CHEM 121

Course Description

• This course is mainly focused on bonding theories and structural diagrams. There are also other topics such as interactions of light, quantum mechanics, atomic trends, and colour theory. The only engineering students that can take this course are pre-biomedical engineering students.

Types of Assignments To Expect

• Quizzes - There are three quizzes. The difficulty and structure of the quizzes depend on the section that you are in.

• Assignments - Three attempts per assignment. It is recommended to open the assignment long before the due date. Canvas saves your progress when you leave the assignment.

• Laboratory Portion - There is a lab portion of this course if you are taking the 4-credit version of CHEM 121 and includes assessments such as experimental design forms, pre-lab quizzes, and a lab exam.

• Midterms - There is a mix of multiple-choice/select all that apply, numeric response, and written response. Midterm 1 is based on topics such as lewis structures, VSEPR theory, resonance structures, and the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. Midterm 2 is based on the wave-particle duality of light, electronic configurations, orbital diagrams, and periodic trends.

• Final Exam - The final exam emphasizes the earlier content of the course as well as the later content of the course.

• Surveys - The chemistry department was nice enough to add a 1% bonus to our grade if we completed 3 surveys. Be aware of them!

Advice/Study Tips

Many of the advice & study tips are similar for CHEM 123. I'll add in those as well for reference.

• Make sure to have every part of your Experimental Design Form completed, otherwise you will be forced to leave the laboratory.

• The CHEM 121 labs can be very nerve-wracking! Remain calm and make separate sheets for your procedure so that you can refer to them during the lab, thereby relieving stress and being more likely to finish on time.

• For the laboratory portion of the course, buy an erasable pen. You are not allowed to use pencil or whiteout, so stay on the safe side when it comes to pen selection.

• Make summary notes from the CHIRP textbook before the lectures for CHEM 121. They used to summarize notes from the CHIRP but stopped after almost everyone had the textbook.

• Do the practice problem sets before attempting the assignments.

• A lot of the formulas needed for this course are not on the formula sheet. Make a separate formula sheet to remember all of the formulas and diagrams that are not on the formula sheet.

• The teaching team has taken a lot of heat for incorrectly grading midterms. Always make sure to compare your midterms to the answer key and if you feel that your exam was marked unfairly, send a polite re-grade request to explain why you should earn more marks for certain questions.

• Before submitting the assignment, take a break and come back to check your answers. You will be more conscious of your mistakes and you won't waste time re-doing the whole assignment. It can very frustrating to incorrectly answer questions you know how to do because of a calculation error or misreading the question.

• Practice memorizing theoretical properties. They can be tested on multiple-choice questions.

• When going over incorrect answers on practice midterms and finals, it might be very difficult to find relevant explanations from the textbook. Go to office hours or ask questions on Piazza.

Resources

1. Professor Dave Explains is a youtube channel with various Youtube tutorials for many subjects, including chemistry! Many of the general chemistry topics covered are also in the CHEM 121 course outline.

Professor Dave Explains: General Chemistry

2. chemistNATE has various chemistry playlists, including various examples of Lewis structures and periodic trend problems.

chemistNate

3. WizePrep also has very useful notes and time-saving techniques for CHEM 121 problems. However, some of the topics are irrelevant to the course content.

CHEM 121 with Wize

4. Organic Chemistry Tutor's Organic Chemistry playlist includes many concepts within the CHEM 121 curriculum. Highly recommend!

Organic Chemistry Tutor: Organic Chemistry Playlist