his curve standard is alright, I got 4 on AP chem and i didn't work so hard to get an A- for this class. His course readers are well organized and it will save your time since you don't really have to go to textbook for final reviews. We only had three online quizzes and three writing HW assignments last quarter, which is pretty cool. For our midterm, he used problems from previous mid-terms attached in the CR, so make sure you check them out and do enough practices.

Selling:
Brand New, Atkins 5th edition textbook with solutions manual, and molecular structure model
with the periodic table a very short intro

contact at ********** for more info.

Selling the textbook for 14A & 14B (Chemical Principles). Email me if you're interested: *************

Selling both 14A course readers for $15, text me if you're interested
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