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Old announcements from the home page will migrate to here.

Final Exam : Sat, 7/9 9am-12n
room : WEL 2.246

ALL students are expected to be in place and starting the exam by 9:00am. The exam will end at 12 noon.

The final exam is 50 questions at 2 points each. The exam is approximately divided into equal parts of the exams we had. This amounts to about 12 questions per exam + 2 others. So ALL the learning outcomes are in play. The front page of the final exam will have a lot of formulas on it (Final Exam Cover Page).

Here is where the final exam cover page pdf will be when it is ready.

TopHat Scores (adjusted) on Canvas Now

Your TopHat score, which is 5% of your overall grade, is now correctly shown on Canvas. Compare to your actual synced score for TopHat and you will see that is is considerably higher. The maximum available points of 96 were capped at 80 which means all students with an 83.33 or higher got shifted to 100.

Are you thinking about the Final Exam and what you need to get that special certain grade in the course? Below is a helpful spreadsheet to clue you in on what you need to make on the final to get the grade.
Excel Spreadsheet to Calculate your Grade (Summer 2016 edition)

Exam 4 Scores and Solutions on Quest

Login to Quest to see your Exam 4 score plus your tally of points and the pdf of the solutions.

Below is the histogram for the exam. Class average is 76 which is very good for a thermo exam! Yea.

Do the eCIS - get +2 points on the Final Exam!

Pretty easy thing to do for +2 points on the final. Click the headline for the details.

The deadline for this is 5pm on Thursday, 7/7/2016.

PLEASE read the requirements for this carefully. I will talk about this in class on Tuesday. - Dr. McCord

Wednesday 7/6: Exam 4 in WEL 1.308!

Earlybird Start time: 8:15am

ALL students are expected to be in place and starting the exam by 8:30 am. The exam will end at 9:45 am.

Be ready for about 25 questions on the exam. Calculations are back! Bring your calculator.

Learning Outcomes - Exam 4

BLANK HW's for you to RETRY!

Below are three pdf files of the three homeworks on Canvas. They are blank and you can "retry" them as you study. There are no solution files however, use your own Canvas account and view to see those.

HW10 - First Law & Calorimetry HW11 - Second Law & Free Energy

Here is the Exam 4 cover page. Note that the thermodynamic table could be slightly modified from what is shown (different compounds). The rest will be identical.

Do the eCIS - get +2 points on the Final Exam!

Pretty easy thing to do for +2 points on the final. Click the headline for the details.

The deadline for this is 5pm on Thursday, 7/7/2016.

PLEASE read the requirements for this carefully. I will talk about this in class on Tuesday. - Dr. McCord

Thermodynamics Equations

Yes, there are lots of equations to learn for thermodynamics. Below are two listings. The first has annotations and is split into chunks - the way you should learn them. The second is just a big listing of all the equations with no annotations.

Thermodynamics Equations - Annotated List

Thermodynamics Equations - formulas only

I have decided to actually include these formulas on the front page of the exam. So study knowing you will have a listing of formulas. A pdf like what you will get on the front page will be available sometime over the weekend - or for sure, by Tuesday.

Unit 4 - Thermodynamics

Learning Exercises (LE23-LE30) will direct you through the Thermodynamics chapter of the gchem site. There is a lot there so please READ and take some notes to yourself.

Homework (HW10 - HW11) is the graded portion of this unit. About 30 questions for each homework.

Already thinking about the Final Exam and what you need to get that special certain grade in the course? Below is a helpful spreadsheet to get you those magic last 2 numbers of Exam 4 and the Final.
Excel Spreadsheet to Calculate your Grade (Summer 2016 edition)

Exam 3 Scores are Available on Quest

Login to Quest to see your Exam 3 score plus your tally of points and the pdf of the solutions. Test came in lower than I expected at around a 71 average. Only 5 more days of class covering new material + one more exam + one day review + final exam. Time to step it up a notch.

Below is the histogram for the exam. Note that 3 students made perfect scores of 100.

I Removed "SOLIDS" from the Exam! - Dr. McCord

I decided that the coverage was too weak to test over it! So no questions about solids on the exam. That means there are NO questions like numbers 16-21 on HW09. Focus on all the other topics/outcomes. The learning outcomes for exam 3 below now show solids crossed out.

Monday 6/27: Exam 3 in WEL 1.308!

Earlybird Start time: 8:15am

ALL students are expected to be in place and starting the exam by 8:30 am. The exam will end at 9:45 am.

Be ready for about 33 questions on the exam. Remember, there are no calculations, so many questions are answered very quickly.

Learning Outcomes - Exam 3
I modified these a bit to better reflect our coverage.

BLANK HW's for you to RETRY!

Below are three pdf files of the three homeworks on Canvas. They are blank and you can "retry" them as you study. There are no solution files however, use your own Canvas account and view to see those.

HW07 - VSEPR HW08 Bonding Theories and IMFs HW09 - Liquids and Solids

(don't worry about #16-21 on HW09 - there are no questions on solids on the exam)

I just made this for you to use...

The 11 Molecular Geometries (Shapes)

Nice External Website on VSEPR

Hey, I was browsing the net for more VSEPR stuff (prettier anyway) and came across this:

University of Illinois - VSEPR Theory Help page

Pretty nice summary of VSEPR with 3D examples that you can rotate and look at. They refer to "electron regions" as "effective pairs". Instead of writing AX2E, they call it a 3-1 configuration (3 regions with 1 electron pair = bent and about 120° angle). Oh, and they also refer to bent, or angular as V-shaped. So the take home lesson is that there are other names and ways of presenting the SAME core knowledge. It is GOOD to see other takes on the same concepts.
- Dr. McCord

Unit 3 - Bonding Theories / Geometries / IMFs

Learning Exercises (LE17-LE22) will take you through the rest of the bonding unit and also through the unit on IMFs (InterMolecular Forces).

Homework (HW07-HW09) is the graded portion of this unit. 81 questions spread over three homeworks. Remember to go through the LEs first, then conquer the homework.

due dates now set for HW07 - HW09

Exam 2 Scores are available on Quest

The class average was a 73.8 for the exam. The histogram is shown below if you want to see how you "fit in" with the rest of the class.

Friday 6/17: Exam 2 in WEL 1.308!

Earlybird Start time: 8:15am

ALL students are expected to be in place and starting the exam by 8:30 am. The exam will end at 9:45 am.

There are 28 questions on the exam - points values are mostly 4 points, but there are some 3 pointers, and a couple of 2 pointers.

Learning Outcomes - Exam 2

Get started on Unit 2

Unit 2 - Atomic Theory + Bonding

Due dates/times now SET for Unit 2 HWs

Homeworks 04 - 06 are all available as well as all the Learning Exercises. Please engage.

Lots of Questions! This is a good thing - there is a total of 92 questions across three homeworks (HW04-HW06) PLUS there are 76 questions across eight LEs (LE09-LE16). The majority of those problems are conceptual and require no calculations. Do the LEs first, then tackle the HWs.

Exam 2 EQUATIONS you Memorize

\(c = \lambda \cdot \nu \)

\(E = h\nu \)

\( E_{\rm k} = {1\over 2} m_{\rm e}v^2 = h\nu - \Phi \)

\(E_n = -{\cal R}/n^2 \)

\(\Delta E = {\cal R}\left({1\over n_i^2} - {1\over n_f^2}\right) \)

\(\lambda = h/mv\)

\(\Delta x \cdot \Delta p \ge h/4\pi \)

Information Given on the Front Page of Exam 2

\(\psi_n(x) = \left({2\over L}\right)^{1\over 2} \sin\left({n\pi x\over L}\right) \)

\(E_n = {n^2 h^2 \over 8mL^2} \)

\(-{\hbar\over 2m}{d^2\psi\over dx^2}+V(x)\psi = E\psi \)

\(c = 3.00\times 10^8\;{\rm m/s}\)

\(h = 6.626\times 10^{-34}\;{\rm J\cdot s}\)

\({\cal R} = 2.18\times 10^{-18}\;{\rm J}\)

\({\cal R} = 1.097\times 10^{7}\;{\rm m^{-1}}\) CORRECTED! (we will remind you to fix this on exam copy Friday morning)

\(1\;{\rm eV} = 1.602\times 10^{-19}\;{\rm J} \)

\(N_{\rm A} = 6.022\times 10^{23}\;{\rm mol}^{-1}\)

\(m_{\rm e} = 9.11\times 10^{-31}\;{\rm kg}\)

\(1 \;{\rm lb} = 453.6\;\;{\rm g}\)

\(1 \;{\rm in} = 2.54\;\;{\rm cm}\)

\(1 \;{\rm u} = 1.66\times 10^{-27}\;{\rm kg}\)

And as always, there is a periodic table on the back of the bubblesheet.

Quit Fretting over the Rydberg Equation

It really does not matter the order of the \({1\over n^2}\) terms in the Rydberg equation. You just need the magnitude of the difference. If it makes you happier, try this version:

\[\Delta E = {\cal R}\left|{1\over n_f^2} - {1\over n_i^2}\right|\]

which will, in fact, give you the same result as

\[\Delta E = {\cal R}\left|{1\over n_i^2} - {1\over n_f^2}\right|\]

There are no negatives here. The difference term will be a positive quantity. \({\cal R}\) is a positive quantity of energy. That means that \(\Delta E\) will also be positive and you can convert that energy (joules) into frequency (\(\nu\)) or wavelength (\(\lambda\)).

So does the electron GAIN energy or LOSS energy in the transition. You just made everything show positive with your absolute values. This is where you use your BRAIN. Level n=1 is the lowest energy level and they go up from there. Level 2 is higher in energy than 1, 3 is higher than 2, etc... it is grade school type of stuff here. The higher the number the higher the energy.

The Downside to all this... The downside is that the very highest energy level you can have (\(n = \infty\)) has an energy value of ZERO. This means that the lowest energy (\(n=1\)) is the biggest negative number. Whoa... mind blown. (mike drops)

Oh, one more thing... Notice how the Rydberg "R" is not the same as the universal gas constant "R". In general (if possible) the universal gas constant is typeset as \(R\) while the Rydberg constant is shown as \({\cal R}\). Hopefully you see the difference. Even if you don't see the difference, context is everything here. "Know your surroundings" - that is good advice anywhere, and especially with scientific formulas using letters for constants.

Raising the Bar

student: I've seen this weird version of \(h\) on the internet with a little cross on it like this, \(\hbar\). What is that?

dr. mccord Well, it is formally known as the reduced Planck constant. We call it "h-bar" and is an abbreviation of \(h/2\pi\). Often in quantum mechanics, the value of \(h\) is divided by \(2\pi\) because frequency is often depicted as angular frequency and that is where the factor of 2pi is introduced. Anyway, \(\hbar\) is a nice short cut for \(h/2\pi\). We, here in gchem, generally will avoid \(\hbar\). It's nice to know what it is though.

While I'm at it, \(2\pi\) is "all the way around" meaning 360°. This is important when you are integrating an equation in spherical coordinates and what to cover all the angles. Angles in quantum theory are best measured and used in radians, so \(\pi\) and \(2\pi\) comes up a lot. Angular frequency is how many radians per second so it is generally the electromagnetic frequency, \(\nu\), multiplied by one full rotation of \(2\pi\). Angular frequency is omega, \(\omega\), so the equation is \(\omega = 2\pi\nu\).

Exam 1 has been Graded

Your exams have been graded and you can now see your scores and the key in Quest. Just login to Quest (little icon link is above) with your uteid/password and you'll see the results. Click on the "Exam 1" link and you will see your tally (your answers) on the right side along with whether you got credit (right) or you missed the question (zero). The pdf of your version with the correct answers marked and explanations is provided as well.

For point of reference, the class average was a 78 which is very good. We even had 7 perfect scores of 100.

Notice: I need a volunteer note taker to provide their notes for another student. Ideally this will be a student who is always present and takes reasonably legible notes. - Dr. McCord

Prepping for Exam 1

Exam 1 is Thursday, 6/9

What you provide for Exams: pencils (answer sheet must be in pencil, not pen), scientific calculator (NOT a graphing calculator)

What we provide: the exam copy, an answer sheet (bubblesheet), blank (scratch) paper.

You will need to have the necessary formulas in your head. The front page of the exam will have all the constants, and conversion factors that you will need. The bubblesheet itself will have a periodic table on the back of it as well as many conversion factors.

Here are some Learning Outcomes and Comments for Exam 1.

For what it is worth, here is the Cover Page for Exam 1.

Nomenclature: The only nomenclature on the test and reaction type that you will have to provide from your own brain is the alkanes (first 10) names and formulas which are used in a combustion reaction. The NAME will be provided and you will have to balance the reaction and do the math based on you knowing the formula for the alkane.

NO nomenclature will be on the exam for ionic compounds or other covalent compounds. That will be on Exam 2 and/or Exam 3.

Unit 1 - Fundamentals and Gases

Due dates/times SET for HWs

Homeworks 00-03 now have due dates and times (all next week). Remember the exam is on Thursday.

Getting Started...

You can always navigate to Canvas from here by clicking on the "on canvas" in the header of this box. There is another link at the top of the page via the icon.

You'll want to get busy with the Modules/Assignments that are on Canvas now. The Learning Exercises are for you to LEARN (duh). Low stakes on all the LEs - which means the actual scoring or grading on the LE's will not count toward your overall grade. I will look to see if you are doing the LE's, I just won't use the scores toward your grade in the course.

Homework - the homework on Canvas IS graded and will ultimately count 5% towards your overall grade in the course. Be careful with the homework - you will only get 2 attempts (submits) for your grade. Make the first one count and then get a higher score on the second try. Or just get a 100 on the first try, that's even better.

Welcome to CH301!

Explore the website as best you can. There isn't a lot here (yet). As the course progresses, more will be here.