Y1S2 Module Review

I have finished my second semester at NTU! Have already gotten used to university life. Time for some more module reviews~

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CM1041 - BASIC PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY WITH LABORATORY (4 AU)
Type: CORE
Grade: A
Comments: Most topics were covered in JC physical chem portion. There are some new equations and concepts to take note, but they are not hard. Taught by the friendly Sumod and physical chem expert Lee Soo-Ying.

CM1051 - BASIC BIOLOGY AND BIOCHEMISTRY (3 AU)
Type: CORE
Grade: EX
Comments: I was exempted from this course as I passed the exemption test at the start of the first semester, however I have heard some things about the course. Firstly, the course has been revamped to focus more on biology instead of chemistry. Secondly, there are online lectures every week and a mass tutorial to clarify questions posted by students in the discussion board. As the first batch of students to take this revamped course, expect technical glitches (wrong answer being shown, inaccurate diagrams etc). What's worse is that notes are released after the lecture is over. Online lectures are released every 2 weeks, so notes for those topics will only be available after the two weeks are over. Better to make your own notes. On a happier note, finals are all MCQs, though there are also multiple-options MCQs so you must know the content well.

GC0001 - INTRO TO SUSTAINABILITY (1 AU)
Type: GER-CORE
Grade: P
Comments: Easy compulsory module. You can easily clear it within the first two weeks of the semester. Has 6 online modules with a 48h waiting period after the completion of the previous module's quiz, so you cannot rush to complete all modules at once or do it last minute. I found the content covered to be pretty interesting.

HW0138 - SCIENTIFIC COMMUNICATION I (2 AU)
Type: GER-CORE
Grade: A-
Comments: My first university course where I have to write an essay. I've been lucky to have an essay-less and presentation-less first semester, but I have to do it this semester. There are three assignments (Annotated Bibliography, Review Paper and Oral Presentation). The second assignment is done in pairs. Managed to get through the module even though I'm not good at presenting.

MH1801 - CALCULUS FOR THE SCIENCES II (3 AU)
Type: GER-CORE
Grade: A+
Comments: This math course is so much easier than MH1800. It doesn't cover as many topics as the previous course. The pace of lectures is also slower and lectures almost always end early (at least by half an hour). It mainly covers Differential Equations and Infinite Series. The lecturer (Conan) prefers to write out his lecture notes and use the projector instead of using powerpoint. Notes would be uploaded after lectures, but I find it more helpful to take down my own notes. It helps me keep focused and I don't have to deal with the large file size (he scans the lecture notes).

There is a graded assignment in the form of a group project or MATLAB. For the group project (around 5 people per group), we are expected to write about Differential Equations and its real-life applications. I didn't choose this option and done MATLAB instead. There are 3 graded activities for MATLAB, but you need to go through all the 12 activities to understand how to go about answering the 3 graded sections.
The midterm average was quite high because midterms were easy as long as you studied the content (which is not much). For finals I still found it okay as question formats were similar to PYPs.

BU8201 - BUSINESS FINANCE (3 AU) 
Type: GER-BM
Grade: A
Comments: I took this module to clear my business GERPE. If you like calculations and can remember what AP/GP is, then this course is for you. If you like memorising, you may want to look at BU8301 instead. I did not find a need to purchase a financial calculator because my graphic calculator had a finance app. If you don't have a gc, then you may want to get one or a financial calculator.

I found the first few lectures hard to understand, but after constant reviewing, I managed to understand enough. There are seminars in place of tutorials, where you have to prepare tutorial questions beforehand and present them to the class. In the first class, you will be split into groups and randomly allocated one tutorial to present. Answers to computational questions are provided so that you know you are on the right track, but for other questions, you don't know if you are right until the teacher tells you so.

The midterms is done online at a computer lab. Each person is randomly allocated 10 questions from a huge question bank, so chances are that you won't get the same questions as your neighbours/friends. Questions are supposed to be easy (according to the lecturer). For the finals, I found them manageable and was quite confident of my answers.

LJ9001 - JAPANESE LANGUAGE LEVEL 1 (3 AU) 
Type: UE
Grade: A
Comments: I chose to study Japanese as I love anime and Jap culture, and have been hearing the language for a long time. In terms of vocabulary, I didn't have to pick up as many new words because I already knew some basic words from shows. I had also self-learnt Hiragana and Katakana during the December holidays so that I wouldn't struggle so much at the start.

There are no finals. There are 4 quizzes and a writing exercise. In place of finals, there is an exam paper, listening comprehension and oral examination in Week 13. By a stroke of (good) luck, my Japanese teacher wasn't free on one day and decided to combine the exam, listening comprehension and oral examination into one day, one after the other. Did I mention that the listening comprehension is not repeated? If you missed it, good game. For the oral exam, our class was tested in pairs. At the start, the teacher asked us questions individually and we answered them. Afterwards, for the conversation part, we had to invite the other party to an event. If you are in the later batches, you can probably get to hear what your classmates were tested on.

MS800M - AN EXPLORATION OF SYMMETRY (3 AU) 
Type: GER-STS (or UE depending on your choice)
Grade: P
Comments: This is an online course on Coursera spanning 8 weeks. It is pretty difficult, even though it doesn't appear that way. How many things are there to symmetry? Not a lot, right? Well, you are quite wrong.

It is important to keep to deadlines and remember to do peer marking, otherwise you could lose out on marks and fail. When I took this module, they had already adjusted it such that you need to do the Writing Exercise and get a decent grade to pass this module. I researched and saw that sometime back, some people didn't do the Writing Exercise and could still pass.

After the release of results (whether you passed or not), there were quite a lot of appeals, mainly for the Writing Exercise. You may want to check out some of the threads for stress relief :)
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