CM2122

Lecturer: Asst Prof Zhu Ruyi 

Lab Instructor: Dr Hoang Truong Giang 

General Overview

-Overview of content covered in module: IR and NMR spectroscopy, Mass Spectrometry, Electrophilic Addition, Electrophilic Substitution, Nucleophilic Addition, Nucleophilic Substitution with loss of carbonyl oxygen, Nucleophilic Substitution at saturated carbon (SN1, SN2), Elimination (E1, E2), Conjugation and Delocalization, Stereochemistry  

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Assessment Format and Weightage 

Lab Proforma  20% 

Mid Terms  30% 

Final Exam  50% 

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(Number of Responses:8)

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Overall difficulty

Very easy: 0        Easy: 0      Moderate:  2      Difficult: 3      Very difficult: 3

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Difficulty of Assessments

Lab Proforma  Very easy: 1        Easy: 0      Moderate:  6      Difficult: 1      Very difficult: 0

Mid Terms  Very easy: 0        Easy: 0      Moderate: 0      Difficult: 2     Very difficult: 6

Final Exam   Very easy: 1        Easy: 1     Moderate:  3      Difficult: 2      Very difficult: 1

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Pace of Module

Too slow: 0     Just right: 5     Too fast: 3

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Workload of Module (On average per week)

-Time spent on assignments : 5.88Hrs

-Time spent to keep up with content : 3.90Hrs

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Enjoyability

(With 1 being not at all enjoyable and 5 being very enjoyable)

Enjoyability (On average) : 3.13

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Usefulness

(With 1 being not at all useful and 5 being very useful)

Usefulness (On average) : 4.25

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Reviews

How did you find the contents (e.g. how it was delivered) and the assessments of the module?

-Assessments are quite different from tutorial questions, making it hard to prepare for them. 

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-The time required to fully understand what was done in 2 hours of lecture was much longer. The assessments were too difficult and even with the tutorials as practice they were hard to solve. 

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-Hard time understanding the content due to poor delivery and explanation. 

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-Assessments are very difficult, and the workload/amount of content to learn is too much. Workload gets even worse during lab weeks. 

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-The lectures were quite thorough and deceptively straightforward until you practice and draw the mechanisms for yourself. I think the way the content is delivered could be more engaging and incorporate more chances for us to practice. The tutorials had a mix of moderate to challenging questions. However, the mid-term test was set very hard, and insufficient practice/exposure was given by the lecture and tutorials. Thankfully, the final exam was much more manageable. 

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-Dr. Zhu is extremely passionate about organic chemistry, and it really shows in his lectures. Before every lecture, he will show a short video about some modern development in chemistry (e.g. development of COVID vaccine) that is relevant to the course. Would recommend coming for lectures to watch these to gain a better appreciation of modern developments in chemistry. The first mid-term test proved difficult as many high-level questions which require a good deal of lateral thinking were set. However, the difficulty of the finals was greatly moderated to pitch it at an appropriate level. Labs were extremely fun though lab reports require some time to do up. Would recommend students who are taking this module to be familiar with programs that can be used search for literature (scifinder, reaxys, google scholar etc.) as they will come in useful for labs. 

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-Dr Zhu Ruyi's style of content delivery, while mildly rote, did wonders in helping us develop solid basics for organic chemistry. Despite having to blast through the organic content (due to spectroscopy being shoved into this "Organic Chem 1.5", there was not much of a jump from Dr Chng's organic segment in CM1102 where similar reactions were touched on, i.e. EAS, NS, EA, E1/2/1cb, etc. Midterms were insanely difficult but extremely fun because it really opens your eyes to how useful organic chemistry is used in the pharmaceutical industry and how organic synthesis is like in academic research. Dr Zhu was extremely lenient in marking but was also nice enough if you gave answers not taught in the syllabus. Despite a heavily watered-down finals exam that became regurgitation of lecture content, the module was mostly enjoyable, and the labs were extremely fun. 

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-Content was very interesting and useful in identifying and synthesising common organic molecules. No worked examples in lecture notes so the only practice you'll have is doing the problems in tutorials. Midterm was considerably difficult, but the prof made the finals easier to balance out the difficulty so don't feel too pressurised by the content just try to enjoy them as they are really nice to learn. Since assessment is ~ 50% finals 25% lab and 25% midterm, you can pretty much be "free and easy" throughout the module as long as you know how to combine knowledge learnt in the different lectures come the final exam. There is also a pair work lab report to be done 

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How was your experience in the module? 

-I survived thanks to the TAs who always answered doubts promptly. 

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-Learnt a lot of new things but it was also very tough.  

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-Lab is difficult but interesting and useful. 

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-As problems are mechanism-heavy and full of diagrams to interpret, it was interesting to discover different ways to answer a problem. Some students from my cohort even found new answers and occasionally corrected the original answers. This is a module that lets you synthesize and interpret your own ways to work out a problem. In addition, the labs give you a firsthand experience on how to apply learnt materials that deepen your understanding of the topics 

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-The enjoyability of the lecture was so-so, it felt like a traditional lecture trying to cover as much content as possible. The labs were, however, quite fun and enjoyable, as we could learn hands-on. This module covers essential concepts in organic spectroscopy and reactions and is a fundamental module for future organic/ biochem modules. 

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-In this module, Dr. Zhu lays the foundation for organic chemistry by introducing spectroscopy (NMR, IR, Mass Spec) as well as basic organic reactions. It is important to have a good grasp of these concepts as future modules will definitely build on knowledge taught in this module. I thoroughly enjoyed myself in this module, although students who do not have much experience with organic chemistry will definitely find the workload of the module higher than other 2k chemistry modules. That being said, putting in consistent work is important if one wishes to do well. 

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-Extremely entertaining module that performs wonderfully the impossible task of shoving spectroscopy into CM1121 Ochem1 to make CM2122 Ochem1.5. This module is a very good taster for further organic mods. I do wish, however, they did not put the focus purely on pharmaceuticals (bioorganic) and more on organic electronics (organic materials/devices).