[School] NUS AY/15 Year 1 Semester 1 Module Review: LSM1301

Dear Readers,

Gonna continue with module reviews for Y1S1 AY14/15!

Modules taken: 

1. EC1101E
2. LSM1301
3. EL1101E
4. SSA2204
5. EC2104

This post will be purely a review for LSM1301!

LSM1301 (General Biology) was one of the most enjoyable modules I've ever taken! It had the most interactive lessons and covers very interesting contents. Furthermore, the lecturers and teaching assistants were really funny and nice people.

Lecturers: Dr Seow Teck Keong and Dr Posa

Lectures: Both lecturers are equally good, although I find Dr Seow more engaging as he often shares his personal experiences in the lectures. I remembered there was a lecture on hereditary and he placed his family photo in the lecture slides (so cute HAHA), and introduced us to his wife and daughter. Dr Seow also cracks a lot of biology jokes and causes an uproar of laughter during most of the lectures. He covered the first half of the lecture which had a lot of H1 and H2 Biology content. This module precluded anyone who have taken H2 Biology at the A levels to make it fair for everyone. I took H1 Biology at the A levels so some content wasn't unfamiliar for me. 

The second half of the semester's content was covered by Dr Posa who was really nice and patient (but I felt really bad for her, as the LT was always so noisy whenever she wants to speak). The content she covered was very new concepts like the Sponges, and concepts on Genus, Phylum, Family, Order, Species etc. I personally felt the 2nd half of the semester was tougher as the content was really complicated. 

Always print your lecture notes for lectures, or else you will be very lost! The lecturers often drop important notes during the lecturers which were tested during the exams and weekly quizzes (graded) (eg. The Golgi Apparatus is liken to be a post office) That was an MCQ question that came out in the weekly quiz and Dr Seow mentioned it during the lecture but it was not on the notes he uploaded. 

Lectures were generally ok so long as you listened in class and have your notes with you.

Lab Sessions: For my semester, we had lab sessions which commenced about 3 weeks after the 1st lecture. Lab sessions were really fun. You need not get the white lab coats as the disposable (blue-coloured surgeon looking one was provided for free). HOWEVER, although it is disposable, please do not dispose it after the 1st lab session, keep it for all your 4 lab sessions as they were provided for free only for the first lab lesson. If you happen to lose your labcoat or want to wear a new one due to hygiene purposes, you can get it for $2 at the start of the lesson. Labcoats are compulsory for lab sessions, and girls had to tie up their hair and pin up your fringe (to avoid contamination). 

During my semester, I got to dissect a flower, make kimchi, do gel electrophoresis and extract my DNA from my cheek cells too! It was really fun!! Lab sessions were 1.5hours, and I felt that it was a little short as I was having so much fun!

Do note that you have to print the practical worksheet out before the lab session and bring it for the lab lesson, if not the Prof will make you buy a hardcopy. Softcopy was allowed (you can bring your laptop for lab- but it was such a hassle having a laptop on your workspace- leaves you less space to carry out your experiments) 

Also, the practical worksheet includes questions that required you to do lab reports after each lab session and upload onto IVLE for submission. They are all graded assignments. Please discuss with your lab mates and friends as they are meant to help you. Try to get full marks for all lab reports (Google is present for a reason)! There was a given dateline which you had to follow and you must always send your report for plagiarism check! (If not there would be a penalty mark deduction imposed)

Examinations: Finals was a electronic bring your own laptop examination (BUT please note that they stopped the e-exam after my semester) What does this mean? It means you bring your laptop for the exams. Yes, instead of a piece of exam script, you submit your answers (which comprised of MCQs only) on softcopy. There was a software you had to download into your laptop (details were provided during the lectures).

There was a trial run conducted one week before the actual final exam to ensure everyone had the software on their laptops and they running just fine. This was to minimise the technical difficulties faced during the actual final exam. I didn't quite like this method of examination as it was such a hassle to bring my laptop down to school for the exams, and the trouble of having a dry run on a Saturday morning to test out the system. All these hassle could be eliminated by conducting a usual black and white test paper. 

Oh yes, during the exam, internet access to Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari, Mozilla FireFox would all be denied, which means you are unable to Google the answer, BUT you were allowed to refer to your softcopy notes on your laptop. Wifi purely for exam purposes was used (the router was placed at the front of the LT), as the software required internet access to submit your answers online. I opted for the school laptop as I was too lazy to bring my own and the school laptop would 99% be compatible and unlikely to have any technical difficulties. That meant I had to bring my thumbdrive with my softcopy notes and lecture slides to transfer into the school laptop before the exam. Thumbdrives were not allowed on the actual exam!

The final exams was quite tough I feel, as it tested a lot on Dr Posa's lectures, and Dr Seow's portion were tougher and more analytical questions (like antibiotic resistance in different scenarios). You had to have a good grasp of your content beforehand as there wasn't sufficient time to flip through your notes for the answers for every single questions. There were a few giveaway questions (thankfully), and also some video-based question, where you had to watch a short clip and then answer the MCQ. The videos were replay-able, so not to worry if you missed out on any part.

Overall:  I would recommend students to take this module to fulfill as Unrestricted Electives. It is really interesting especially if you like Biology. The professors are really nice people, and lessons were informative and useful. I did generally well for this module, but I felt that the bell-curve was quite steep (probably because I didn't do too well for the final exams). I enjoyed this module very much!(:

Regards,

Rachel

P.S I still have my hardcopy lecture notes in coloured (printed using a laser printer) with good quality clear diagrams. Am selling it away (as a paid a lot for my coloured notes to aid my learning). Comment if you're interested!(: