SYLLABUS
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Instructor:
Professor Reg Penner
email: rmpenner@uci.edu
Head TA: Ms. Rebecca Stiger
Office: Physical Sciences I, Room 326.
Office Hours:
The huge enrollment of this course make conventional office hours impractical. I will be happy to see you by appointment, however.
Textbook:Chemistry, by Steven S. Zumdahl, 3rd Edition.
Quizes:
Every Friday at the end of lecture, a 10 pt. quiz will be administered. Each quiz will be worth 10 total points and ten quizes will be administered on each of the ten Fridays during this quarter. Before class begins on each Friday, you will need to pick up at the entrance to the lecture hall a machine-scorable answer form. You will need to have this answer sheet filled out correctly by the time the exam is given, and you will need to be sure that your test is turned in to the TA who will be collecting exams at the end of the period. If you do any of this incorrectly, your exam can not be recorded your score will become a "0" by default. There will be no dropped quiz scores.
Exams:
Two midterm exams each worth 100 points, and a final exam worth 200 points will be administered on the dates listed below. The final exam will be comprehensive. There will be no quizzes this quarter.
Exam Schedule:
| Exam | Day | Date | Time | Points |
|---|
| Midterm #1 | Monday | April 22 | in class | 100 |
| Midterm #2 | Monday | May 13 | in class | 100 |
| Final | Wednesday | June 12 | 8:00-10:00am | 200 |
| | | TOTAL | 400 |
Memorize your laboratory TA`s name. You need to put this information on your exam. The exams will be returned to you in the lab sections. For those not taking lab, you can pick up your exam in PSI 250. Bring your ID to the exam.
Discussion:
Discussion sections will be devoted 100% to problem solving. Attendance and preparation for Discussion will be a key to top performance in the course. Please come prepared with your questions. You may attend any or all discussion sections you find convenient. No discussions the first week.
Discussion Schedule
**All discussions will be held in the Physical Sciences Trailors**
| Course Code | Time | Location | Instructor |
|---|
| 40051 | Mon 1:00 - 1:50 pm | PST 109 | Prof. Penner |
| 40052 | Tue 12:00 - 12:50 pm | PST 109 | Ms. Stiger |
| 40053 | Fri 1:00 - 1:50 am | PST 101 | Ms. Stiger |
| 40054 | Thurs. 11:00 - 11:50 pm | PST 109 | Ms. Stiger |
| 40055 | Wed 3:00 - 3:50 pm | PST 109 | Ms. Stiger |
| 40056 | Thu 3:00 - 3:50 pm | PST 101 | Ms. Stiger |
| 40057 | Mon 11:00 - 11:50 pm | PST 101 | Prof. Penner |
Add/Drop:
Drops and adds are processed in the undergraduate affairs office, PSI 250 10-11am and 1:30-2:30pm. You may not "add" to my section after the second week of lectures. Please note that the lab and lecture are concurrent courses. If you elect to drop one, you must drop the other.
Tutors:
Free tutoring is provided by the Chemistry Department. Tutor hours will be posted by PSI 250. If you have trouble with any aspect of the course, do not hesitate to visit the tutors.
Note-taking:
Writing out your own notes during lecture is a grossly under-appreciated mechanism of learning. I would strongly encourage everyone to be present at every lecture and to take detailed notes. The very act of writing out these notes will assist you with remembering key concepts described in lecture (some of which may not be covered in the book at all!). In order to maximally encourage individual note-taking, I will not make lectures available on audio tape, I will not permit the taping of my lectures by individual students, and my class notes will not be available in Clone Notes or at other private note providers.
Homework:
There are no shortcuts. To learn chemistry, you must practice problem- solving. It is impossible to learn by osmosis (e.g., watching me work problems, hearing about problems from your friends, thinking about problems while watching TV, etc.). To this end, problems will be assigned each week (however these problems will not be collected for grading) and all three exams will be exclusively problem based - not multiple guess. One thing is absolutely certain, your exam performance will reflect your knowledge of chemistry and therefore will be closely related to the effort and time you invest in problem solving before the exam (preferably well before).
Your Class Standing:
Following the first exam, your class standing relative to your Chem. 1B class-mates available from a histogram posted in the display case outside the Chem. 1 labs on the 2nd floor of PS1. Grades will not be assigned to this histogram until the end of the quarter.
Missed Exams:
There will be no makeup exams. At my option - and depending on the acceptability of your excuse for missing (which I will decide) - your exam score will either be commuted to a zero, or your other exams will be averaged to generate your final grade.
Final Grades:
Final grades will be based on a total of 500 earned points, partitioned according to the grading scheme outlines below. Please notice that collectively the weekly quizes will have an equal impact on your grade as either of the two midterms.
| Item | Points | % of Total |
|---|
| Friday Quizes | 100 | 20% |
| Midterm #1 | 100 | 20% |
| Midterm #2 | 100 | 20% |
| Final | 200 | 40% |
| TOTAL | 500 | 100% |
Exam Regrading:
I will be pleased to regrade exams or problems which you believe to have been unfairly graded. Please note that the product of a regrade may be a higher score, a lower score, or no change of score. Of course, altering an exam in any way prior to resubmission for regrading is cheating (see below).
Cheating:
Any student caught cheating on an exam or altering a test for a regrade will receive an automatic "F" in the course. Be aware that aggressive methods, such as random photocopying of graded exams, are used to protect the vast majority of you who are honest.
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