Type: Core Module
Difficulty: Easy
Workload: Normal
Lecturer(s): Prof Chen Chia Hung
Lecturer(s): Prof Chen Chia Hung
Assessment: 2 x Labs, Group Report and Presentation, Midterms and Finals
I was apprehensive when I was scheduled to take a level 3000 module when I was just a year 2 student. However don't be fooled with the level, this was one of the easiest modules I might have taken in NUS. This module covers concepts like thermodynamics, enthalpy, Gibbs free energy and energy equilibrium. This module has NO webcast, like all BN modules.
At first, the lecture notes may seem intimidating with many complicated equations peppered throughout the slides throughout all the lectures. The good news - there are no cheatsheets allowed for this module. This means that it is upright unethical for the lecturers to make us memorize every single equation. We are humans, not cramp-bots. Prof Chen was kind enough to mention during lectures which concepts and equations are the more "important" ones to study. Every week, on top of the lecture notes, there will be a tutorial and a set of True/False summary questions for that week's lecture.
The labs were pretty interesting, but may be a little difficult to understand if you havn't read the lab manual beforehand. Lab 1 involved a spectrophotometer to measure the change in light absorbance as a reaction proceeds. Although the experiment manual was complicated, our lab TA was really kind enough to guide us throughout the lab. Lab 2 manual was even more convoluted, with the title being "Determination of Michaelis-Menten constants for Free and Immobilized enzymes". Not my cup of tea, and I admit that I was pretty much a freeloader for this lab. However, the experimental materials were high in cost, hence we had giant group sizes - my group had 10 members. Not much effort put into this lab and not much learning from it, ohwells..
There was also a group project component, with my group having 15 members. This presentation and report could be of any topic from a huge list given to us. In my opinion, this was mainly for general knowledge and self-improvement. My group's topic was "Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" and we covered the mechanisms behind this poisoning. The report had to be 2 pages long and in the format of a research paper.
Now for the midterms and the finals. The BME department is notorious for not releasing past year questions, but I do have the midterms questions and answers for the year I took the module in 2016. The midterms and finals were highly similar in format, with a good mix of conceptual questions and calculation questions. In both assessments, they started with a section of True/False questions, followed by a couple of calculation questions. The true/false questions were very similar to the weekly summary questions, and the calculation questions were highly similar to the ones in the tutorials. In fact, it was really straightforward that many people left the examination hall during the 1-hour mark for the finals.
Important tutorial questions: Calculation of Enthalpy, Entropy, free energy and work done in a process.
Important concepts: Kelvin Plank statement, Clausius and Clausius inequality.
* A Hint: Needless to say, attend all lectures to take note of the important sections and concepts. Memorize all True/False questions (you won't regret this) and do all tutorial questions. Don't just looks through the answers and agree, redo the questions (I'm serious).
I was apprehensive when I was scheduled to take a level 3000 module when I was just a year 2 student. However don't be fooled with the level, this was one of the easiest modules I might have taken in NUS. This module covers concepts like thermodynamics, enthalpy, Gibbs free energy and energy equilibrium. This module has NO webcast, like all BN modules.
At first, the lecture notes may seem intimidating with many complicated equations peppered throughout the slides throughout all the lectures. The good news - there are no cheatsheets allowed for this module. This means that it is upright unethical for the lecturers to make us memorize every single equation. We are humans, not cramp-bots. Prof Chen was kind enough to mention during lectures which concepts and equations are the more "important" ones to study. Every week, on top of the lecture notes, there will be a tutorial and a set of True/False summary questions for that week's lecture.
The labs were pretty interesting, but may be a little difficult to understand if you havn't read the lab manual beforehand. Lab 1 involved a spectrophotometer to measure the change in light absorbance as a reaction proceeds. Although the experiment manual was complicated, our lab TA was really kind enough to guide us throughout the lab. Lab 2 manual was even more convoluted, with the title being "Determination of Michaelis-Menten constants for Free and Immobilized enzymes". Not my cup of tea, and I admit that I was pretty much a freeloader for this lab. However, the experimental materials were high in cost, hence we had giant group sizes - my group had 10 members. Not much effort put into this lab and not much learning from it, ohwells..
There was also a group project component, with my group having 15 members. This presentation and report could be of any topic from a huge list given to us. In my opinion, this was mainly for general knowledge and self-improvement. My group's topic was "Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" and we covered the mechanisms behind this poisoning. The report had to be 2 pages long and in the format of a research paper.
Now for the midterms and the finals. The BME department is notorious for not releasing past year questions, but I do have the midterms questions and answers for the year I took the module in 2016. The midterms and finals were highly similar in format, with a good mix of conceptual questions and calculation questions. In both assessments, they started with a section of True/False questions, followed by a couple of calculation questions. The true/false questions were very similar to the weekly summary questions, and the calculation questions were highly similar to the ones in the tutorials. In fact, it was really straightforward that many people left the examination hall during the 1-hour mark for the finals.
Important tutorial questions: Calculation of Enthalpy, Entropy, free energy and work done in a process.
Important concepts: Kelvin Plank statement, Clausius and Clausius inequality.
* A Hint: Needless to say, attend all lectures to take note of the important sections and concepts. Memorize all True/False questions (you won't regret this) and do all tutorial questions. Don't just looks through the answers and agree, redo the questions (I'm serious).
Expected Grade: B
Achieved Grade: A-
