****TEST # 2 ***** ***During Regularly Scheduled Class***
Answers for Exam 2: ExamView – Test2, 2009
Announcements:
1)The material covered for this exam was more difficult than that of the first exam – it is normal for the scores to be a little lower. Average = 64, as calculated below. I will post a histogram tomorrow.
2) The exam scores were calculated as follows: (# correct)x(4) + 4 = score.
3) one question was worded poorly, so I gave everybody 4 points for that question (see above)
4) the exam answer key had a mistake on each exam form: The correct answer to ion radius is Br- (Form A, #14; varies from form to form). This mistake was corrected prior to calculating the scores above.
5) In order to help normalize scores, I will do the following: Your percentage score on the final exam will replace that of your lowest midterm, provided that this will improve your score. (eg: MT = 62/100, final = 90/120. Your MT score would get dropped, and replaced by a “75”.)
Hello,
I am sorry I will be one of the people that has something to say about the exam. I believed I was going to get an A on this exam. Sadly I didn’t get close. There has been a few things that was emphasized in lectures that I knew would be on the exam. For instance, Nodes I thought for sure there would be a graph on the exam about them, Prof. Knapp even drew the node graphs on the board! why wasn’t it on the exam. As well as a question about the change from ice water to gas this was another thing he emphasized, I thought this would definitely be on the exam too. Sorry for complaining I just needed to say I agree with everyone this test was hard but we all knew are stuff, it was just hard to apply what we knew to the exam he gave.
It is hard to believe that after 4 days of four hours each in the library before the exam studying, reading every page as they were assigned while taking notes on them, going to every class and taking excellent notes, taking the practice test, doing every OWL on time, that I could get a 64% on this exam while doing the same exact thing and scoring a 92% on the first exam. Granted this was more material but where is the organization during lecture? Why are we not covering topics and working on problems that are going to be covered on the test? When did we talk about ground states in terms of electron configuration and Noble Gas notation (3 different problems involving ground state and NO emphasis in lecture??), or second ionization states? Hard to believe this test average will be provide a nice bell curve.
Also teaching myslef was why I got the A on the first exam, which is part of college, I understand that, but maybe lecture could guide us on what to teach ourselves instead of jumping around not covering exact concepts found on the exam.
I did extremely well on exam 1 and have studied harder for exam 2. I spent 5 hours in the library per night for four nights prior to exam and read the book and took notes on every section appointed throughout the course of exam 2. I do not understand how I could have done so poorly. Maybe your questions are fair and maybe the bell curve and average will show that but for someone who studies as much as I do and never misses a class it is bothersome that I could get 10 wrong. I can take responsibility for myself when I don’t study or put in the time but this was not one of those times. Maybe class lecture is not organized enough and covering what we should be studying instead of stuff that never makes it on an exam.
I did extremely well on exam 1 and have studied harder for exam 2. I spent 5 hours in the library per night for four nights prior to exam and read the book and took notes on every section appointed throughout the course of exam 2. I do not understand how I could have done so poorly. Maybe your questions are fair and maybe the bell curve and average will show that but for someone who studies as much as I do and never misses a class it is bothersome that I could get 10 wrong. I can take responsibility for myself when I don’t study or put in the time but this was not one of those times.
And Alex,
I feel you need to back up because this exam was indeed difficult. You are right in saying he did prepare us well and we knew what would come up on the exam but at the same time I feel there were some questions that caught me off guard. I went to this exam thinking that I was going to ace it based upon the amount of hours I studied and the material but I did not do so hot. If the material on the exam was the same in which we learned about during class and OWL then it would be no problem. But some questions however were not explained in class and I tried to attend class every day.
Prof Knapp,
The exam was fair, however there were a few questions that felt were unfair. I was just wondering, would there be any questions that will be thrown out or will there be a scale for this exam?
Hi Alissa,
the bonus points are the equivalent of raw exam points – so each exam Q is worth 4 points, and the bonus is worth up to four points. So yeah, it is about like a freebie.
Alex it was difficult back up
I would like to make a two seperate comments. First, Alissa he drops one of the questions as it is so your grade is out of 25 questions i assume that the 4 points would just be added as a bonus but you should wait for him to give you a confirmation on that.
Second to all these people who were complaining about how hard this test was, I respect that you’re actually studying, but the practice exam was not written by prof. knapp and it is only a PRACTICE exam which just reflects what is expected to be on the exam he gives based on the material we have covered, and i’ll be honest I didn’t do to hot either but i’m not going to complain about the difficulty.
I agree, I can honestly say that I put a lot of effort into studying for this exam. Even to the extent of neglecting other courses to make sure that I was fully prepared. I do not think that it is fair that we were put under the impression that the test would be formatted similar to the practice test, when that wasn’t the case at all. The practice test is put online to help gear us towards studying relevant material not gear us towards studying material that may not be emphasized. I think that any questions that weren’t emphasized on both owls and the practice exam should be worth fewer points, (i.e. #24) does anyone agree?
I have a question for Prof. Knapp!
What form will our bonus points (from either posting or answering exam questions) take on our grade? I’m guessing that with 26 questions on the test, each question must be worth about 4 points. So if you got four bonus points, is it like you missed one less on the exam?
Thanks!
Alissa M.
I’d have to agree with all of these comments. I spend the most time by far doing homework for this class and definitely take the most time to study for its tests. I don’t mind the commitment to learning the material but its frustrating when it doesn’t pay off. So far that has held true for both the first exam and the second. Some questions on the exam were similar but not like what I had studied for. I feel that I either study the wrong sections or that were being accidentally mislead by the practice exam and homework. With the time constraint that comes with taking the exam during our class period I think there should only be questions that we have already been taught how to solve.
I hate to be that guy but i felt so prepared when entering that test….then i looked at it. The practice was so different then the actual exam and i feel that different areas were emphasized. A scale would be nice but a little bit more of a heads up at the SI or even a more representitive “practice” would be nice.
I agree with what everyone is saying. The practice exam didn’t prepare me for the real exam at all. The practice exam made me think i needed to know a lot of math, but there were only a few of those questions on the exam. Also, the shape of a P orbital question seemed a bit odd, I got it wrong because i had no idea what the shaded in part meant, so I put the other one.
After the exam me and my friends talked about this exact issue. There were problems on the test that were nothing like the practice exam or like the owls. The practice exam made it seem like you needed to study all of the math and then the test was mainly concept questions. I feel like I put a good amount of time into studying for the exam but i feel like i went over the wrong things over and over.
the exam should be scaled. I felt there were questions on the test not in our study materials
I agree with you guys. I did extremely terrible on this exam even after going to the review, redoing the OWLs and rereading every chapter. I studied so much harder for this exam than the last and can’t figure out why I scored a couple dozen points less. Also, I don’t doubt that there are lots of people who did well and considered the test easy, so I’m only speaking for myself.
Does anybody feel that the test was a little unfair? I feel the questions asked were somewhat unexpected and I studied for countless hours and still did not get the grade I thought I should have deserved. Maybe its just me.
I agree Christina, I spent the whole week studying as well. I still found it very difficult. Especially the questions that weren’t mentioned in OWL or the practice exam.
Prof Knapp,
I’m just wondering if there is any sort of a grading scale for this past exam… it was really hard even after spending a full week studying.
Matt Kress- oxygen’s oxidation number is -2
where are the answers to exam 2?
Oops, nevermind my answer on Hess’s Law. I confused it with Hund’s Law. SORRY! ><
Chase,
Z effective increases across a period, and it decreases down a group, in case you had a question about that.
For Brianna Lee’s
I dont believe elements by themselves get counted in