My first post on this spanking new blog, and it's about NUS modules! Hope it's useful for you if you googled for a review.

Academic Year 14/15 Semester 1

CM1401: Chemistry for Life Sciences

I'm not chemistry-inclined and have never done well for it beyond O levels. Even then it was pretty mediocre.
This chemistry module was a horror for me and I didn't put in much effort to study as well. I failed this module (got a letter grade F) and retook it in AY 15/16 Semester 1.

If I remember correctly, the grade percentage for this semester was:
10% tutorial participation (just attend all tutorials) 
30% for both Physical and Organic CAs
60% for finals
Grade percentages changed in 15/16 Semester 1.

LSM1103: Biodiversity 

I don't remember the grade percentages.

CA grades were lab and field outing attendance, as well as research paper writing assignments.

Do your cheatsheet well for the practical exam. If you do your cheatsheet by yourself, you'll know where to find what you wrote. I remember not having enough space so I just skipped the entire portion on mammals, thinking that they couldn't possibly have mammal specimens in the practical exam and true enough they didn't.

Final exam is open book, would be good to have the textbook on hand, otherwise it's fine with the notes as well. I know a friend who didn't buy the textbook. If you do get one you could just sell it on Carousell later on.

Final exams were MCQ format. I remember that the portion on plants was tricky in the final exams, and a huge part of the tested portion came from the plants practical, with lots of reference to scientific names and comparisons, so there wasn't much time to refer to my notes.

LSM1104: General Physiology 

Again, I don't remember the grade percentages.

NM3228: Interactive Sequential Art 

You could visit my blog for this module at: http://crystal-isd.tumblr.com/

I mistook the module name as Interactive Sequential Design while I was creating the blog name and that's how it ended up as "isd".

Pretty fun module, with not much brainwork, seeing as readings are comics. The lecturer gave surprise pop quizzes on the comics though, a single question. Example: "what was the character doing in the story" and I probably flunked those as I didn't read some of them. Unfortunately, the days that I didn't do my "readings" were the days she chose to have those pop quizzes.

Grade percentages as follows:
Participation (Attendance, IVLE forum, the abovementioned mini pop quizzes, tutorial critique)
- 10%

Blog- 10% (refer to http://crystal-isd.tumblr.com/)
We had to detail our assignment work-in-progress [meaning how we conceptualised our assignment and how we got to the final product,] reflect on in-class exercises and what we learnt.

A total of 4 assignments- 50%
Refer to the tumblr for what each assignment was about.
Basically the 1st assignment was the simplest: tell a story in 5 pictures.
2nd: Do a comic.
3rd: Do a webcomic.
4th: Do a webcomic that involves choosing between 2 options and has 2 endings (branching)

Final Project- 30%
This was quite crazy as we were expected to do up a fully functional webcomic with branching and all, preferably with music and animations. Thankfully one of my group members could code and had a tablet, with great drawing skills. Most of the work was done by her while my other group member and I coloured the comic using Photoshop and I copied and pasted the animation codes many times.
Our comic can be found on tinyurl.com/meepokqueen. We had to do 20 pages of documentation as well, of our conceptualisation process etc.

This module was a crash course in Photoshop, Illustrator and Dreamweaver for me. I had a lot of trouble making the collage of 5 pictures as I had no Photoshop skills whatsoever, not to mention the further assignments. If you are creative/can draw/have a tablet and have the above digital editing tools on your computer as well as the relevant skills to use them, the module is a piece of cake. However, I'm pretty pleased with the "crash course" on those digital editing softwares as I can now use them for other assignments like designing posters and whatnot. All the skills I gained from this module are pretty useful.

Even now, when I read comics, I have the "occupational hazard" of identifying what comic techniques were used and where.

14/15 Semester 2 

LSM1101: Biochemistry of Biomolecules

Horrible module again.

I think it is largely memorisation and some application, though. For Prof Sudhakar's portion, he tested on the pictures in his notes, rather than the words in his notes.

MCQ + structured questions for finals.

LSM1102: Molecular Genetics

I didn't dislike this as much as I disliked LSM1101, but labs for this module and LSM1101 were just torturous to me.

MCQ format for finals. Some application based questions.

NM1101E: Communications, New Media and Society

I didn't attend any lectures at all except for 1. After that 1 lecture I went to, I decided it was a waste of my time as the lecturer just mumbled on and on and I had to rush to Science faculty for another lecture. Finals tested one question on a video that was shown during lecture though so I guess it would be good to go if you have time.

10% for tutorial participation
The other 90%: 3 assignments and final exams


"For this assignment, you will prepare a report on issues of relationships on new media." (also includes an interview and recording of the interview)

"For assignment 2, your task is to come up with a interface design solution that addresses the challenges of relationship management on a social network."

"For this assignment [3], you will assume the role of an independent communication consultant who is working with the Media Development Authority to raise awareness among 13-18 year olds about appropriate relationship management strategies on social media through a communication campaign.


Get the textbook. Most of the things tested were from the chapter summaries in the textbook.
Read the assigned readings.

Bell curve is pretty steep, I got about 75% for all 3 assignments and am quite sure I got 57 or 58 questions right and I got a B- overall.

LAK2201: Korean 2

I got a D+ for this module and U-ed it. Didn't put in consistent effort and studied several days before tests. Lectures and tutorials were terrifying and stressful for me as I couldn't keep up.
It felt like a huge jump from Korean 1 and lessons are now taught in 95% Korean.
I went on a super fun Language Immersion trip to Korea in Yonsei University during the May-July summer break, so the LPP programme wasn't a complete waste (you don't get to continue in the programme unless you score a C and above).

SSA2215: Biophysical Environment of Singapore

4 Labs: 10% each
1 midterm: 10%
Finals: 50%

Even though it says "lab", labs were more like lectures. Just listen to the lecturer talk and take notes, at the end of each lab there'll be an open book quiz which accounts for 10% of your grade. 2nd or 3rd lab was a self guided (own time own target) field trip (go with your groupmates) and answer questions based on the field trip.
The midterm is also 10% but it's not very worth it as it's 100 marks and involves heavy memorisation (fill in the blank passages, 1 or 2 marks for each blank kind of thing).

Format for finals: MCQ, fill in the blanks passages, and 2 essay questions. The first half of the module was more about rocks, geology, etc, whereas the later half was more appealing to me and involved topics like corals, seagrasses, water management in SG and green spaces in SG.
1 essay question for each section of the module.

ES1541: Exploring Science Communication through Popular Science 

15/16 Semester 1

LSM2103: Cell Biology

ST1232: Statistics for Life Sciences

I found this module a relatively easy one compared to CM1401.

10 weekly IVLE quizzes: 20%
Mid term: 30%
Final exam: 50%

Cheatsheets allowed for both midterm and finals, one sheet double sided. If you can manage to use one side for midterm then you can continue writing on that piece for your finals cheatsheet. Then again, if you rewrite your cheatsheet you'll get to refresh the concepts.

Do the past year papers Prof Vik gives for finals and email him with questions/consultations. He replies pretty quickly. I remember emailing him on Thursday night and he replied Friday morning at 9am, and there was a consultation going on at 10am for questions regarding the past year papers. There were only a handful of students in the room so I guess we benefited, but not by much because in the finals only one of the questions was repeated and it was a simple one. The tougher questions in the past year papers were not repeated.

CM1401: Chemistry for Life Sciences 

4 Physical chemistry IVLE quizzes + 1 survey: 5%
Physical chemistry midterm (25 MCQs) : 15%
Organic chemistry open book, physically present IVLE midterm (15 MCQs): 15%
Organic chemistry IVLE quiz (MCQ): 5%
Final exam: 60% (both physical and organic, 30MCQs and open ended questions)

Prof Linda was much better this year as she used worksheets during lectures and I could see how the concepts were applied. I also had her as a tutor for my tutorials this time round and it was much better than the previous semester. I feel like she's incredibly smart but also blur. In the finals a symbol came out in an open ended question that she didn't teach or include in the materials for freshmen, but thankfully I saw the symbol in materials she gave to my batch of students, and was able to do the question. Not sure if that made any difference in my grade as she later sent an email clarifying that the grades would be adjusted accordingly.

This year they switched the organic chemistry professor to a younger one, Fung Fun Man. It was mostly e-learning videos of the topics (filled with his jokes) and no physical lectures, but there were "optional" physical lectures in which he didn't lecture but had mini ungraded quizzes and then went through the solutions. His lectures were interesting and not boring to sit through thanks to the jokes, and it also helps that he's cute and has a nice voice. (haha @ you squirrelman)

This semester I think the department made it easier for us to pass thanks to more MCQs and more continual modes of assessments.

PR1301: Complementary Medicine and Health

2 lectures per week, no labs, no tutorials.

Plain memorisation of herbs, techniques, concepts, therapies and whatnot.

Midterm, project and IVLE forum participation: 40%
Final exam (125 MCQs in 2 hours): 60%

The herbs! 28 herbs to remember, names of the herbs, functions, illnesses they treat and contraindications and so on...

Project was to make an A3 sized poster (soft and hard copy) about one of the topics in the module in a group of 3-4 students.

Midterm was open ended, 8 true/false questions, support the answer with a few statements. There was one question which was phrased extremely weird and very misleading.

Final exam: I thought it would be difficult to finish 125 MCQs in 2 hours. That's like less than a minute per question, so you really have to know the content well. In the end I managed to finish it with about 20 minutes to spare as I did the questions as fast as I could.

Bell curve seems to be steep as I thought I did pretty well for finals, but got an average grade.

NM2219: Principles of Communication Management

Taught by Prof Francesca Nathan. I remember seeing her photo in her byline in The Straits Times. She was a journalist previously, which I suppose gives her experience to teach this as a subject and she also gave some examples of her previous career during lectures.

Tutorial attendance: 10%
Lecture participation: 10%
3 Group presentations: 10%
10 IVLE questions about unclear concepts in readings: 10%
Midterm (MCQ + short essay): 25%
Finals (MCQ + essays): 35%

IVLE questions: type a question every week on an IVLE assessment on something that you're unclear of in the reading for that week. This format is pretty good as it prepares you for that week's lecture and also keeps you up to date on your readings.

3 group presentations: my group had 6 people so we just split the topics into 3 pairs and thus we only had one topic's worth of work per week, instead of having the whole group work on each topic and having 2 people to present.

I liked the buzz time (videos) during lectures but I didn't like having to discuss and then share during lectures about the videos.

MCQ questions for midterms and finals are kinda tricky.
I was quite thrown off by the weightage of marks for the essay question in finals. 100 marks for the essay question? 35 marks for one part?!

NM3210: Cybercrime and Society

Research paper (groupwork): 20% 
Group presentation on research paper: 10%
Tutorial attendance: 5%
Reaction papers: 5%
Tutorial participation & debate: 10%
Final exam: 50%

The research paper was to write about a type of cybercrime in an Asian country (but not Singapore). It is marked by your individual portion and the conclusion is a group effort and given a grade as a group.

I thought it would be good to be less stats heavy for presentation but thankfully I didn't get my groupmate to change the presentation as that seemed to be what she was looking out for: she wanted to see stats and various laws in your paper and presentation. Groups that had less data in their presentation got questions from her and slightly lower marks (my groupmate peeked at the mark sheet).

Reaction papers are just reflection papers about that day's tutorial that you had to write and submit at the end of every tutorial. She wants short ones, no more than a page.

For this module there was a game involved: Second Life. It was to replace one of our normal tutorials. We were basically sent on a wild goose chase to search for items to get instructions and finally pinpoint the criminal in the game. And at the end of it all, receive the question for our reaction paper that was to be submitted in hard copy. I spent sooo much time to solve the "mystery" because of learning to navigate in the game, finding the miniscule items, and then realising I could have skipped one of the stages entirely.

For the final exam: 10 MCQs, 30 Short answer questions and 2 essay questions. I could've done better if I'd memorised properly. I wasn't expecting so many SAQs when she said SAQs were involved. I was expecting more MCQs. However, the MCQs asked pretty specific questions like names of organisations etc and I couldn't really remember so I guess that part was good.
The 30 SAQs and 2 essay questions were simply copy and paste questions, all memorisation. 30 SAQs directly from lecture notes. 1 essay from a reading which I thankfully read and had something to write about but wasn't too sure of, the other essay involved a chapter which I didn't study very well. Each essay was 10 marks, but she didn't give much space for us to write- half a page per essay question, meaning one entire page for 2 essay questions. She wanted us to answer like the reaction papers.


This is the end of my incredibly long first post, posting a few more in a bit!

Labels: module reviews, nus