Module Review: GEH1005 (AY17/18 Semester 2)

GEH1005 Crime Fiction in English and Chinese is a 4 MC Human Culture Module taught by the Chinese Literature Department. Do not worry, the entire module will be taught in English and the Chinese lecturers will be speaking English throughout the entire module. The Chinese stories were also translated to English so there is nothing to worry about. You might think that it's very strange for an Engineering student like me to take such a module (since it's a literature mod if you think about it) but I definitely did not regret taking this module at all. 

Assessment

20% Class Participation
20% Group Project
30% Final Written Paper
30% Final Exam (2 hours, open book)

Lecturer: A/Prof Zhao Zhenxing

Tutor: A/Prof Zhao Zhenxing

Textbooks/Readings
No textbooks for this module. There will be readings given every week. The fun part about this module is that the readings are actual detective stories like Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot etc etc. There is 1-2 readings which is not given in IVLE and he recommended us to buy the book to read. If I remembered correctly, the 2 readings were Murder on the Orient Express and the CSI one (Take note the readings may change for your semester). I am totally fine with buying these books because I love reading mystery books. Well, there are online versions of these books too so I will not say its compulsory to purchase them. 

Lectures

Lectures were 2 hours long on Thursday, 4 - 6 pm. The lecturer will usually talk about the author/genre for the week with a set of powerpoint slides. Sometimes, we will watch clips of certain shows related to crime/detective fiction. So, this is one lecture that I really don't mind attending. We even watched movies like Psycho and Infernal Affairs (the cantonese one). However, since the lecturer does upload all powerpoint slides onto IVLE and he often just reads from the slides during lecture, it is not 100% required to attend the lectures (even though there isn't any webcast for this module). 

Tutorial

Tutorials took place once every 2 weeks and they were 2 hours long. For each tutorial, we we would usually discuss 1-2 readings. This meant that there were some stories that were not discussed at all during tutorial. So, like a typical literature lesson (which I have not experienced since Sec 2), we had to analyse the characters and their personalities/intentions. Since there is a whopping 20% class participation, it would be good to just contribute anything you can think of. This is because the tutor is really nice and doesn't criticise anything you say. Even if you say something simple like 'the antagonist is really evil', the tutor would just be like 'yes, yes, good that you pointed that out'. So... the class participation portion ain't really a big issue. We do get broken into groups sometimes as well (not the same group as the group project) to discuss. 

Group Project
As for the group project, we were supposed to film a video about a crime and how the crime was solved. And yes, we have to act. We could create a story from scratch or adapt one of the readings we have. But, the video could only be 5 - 10 minutes long. For my group, we adapted concepts from a few readings and combined them together to create a new story. The acting was really cringy at first but for that 20%, I guessed we decided to get serious and complete it well. We filmed at one of my group mate's hall room and it was really enjoyable for all of us. (Just take note that this group project segment may change for future semesters because in the previous semester, the previous batch was required to write a detective story instead of acting it out.) 

Final Written Paper

We were required to write an individual literary analysis that compares at least one western detective story with at least one Chinese detective story. Well, it is kinda my first time writing such a paper but it wasn't too bad because the lecturer gave sample analysis for us to reference. I guess I started early too so I was able to complete it on time. 

Final Exam

As for the final exam, we were given 2 hours to write 2 essays (aka 2 literary analysis). Surprisingly, I was able to complete on time. Well, this is the important part. It is open book. Which means... you can bring in the notes that you have typed out. So, I would highly recommend typing out your own summary/character analysis of the readings as it would make the paper way way easier. Plus, the lecturer also gave us access to past year papers so we could kinda predict the type of questions that would come out for the finals as well. 

Expected Grade: B

Final Grade: A

Final Comments

To me, I felt I did really well for the preparation notes for my finals and and spent quite a bit of time on the final written paper as well. All this, I guess, helped me to get the most surprising A this semester. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: DSC1007X/DAO1704X (AY17/18 Semester 2)

DSC1007X/DAO1704X Decision Analytics using Spreadsheets is a 4 MC module in Business School. I took it as an elective and it is a Microsoft Excel heavy module. You would get to learn a lot about Excel and its shortcuts through this module. I would recommend a Windows laptop (and not a Macbook) for this module as there are some functions/software which are unavailable/different on Macbook Excel. It is also recommended to have a graphic calculator (GC) so that you can calculate normal/binomial/poisson distribution. 

Assessment

15% Tutorial Assignments

15% Group Project

10% Quiz (mid-terms, 40 minutes, closed book)

20% Tutorial Participation

40% Final Exam (2 hour, closed book, 2 page cheat sheet)

Lecturer: A/Prof Tan Kok Choon

Tutor: A/Prof Tan Kok Choon

Textbook
Business Analytics - Data Analysis and Decision Making 6th ed. I bought the online version which is pretty expensive. In the end, I only used the textbook to attempt the tutorial questions in it (which I could just borrow from someone else taking this module). So, I would say it is not 100% required to get the textbook.  

Lectures

Lectures were 2 hours long on Thursday, 12 - 2 pm. There were no webcasts for this module so I attended all the lectures for this module. Since we had to use Excel during the lecture, bringing a laptop to lecture is necessary (This might sound stupid but there are people who print lecture notes and not bring laptops for lectures. And I am kinda part of that group of people). The lecturer was really good in explaining the content/concepts and shortcuts we need to know although there may be some Excel shortcuts that we already know but he did not. This isn't a big issue since there are just too many shortcuts in Excel and it's impossible to know everything. So, what we mainly did was comparing data and learning how to use Excel to solve business problems (aka minimizing cost and maximizing profit). The module also covered quite a number of H2 Math statistics concepts like normal/binomial/poisson distribution and it was a good revision for me. 

As for timewise, there may be days where the lecturer would end exactly at 2pm. So, it will be good to not have another lesson right after this lecture. 

Tutorial

Tutorial was once a week and it was 1 hour long. I was really worried about tutorial at first as there was a 20% Class Participation and I'm not the type who would talk a lot during class (I'm a typical introvert). However, on the first tutorial, we were already split into our own groups and we could then discuss within our groups (which somewhat shows a form of class participation). 

I was really lost for the first few tutorials too since my Excel skills aren't exactly that good. But as time went by, I slowly improved and going for the tutorials weren't that much of a worry anymore. 

Group Tutorial Assignment

For every tutorial, there would be tutorial questions given to tackle. We are supposed to submit our tutorial answers (as an excel/word/ppt file) as a group every week and all of these assignments would contribute to 15% of the overall grade. I was really thankful that this was a group assignment and my group members were really helpful as well. 

As for the group project, we were required to create a business problem and come up with simulations of said problem to see whether our proposed solution to the problem works. It kinda felt like we were creating an A level stats questions and then we would solve it ourselves. After that, we were required to write a report about it and record ourselves presenting on the problem (yes, we recorded ourselves doing a presentation.). Which is a good thing anyway since we need not present in front of a crowd of people. 

Quiz
For the quiz and final exam, we could write the excel formulas as our final answers to the questions. This meant that it is not a MUST to bring a GC for the tests but I would still highly recommend bringing one as I am extra Kiasu. We could bring in a 1 page cheat sheet for the quiz. It is clearly advised to write all the excel formula formats on the cheat sheet so that the paper will be way easier to attempt. The quiz felt like a math paper for me as the questions mainly involved H2 math statistics and probability. There were 5 questions in total and finishing it within 40 minutes was totally manageable. 

Final Exam

As for the final exam, it was 2 hours long and we were only allowed to bring in a 2 page cheat sheet. You can view my 2 page cheat sheet here. There were quite a number of tricky questions which were not exactly talked about in class before. I guessed these questions were set with the intention of separating the bell curve. But, oh well. There were 4 main questions to be answered, totally manageable within 2 hours. 

Expected Grade: B+

Final Grade: A-

Final Comments

Well, I was totally pleased with my A-. I wasn't really confident about this module when I first took it and I had intentions to S/U it. But, I guessed it was due to my consistent revision. Plus, I had great team mates as well which made the group project much more manageable. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: CM1502 (AY17/18 Semester 2)

CM1502 General and Physical Chemistry for Engineers is a 4 MC module that focuses on molecular spectroscopy, kinetics, equilibria and linking these concepts to various industries. I would say I had the most ups and downs when taking this module, as compared to the other mods in this semester. (Get ready for a rant, I have a number of complaints for this module. But, I'm just gonna say that these are my opinions and it may or may not represent the opinions of everyone else who took this module.)

Assessment

20% Quizzes (3 in total)
10% Lecture Quiz Questions (participation marks) 
20% Lab Work
50% Final Exams (on Examplify, open book)

Lecturer: A/Prof CHIN Wee Shong

Tutor: Zhu Ziyu

Lab: Various Lab technicians

Textbook
Chemistry - the Molecular Nature of Matter and Change, 7th Edn., Silberberg and Amateis, McGraw-Hill Education, 2015.

Definitely not a must to get this textbook. A lot of such content can be found online in other websites.

Lectures

Lectures were 2 hours long on Monday, 3 - 5 pm, but we always end pretty early like around 4/4.15 pm. The thing about this module is that there would be online lecture webcasts to watch first (about 1-2 hours per week) before attending the lecture. (just like MA1512 and MA1513) The online lecture basically explains most of the content we need to know and going to physical lectures are like a chore. We needed to attend the physical lectures as there were questions to answer (via SMS) during the lecture. If not, I seriously doubt any of us would attend the lecture. Furthermore, the lecture notes are very brief, like some form of revision notes, and it wasn't easy understanding the concepts unless we read up more online. This is the main problem of the module imo. (Like most of the content I learnt and understood was from Wikipedia. Ya you heard me right. Wikipedia.) The lecturer also didn't really explain the concepts well. Everything was very brief and along with reading Wikipedia, I had to watch online videos with regards to the content I wasn't sure of. It was really annoying especially for the very new concepts like IR spectra, H-NMR spectra etc. 

Tutorial

There are only 4 tutorials for this module and each tutorial were 1 hour long. We have tutorial questions to attempt before attending the tutorial. Well, my tutor for my tutorial timeslot was a graduate student (I may be wrong here but she definitely isn't a prof. And you might not get the same tutor as me so our experiences may differ a little here and there). Well, her voice was kinda soft and she wasn't totally sure of some of the concepts as well. But the good thing is that she would help us check on the questions we asked and she would email us after the tutorial with explanations to the questions we asked. 

Another problem with this module is that there were no solutions posted for the tutorial questions. I mean the intention might be for us to listen well during tutorials but sometimes, there might not be enough time to explain every single question in depth and it would be very very helpful to have at least a brief solutions to the tutorial questions. 

Laboratory Work
There were a total of 3 three hour long lab sessions. One focused on titration, one on IR spectroscopy and one on absorbance. For the first two sessions, we were only required to fill up a lab worksheet while for the last one, we were required to write a full lab report which includes an intro, procedure, results, discussion etc etc. Each lab session took place in different laboratories in Faculty of Science. We were then graded based on the worksheets and report submitted.

We were a little lost when we first started each lab but I would say that the lab technicians/professors were really helpful (the sad thing is that I can't remember any of their names). When we had any issues, we could easily approach them and they would spend time to explain where we went wrong and how we can improve on our experiments. 

Quizzes
As for the quizzes and final exams, we were to attempt all of such tests on the online platform known as examplify. Well, the future is here. We are doing our exams on our laptops now. Here comes the problem. We had 3 quizzes in total. 2 to be attempted "at home" and 1 to be attempted during one of the lectures. The ones to be attempted at home can obviously be discussed so i have no issues with that. Now, comes the one we had to do during lecture. Well, we had the quiz in an LT and guess what happened? Obviously, people cheated during the quiz and used their phones to chat when profs were not looking. There was even one student who submitted the quiz after he went back to hall (lol this one really dem fail cos our prof can detect which part of school we are at when submitting the file). As such, we had to do a re-test again (which means more time spent on revision). What I felt was kinda dumb was that we were using laptops and we were in an LT. This clearly meant that those sitting on top can see the answers of those who are sitting below them! 

Ok, now back to content, all the 3 quizzes are MCQ or MRQ (multiple response, where we had to choose a few options out of the many given, as compared to just choosing 1 correct answer for MCQ). They were all rather manageable fortunately so long as revision was done.

The good thing about the quizzes and final exam was that it was all open book. So, we could refer to our notes and do the paper. 

Final Exam

Thankfully, for the final exam, we were separated into 3 different LTs and we could sit with a gap in between us. Each of us had a plug to charge our laptops. The final exam not only had MCQ and MRQ questions. It also had 2 essay questions and 4 structured questions. Well, the structured questions only required the answers and no working was needed. This was kinda sad in my opinion because our working could be perfect but if we typed a number wrongly in our calculator or we did last step wrongly, then we would lose all the marks for that question. 

Timewise, we were given 2 hours for the paper which was in my opinion, sufficient to complete the paper. 

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments

To be really really honest, I was very thankful that I could do so well for this module. I guessed I consistently went online to search about anything that I wasn't sure of and this has helped in strengthening my concepts and knowledge about physical chemistry (irony, isn't it). 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: GER 1000 Quantitative Reasoning (AY17/18 Semester 2)

GER1000 Quantitative Reasoning is a 4 MC GEM module that is compulsory for all undergraduates (with the exception of students in medicine and law). You would have heard of a number of seniors complaining about this module and the amount of effort required for this module but I would assure you it would not be as bad as it sounds. (Btw, this is coming from a viewpoint of an engineering undergraduate.)

Assessment

10% Class Attendance and Participation
10% Online IVLE Quiz
20% Mid Terms (Closed Book, 14 MCQ Questions)
27% Group Project (Report + Poster)
33% Final Exam (Closed Book, 28 MCQ Questions)

Lecturer: Various Professors from different faculties

Tutor: A/Prof Tan Weiyu, Colin

Lectures

Lectures were entirely online and can be accessed via IVLE. There were a total of 6 chapters for this module, mainly Design, Association, Measurement, Sampling, Uncertainty and Networks. The module basically focuses on questioning the data we see everyday (on the newspaper, online etc) and whether we should believe the things we read and see. (Despite the name of the module, the lecturers kept emphasizing that this is more of a qualitative module but after taking this module, I still felt like the name of the module makes sense.) There were a couple of content that was already covered in H2 maths (like probability) and it served more of a revision for me. 

As for the online lectures itself, because the lecture notes already provided the lecturer's transcript, there isn't a need to watch the online videos. Reading the transcript along with the PowerPoint slides is actually sufficient. 

Online IVLE Quiz
There is one IVLE quiz every week from Week 1 - 10. There are about 5-6 MCQ questions per quiz. We were given multiple attempts for the quiz and obviously, we would also be able to discuss the questions with our friends. So, the quizzes were giveaways.

Tutorial

Tutorial took place once every two weeks and there were a total of 6 sessions. I guess it was a blessing in disguise as I had my tutorial in Arts. Our tutor is a Math Professor and he likes to babble about math and side track a little. But other than that, he actually gives pretty good explanations about the topic and provides a rather good okay environment to simulate thinking and problem solving. Since we had a group project to settle, we would sit in our own groups during tutorial and the discussions would be done within the same groups itself. 

Group Project
For the group project, we are required to critique a news article that was written about a scientific study. Take note here: we are criticizing the news article and not the scientific study. Although the study had issues, our focus was only on the news article. We were then required to write a 2 page summary and do up a poster to talk about the bad points of the news article and to suggest a few points of improvement. 

This is where I was very thankful that I took my tutorial in Arts because my group members were able to write very well and design really good posters. I provided the content and they refurbished it and made it sound so classy and formal. (I guess I would never be able to do that) I felt that the main reason why I did well for this module was because of the group project. 

On Week 13, we were supposed to present the poster to our tutor. But my tutor had a different way of grading us. What we did was put up our posters during tutorial and we go around pointing out flaws on the posters of other groups. The tutor will listen to how we counter the flaws which were pointed out by the other groups. 

Mid Terms
Mid Terms took place on a Saturday afternoon on Week 8. It was a one hour paper which consisted of 14 MCQ questions. I would say a lot of the questions were really tricky (just like the final paper) and I had to read really closely before being able to pick out an answer. I scored the median score for mid terms and was mentally prepared to S/U this module. However, I guessed I didn't need to in the end because of the group project. 

Final Exam

The final exam was 2 hours long and consisted of 28 MCQ questions. Like the mid terms, the questions were really tricky. Since I'm the indecisive type, I kept changing my answers during the paper. But the paper was still doable and 2 hours was totally sufficient to complete the paper. 

Expected Grade: B

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments
I was really surprised that I could do so well for this module. I came in with the expectation to S/U it but did really well in the end. My advice is to focus and do well for the group project. 

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: MA1512 (AY17/18 Semester 2)

MA1512 Differential Equations for Engineering is a 2 MC module that took place from Week 8 - 13. Lectures were from weeks 8 - 12 and tutorials were from weeks 9 - 13. This module had a couple of problems, in my opinion, but overall was still manageable. This module took place right after MA1513 and the lectures and tutorials were at the exact same time slot as MA1513. This module is a new module which is supposed to replace MA1506 (or part of it, and the other part covered by MA1513). It covers different concepts of DEs and includes Laplace transforms as well.

Assessment

4% Class Participation (only required to attend one tutorial session)

16% Online Quiz (only one quiz with 4 questions)

80% Finals (Closed Book, with 2 page cheat sheet)

Lecturer: A/Prof Leung Pui Fai, Fred

Tutor: Marciuk, Adriana Ewa

Lectures

Lectures were 1 hour long, like MA1513, which took place once a week. There were five of them in total. The main difference from MA1513 was that there was no lecture quiz at the end of the lecture. Furthermore, since there was only 1 hour, the lecturer tend to explain only one portion of the topic and expect us to understand the rest through watching the online webcasts. Thus, I gave up attending lectures after going for the first one. I then decided to just watch the online videos and attend tutorial (which was a good choice imo). Furthermore, there wasn't even like a "module overview" kind of thing on the first lecture and the lecturer just went straight into the topic. I mean it's not exactly a bad thing but I really like lecturers that give a broad overview of the entire module.

The lecture notes were totally just copied off from MA1506. There were some notes where the lecturers were too lazy to change the title and it was still called MA1506. Furthermore, the notes were pretty messy as well. I guess it was because MA1513 gave really really really precise, clear and detailed notes which resulted in the MA1512 notes looking really bad.

Tutorial

Tutorials were held once a week and were 2 hours long. The tutor would usually give a brief summary of the topic, followed by going through the tutorial questions that were prepared for that week and then giving us time to do the in-class assignment. The tutor was the same as for MA1513. She follows closely to the answer sheet which isn't too bad imo. 

The problem with this module is that we only need to attend ONE tutorial out of the 5 tutorials to get the 4% of the grades. I mean it is a good thing if you think about it but there was a lack of commitment to this module because of this. 

The other 16% was for ONE online quiz which took place around week 9/10. There were 4 questions to tackle and we only need to fill in the final answer. No working was required and we could freely discuss with our friends before submitting the quiz. Thus, it wasn't much of an issue. 


Final Exam

The finals for this module took place on the last Sunday of the finals week which was kinda annoying. The paper was also 1.5 hours long but only consisted of 5 questions in total (as compared to 6 for MA1511 and MA1513). Time management was still really important but it wasn't as stressful as compared to the other two papers. 

You can view my 2 page cheat sheet here.

Expected Grade: A

Final Grade: A+

Final Comments

I guessed the lecturer (from the online webcast) was good in explaining the concepts to us. The content was really messy but if you prepare your own notes well, this module shouldn't really be much of a problem.

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan

Module Review: MA1513 (AY17/18 Semester 2)

MA1513 Linear Algebra with Differential Equations is a 2 MC module that took place from Week 1 - 8. Lectures were from weeks 1 - 7 and tutorials were from weeks 2 - 6. I would say this module had the best lecturer and tutor, out of the modules that I took this semester.  

Assessment
15% In-Class Assignment 
10% Lecture Quiz
5% IVLE Quiz
70% Finals (Closed Book, with 2 page cheat sheet)

Lecturer: A/Prof Victor Tan
Tutor: Marciuk, Adriana Ewa

Lectures
Lectures were 1 hour long which took place once a week. There were seven of them in total. However, there are web lectures in IVLE to listen to before attending the lecture. Each week, there were about 4-5 videos (of about 10 minutes long each) to watch. So, there are technically two types of lecture slides: one for the online videos and one for the physical lecture. During the physical lecture, since it is only 1 hour long, the lecturer would usually just summarise the key points of the topic. I find the summary slides to be super useful because I can just copy his summary into my cheat sheet for the final exam. The lecturer was also able to explain all the concepts clearly and I really liked how his slides were very organised (as compared to the other modules I took in the semester). I mean there were pretty new concepts for JC students like us to learn such as eigenvectors and linear independence. But I was able to understand them pretty quickly due to his clear explanations.

At the end of every lecture, we are required to answer 2 lecture quiz questions where the marks are only awarded for participation. This meant that so long as you submitted your answer, you'll get the mark regardless of whether it is right or wrong.

Tutorial
Tutorials were held once a week and were 2 hours long. The tutor would usually give a brief summary of the topic, followed by going through the tutorial questions that were prepared for that week and then giving us time to do the in-class assignment. My tutor was pretty okay, I guess. I mean she can explain things well but I wouldn't say she's really good. But I ain't complaining (cos she's much better than the other tutors for the other modules I took in the semester). For the in-class assignment, just like MA1511, we could discuss with our friends and we could refer to our notes too. It serves as a good revision of the concepts learnt in lecture in the previous week. We would submit the assignments, our tutor would mark it and return it back to us the following week. 

For the IVLE quiz, there were 5 quizzes in total. We given one week to do it and each quiz has about 5-6 MCQ questions. We were also given multiple attempts for each quiz so it ain't really a problem.  

Final Exam
The finals for this module took place on a Sunday on week 8 (just like MA1511 last semester). The paper was 1.5 hours long and consisted of 6 questions in total. This meant that we only had 15 minutes for each question. Bear in mind that each question has 2 parts as well, meaning that there are actually 12 questions in total. Thus, time management was really important. I somehow managed to finish the paper right on time and yeah, I would say it wasn't a very terrible paper. There were tricky components but it wasn't like an impossible paper like MA1511.

You can view my 2 page cheat sheet here.

Expected Grade: A
Final Grade: A+

Final Comments
I feel like I could do very well for this module because the lecturer was really good in explaining all the foreign concepts to us. I would say the concepts were not easy to grasp but once I could understand the reasoning behind certain things in the module, the questions were not that tough anymore (as compared to MA1511).

Stay tuned for more updates.

- Alan