Update at end of midsem break: Well it's been quite a while since I've updated my journal. I'm sorry that I didn't really find the time to help on the ATAR Notes boards because I was absolutely loaded with assignments and tests in all of my units, as well as keeping up with the lectures.
BMS2042: I had the most horrible midsem ever (it was called a lab test), it was so pushed for time, I think I only got like 60% on it. Luckily, the genetic counselling project worth 10% went super well with 96%. You are given a pedigree and basically you need to play the part of a genetic counsellor. It was open for 3 days only in week 7, I interpret it to be some kind of open book midsem as opposed to the closed book lab test we sat in week 9 as it examines a lot of the content covered in the labs up to that point. I'm now in a group project which involves delivering an oral presentation on why an assigned model organism (ours was the mouse) is the best for modelling human disease. So far, it's going really well, my group has finished our scripts and by Saturday, everyone will have completed their slides.
BMS2052:: I handed in my build a pathogen group project and we actually got our mark back today. To say my group was disappointed was a massive understatement, we only got 12/15, with the peer-review accounted, my final grade for the project was 16.9/20. I initially thought the assessor was lazy because they exclusively gave us marks in the 2nd column of the rubric, but on closer inspection of their provided feedback, they justified why they gave us this mark. It is apparent that they have high standards for our reports, although I don't think they were unreasonably high. Only <10% of the cohort managed to score 90%+ on the report according to the grade distribution, and no, I don't think they attempted to mark us on a bell curve like the psych faculty.
Luckily, the postlab/workshop tests weren't overly difficult, they were easy 90+s. I had mixed feelings about the midsem. While it had a lot of accessible marks, some questions required extensive detail of memorisation, I ended up with 42/48 (87.5%) because I didn't memorise the answers to some questions in enough detail. The Peerwise system set up by my profs was a lifesaver, the peer-generated MCQs were even better than Anki flashcards. When I wrote my own Peerwise questions (we have to write 5 for 5% of our final grade), it really made me get into the heads of the assessors and think about what is actually examinable from the lectures.
BMS2062: I have a love-hate relationship with this unit. On one hand, Mariah (my TA) is so helpful during the tutes and always makes sure we have gathered all the info we need to ace those workshop results sheets. On the other hand, the theme tests are atrocious. After failing my first ever assessment in biomed (theme 2 test, worth 2%), I failed my 2nd, which was theme 3 test (also worth 2%) at 47%. They put some really unreasonable trick questions on there not elaborated on adequately in the lectures. I got so mad I made a polite and logical forum post about it, as well as a more informal rant in Monash Stalkerspace. Then some anonymous guy on the forum decided to roast me for posting on Stalkerspace, I dunno why they did that since both of my posts had quite a lot of students agreeing with me. The unit coordinators responded that they actually intended theme tests to be formative to mimic the exam style, they only made them worth marks so people will take them seriously. Apparently, they are allowed to expand on the learning outcomes (which felt kind of out of scope for me, but oh well) because we have access to the internet. I had open book tests and exams before, while most of them are conceptually harder than closed book tests, I never had to confront anything as crazy as the BMS2062 theme tests.
I was panicking after hearing this, but they did assure me that they will release a practice exam which is exactly on par with the real exam difficulty. I haven't finished all the lectures, but as soon as I did, I will be attempting this. From my mates who decided to have a crack at it, it actually isn't too difficult. In addition, a plus is that the unit coordinators made the theme 4 test really easy, I got 90% on it. The dev bio major student rep, with whom I have chatted to before about our academic journeys, saw my Stalkerspace post and kindly told me that it was normal to do poorly on the theme tests, as they were as insanely hard as mine when her boyfriend took the unit.
MAT1, a patient brochure on an assigned genetic disease (I was assigned PKU), was marked very reasonably, it's worth 10% of our grade and I got exactly what I was expecting to get (18.5/21, 88%). Now my MAT2 task is to make a website on PKU. I will finish this by the time midsem break ends so that I can do a beta run of it at the week 10 workshop for some peer and TA feedback.
CHM2922: The midsem I sat in week 6 turned out way better than I expected, I somehow scored 47.5/50 on it, I swear they must have scaled it. I must admit that the mass spec + electrochem section of the course is super difficult, but heading into week 9, the fluorescence stuff is super cool. I finally nailed how to report sig figs on my most recently submitted lab report. For labs, I'm averaging in the mid-high 90s, and I've been full marking the lecture theme quizzes which were open time and open book. I initially thought the maths and physics involved in this physical and analytical chem unit will kill me, but it wasn't too bad.