mccord ch302
spring 2018
Archive
ALL Grades for BOTH classes have been Submitted to Registrar
As of 9:10pm on Wed, 5/16/2018, all letter grades have been submitted to the registrar. You should be able to see them soon.
Seeing Your Final Exam (or not)
The solutions (pdf) for the final exam will never actually be released in Quest like we did on other exams. After grades are all distributed for all our sections, a student who is truly interested can come to my office (see when below) and we can look at the pdf together. Then you can see what you missed.
As to when? During my future office hours... which will be this summer: 6/7-6/22, from 10-11am MTWT. Then again 8/2-8/16, 10-11am MTWT. After that, I'll be available next fall on TTh from 1:30-2:30pm just like this semester.
Just to Be Absolutely Clear...
I do assume that ALL students truly want a higher letter grade than their actual numeric score indicates. 90% of the emails I'm getting are... "I have this score, XX.XX, can I please have the next higher grade. Thanks - student". I get it - everyone wants a higher grade - I'm definitely keeping that thought under advisement. If you are extremely close, you'll probably get the next higher grade. Others, not so much and you cannot convince me that 2.5 points is really close enough - it's not. I'll decide, I'll be fair to ALL students. Many of you will be pleasantly surprised, while others will be disappointed. Now you just have to wait it out and see.
- Dr. McCord
50+ 70+ 100! emails and counting...
So I am up to 100 emails now from students asking for me to raise their grade up for various reasons. I do have those emails and I have read them. Like I said in class, I will not be answering them do to the fact that I really cannot and will not put final grading information in emails. I am also not on campus to discuss your concern with your grade. I'll read the emails. You have to WAIT until grades come out to find out the results - that'll be next week. But, like I said, if you really need to tell me something, put it in an email - I'll read it.
One last thing... whether or not you send an email will have NO influence on your actual grade in the course. Grades are assigned "blindly" with no knowledge of who is who - your grade is based purely on your scores/averages.
- Dr. McCord
Sapling Now has copies of HW to practice on
Sapling duplicated all the HWs for you to use as practice and preparation for the final. Of course these will not count as a grade - only for practice. Use them as you see fit.
11:00 Class · 49785
Your Final Exam is
Wednesday 5/9
from 9am to 12 noon
in HMA
9:30 Class · 49770
Your Final Exam is
Saturday 5/12
from 7pm to 10pm
in HMA
HW10, number 12 will be withdrawn
There are bad sig fig issues at play on part B of #12 on HW10. Sapling is chopping off the answer such that far to few sig figs are showing (like they show 1 sig fig which is always a bad thing). Anyway, it is difficult to match the Sapling answer on Part B. Try the other parts for practice - they seem to work. But we will have to withdraw the whole question before the assignment is past due (Monday at 9am).
How 'bout a little Extra Credit
Please complete the electronic course instructor survey (eCIS) that the registrar sent you an email on. If you lost it, here is the direct link: https://utdirect.utexas.edu/ctl/ecis/ . After the survey, do a screen shot and upload to Canvas for 2 extra points on the final exam. All the details are on an assignment in canvas named eCIS - Proof of Completion. 62% of students have already do this! Let's go you other 38% - easy points.
Unit 5: Electrochemistry
I bumped back (again) HW09. It is now due Wed 4/25 at 9am. The equations and theory behind the last several questions on HW09 will be presented in class on Tuesday. I will also cover much of the front end of HW10 type questions.
FYI - Fall 2018 CH301 9:30am and 11am = McCord
The course schedule has no names on it for our CH301 offerings. I'm teaching at the same times as this year: 9:30am and 11am on TTH. Feel free to tell your friends taking CH301 about this situation - either way, whether to avoid me or take me, now you know.
Learn / Sign up for PLA Program for Fall 2018 - if interested
Feel FREE to stop all your assignments and your studying on Nuclear Chemistry
It is OUT - well most of it. Please refer to my latest announcement on Canvas about this. DO keep studying kinetics because the exam is now 100% kinetics (about 25 questions). All nuclear chemistry that you need to know will be discussed from the view point of kinetics. All will be revealed in Tuesday's class time.
- Dr. McCord
I have been informed that this question (21) has officially been fixed now. Feel free to work it.
Sapling Sadness #21 on HW08a has an ERROR for about 40% of students. The number of years in part 2 should be DOUBLE (exactly) the years given in part one. The whole point is to count in half lives. I've asked Sapling to fix this problem and reset it. You might SKIP IT for now. At least until this announcement changes.
Class Drop Deadline is TODAY (Monday, 4/2).
Exam 3 scores and solutions are available on Quest. Here is a Periodic Table Handout that was handed out with Exam 3.
UT Virtual ID Card: id.utexas.edu
Do know that it only displays for 20 seconds and then goes away - either screen grab it, or just hit submit and show it right before you hand your exam to a proctor.
Learning Exercises - Unit 3
LE18 due Thu 3/1
LE19 due Tue 3/6
LE20 due Thu 3/8
LE21, LE22 due Tue 3/20 by midnight!
LE23 due Thu 3/22
A page of Acid/Base Help Links and Pages
Number 14 on HW05 is very very very strict on the 2 sig fig rule. No more than 2 digits after the decimal is ever counted right. So ALL the answers on that one are like 0.01, 0.02, 0.03 .... 0.09 you get the idea? Do NOT put any more digits after that 2nd place. And yes, I think it is incredibly lame on their part for doing this. We will adjust for that question (probably throw it out) after Spring Break. Just make sure you know how to do that type of question and know that the multiple choices on the exam will be very obvious if you did it right.
Remember your UT ID card to show when you turn in your exam. If you forget the card or have lost it, you can use the UT Virtual ID Card available at: https://id.utexas.edu/vid. Do know that it only displays for 20 seconds and then goes away - either screen grab it, or just hit submit and show it right before you hand your exam to a proctor.
🤔
Want some more problems to practice on prepping for Exam 2? HERE is what you seek. Or you can still click that thinking emoji guy over to the right.
Our last 2 class Take Home Lessons (aka: what was covered in class)
* Sapling Sync scores? missing?
UPDATE (2/20 1pm): I re-synced Sapling scores today (Wed, 2/21)at 1pm an all scores seem to be showing correctly now in Canvas.
I synced Sapling homework scores last week. It seemed to work 804 synced scores out of 808 - pretty good. Then today they all "vanished" on Canvas... the assignment zeroed out. So I synced again this afternoon and all the scores were back... Except! about 100 students show a 0 in canvas, even though the correct score from Sapling is IN canvas. Some sort of display issue. Also - it only seems to be students at the very front end of the alphabet (like A-H last names) - weird.
I'm sending the issue to the canvas admins to deal with. Let's not worry about it now. The MOST important scores are the ones in Sapling - that is where your real grades are. Maybe next week all will be working again.
In the meantime - prepare for Exam 2 and don't worry about Sapling Sync right now. They'll sort it out eventually.
- Dr. McCord
Learning Exercises - Unit 2
LE08 due Tuesday 2/6
LE09, LE10, LE11 due Thursday 2/8
LE12, LE13, LE14 due Tuesday 2/13
LE17 due Tuesday 2/20
Many have asked for the link to the valentines video - well, I had to make the video first and then upload it to youtube. Anyway - here you go...
Zhulin's Office Hour is CANCELLED today (2/6) due to illness.
Dr. McCord's Office Hour is CANCELLED today (2/6) also. Dr. McCord will have a make up time on Thursday (2/8) when his office hours are 2pm - 4pm.
SICK POLICY
REMINDER: I'm sorry to have to remind all students about the standard policy for our general chemistry program, but I'll do so anyway. There are no make up exams for any reason whatsoever. This is spelled out in the syllabus and it is true. I am truly sorry for those of you catching the flu at such an inopportune time. The fact is that we do not have an exam for you to take after this Thursday when exam 1 is scheduled. It is for this reason that we have the one exam drop policy. If you have the flu, please, by all means - do NOT come to the exam and make the flu situation worse. Please just know that the exam score will be dropped and you still will have the other four exams in your average. Please assess your health situation before you come to the exam. If you are officially sick then please take the drop and move on. This is the unfortunate consequence of being in a program with about 3000 students. I am sorry but that is the answer to your questions of "can I take the exam next week?".
I just made this Helpsheet on the Van't Hoff Factor (pdf file). Check it out. Oh and here is a more device friendly html version too: Help Page on the Van't Hoff Factor (html). - Dr. McCord
FIXED!!!! This seems to be fixed now. You can click on the "Solution" for both HW01 and HW02 now. Just to be sure about it, you might logout of Sapling and then back in to refresh.
Some more Sapling Sadness is in play. Currently there is no way to see the solutions to HW on Sapling after the due date - which has passed for HW01. They ARE working on it and hope for a fix soon. Yet another reason to stay on task and do the homework in a timely fashion so that you can see the full solutions as you are working it.
Here is a newly formatted Ice Tea Problem (not a pdf) that you can check out on your favorite device. Do note that only part 1 of the question is anything like what you would get on an exam. Parts 2 and 3 are just more overthinking about the dilution factor on the tea - still kind of fun to think about though.
Albert's Review Today (1/19)
This is a notification that Albert is having a review today (Friday 1/19) from 2-3pm in FAC 21. He is specifically going to review some important CH301 topics that all students should remember going into CH302 - specifically some thermodynamics and the idea of spontaneity. Also covered will be IMFs, properties of liquids, and a refresher on how to draw molecules.
So not for everyone, but some of you have told me of concerns about what you do and don't know. This session might help out a bit.
- Dr. McCord
Did I Buy the 1-Year or 6-Month Subscription Last Year? Find out how to know HERE.
Here we go again. Most everything is working here. Some things are still being finalized - like office hours and reviews.
YES! We WILL be using Reef and Sapling again for the spring semester. If you purchased a year subscription last semester, then you are good to go with no further purchasing. However, if you bought the 6 month subscriptions, you will need to purchase another 6 months for the spring.
ONE MORE THING! You can ONLY sign up for the Sapling course through the Canvas assignment. That assignment is clearly shown on our Canvas page. OR... here is a direct link to the Sapling Sync assignment on canvas.
- Dr. McCord
Sapling Sadness
When Sapling misbehaves (glitchy behavior - non-functioning widgets, errors on known right answers), please just move on with the assignment. If there is no notice on the website (here), then feel free to let us know via email. We will put notices up when they are known.
Be REEF Ready!
Please DO come "Reef Ready". Download the app and sign into your Reef account - search for my class which will be "McCord CH302 S18" and the unique number for your section of the course (9:30am = 49770, 11:00am = 49785). You can sync with canvas anytime after that - just get yourself ready to answer questions with Reef (aka: iclicker reef).
NO CLASS on TUESDAY! Too cold for school. Stay tuned - I WILL be opening up some LE's and HW on Tuesday. It's never too cold to do some chemistry.
Let's Get this Party Started
Welcome back to Fun with Chemistry... wait, that's Dr. Biberdorf's thing... welcome back to Fear and Loathing.. wait... I got it... welcome back to FIRE and FURY - Inside the Realm of Equilibria. You'll want to open up Modules and complete the first one called "Do Me FIRST" which is just 2 assignments that allow you to sync to Reef and Sapling. You actually have to sign up for Sapling that way - it's the only way to get in. So do it. Make sure you READ the info on the pages before you click the linking button.
Then it is off to learning/prepping for our now delayed first day of class. There are four LEs ready to go now (LE01-04) and there is one homework (HW01) over on Sapling. Please get started ASAP and know that we have ground to make up on Thursday. Come ready and able with your Reef enabled device in hand.
Oh yeah... our class web site is fully up and running over at:
http://mccord.cm.utexas.edu/ courses/spring2018/ch302/
Note that the doodles link (aka class notes) now has the entire semester mapped out as far as what will be covered that day. Woo hoo - the ultimate heads up kind of thing. It even has sections listed from the gchem site. Check it out. Most students seemed happy with the way last semester ran... so most of the web site is the same and so is the course. There are a few changes though and more info is still coming in. Come to class Thursday and we will push the "GO" button - which is definitely bigger than any other course's go button.
- Dr. McCord
Gone but not Forgotten
This is where old announcements go after their time has passed. Any announcement with a link or other helpful info will ultimately land on this page.