NST 1B Choices

At 1A I did Cells, Chem, Physiol and EMB (well, in the end anyway) and 1B I did Chem B, Path and CDB.

My favourite ended up being Path, after a bit of a wobbly start, and my worst CDB. Horrific subject if you don't like proteins and genes!

Chem B has got quite a lot of inorganic stuff in it- Electron Deficient Compounds, Organometallics, Metal Ion Complexes etc, and an awful Biological Chemistry part, which is badly lectured and has quite a bit of Maths in it. The practials are ok though once you get into the swing of following the instructions, writing them up, getting them marked etc. I really enjoyed the organic stuff at 1A but found 1B really hard so I didn't enjoy it that much- it was just too much of a struggle. Which is a shame really.

A few of my friends did both Chem A and B, and said it is useful, as you can see how things tie in across the two subjects. But practical write ups can take ages. As can supervision work.

Path practicals vary from being really intersting to downright dull. At the beginning of the year you spend a lot of time using microscopes, which a lot of NatScis find really difficult, as we have about 4 hours to learn the normal appearance of tissues, which the medics spend a lot of time on in the first year. But the immunology and microbiology ones are good. The immunology stuff you do at the start of the year is pretty complicated, but they have to teach it first so that you can understand the rest of the course. You've just got to bear with it and it gets better!

My friend did BMB and it was her favourite out of that, CDB and Path (she's doing Biochem this year). Other than that, I'm no help I'm afraid.

Reply 2

Helenia

20

If you don't like the mathsy side of Chemistry (all the quantumy stuff that I don't even know where to begin with), do NOT, for the love of God, take Chem A. One of my best friends did both Chemistrys for 1B and it made her 2nd year hell.

Reply 3

I took a much more physically-biased route through NatSci:
IA Chem, Phys, MMS, Maths B
IB Chem A, Chem B, Maths

Parts of Chem A are very heavy in the maths, so you do need a good grounding from IA - though there is a revision course at the start of the year which would help. The department provides a Resume of Maths for Chemistry A, which you ought to take a look at.

Also, as Joanna warns, the write-ups can be very lengthy (though the practicals themselves are often very short, which somewhat makes up for it). Don't let this necessarily put you off Chem A though, as once you start to understand it, the work becomes really very satisfying (for me, particularly the Symmetry course, which I only got to grips with properly during the final few weeks of last Easter), and the different parts of the course fit into an overall framework quite neatly.

If you're planning on taking Chemistry at Part II, I think it's highly recommended that you take both Chem A and B (though you can take it with just one of the two); it sounds as though you'd be looking at a more specialised biological subject though, so it's probably not as necessary. I'd say Chem B was definitely my favourite IB subject, as I think most other Chemists at my college (John's) also did - a strong part of that is probably that Chem B doesn't get anything like as abstract as Chem A.

Looking back at that, it seems I've put a somewhat negative picture of Chem A, so I'd add that it's definitely still an enjoyable subject, and complements Chem B very well (some of my Chem A write-ups used detail from Chem B, and vice-versa); it just looks at a more abstract side of the subject than Chem B. Maths, on the other hand... well, it's certainly much nicer to know I've done it (and won't be needing it again) than to struggle with the topics at the time ! :wink:

Reply 4

Toffee

OP

1

Thanks for your replies, very useful. However, I think it's going to take me a while to decide. My maths is pretty good for a biological scientist, so I think I could just about cope with Chem A. Do the practicals really take ages and ages to write up? I know this shouldn't really be a factor in my decision, but it's so close that anything could sway it.

The problem is that I'm really not sure in which direction I want to go eventually. I'm probably favouring ChemB Path BMB atm, but this changes daily!

Reply 5

Kyle_S-C

Couldn't you email your DoS and ask for advice? Or college/subject parents if you speak to them. I'm fairly sure about what I want to do, though I did manage to choose a combination with yet another full set of 9ams again I think.

Reply 6

Toffee

OP

1

Trust me, I've discussed this all at length with my DOS, college parents, just came looking for some extra info...

Reply 7

MC REN

14

Kyle_S-C

Couldn't you email your DoS and ask for advice? Or college/subject parents if you speak to them. I'm fairly sure about what I want to do, though I did manage to choose a combination with yet another full set of 9ams again I think.

ooh, how do you know the times?

Reply 8

MC REN

ooh, how do you know the times?

They're almost always the same year-on-year, so take a look at the past year's lecture list to find out.

Reply 9

Kyle_S-C

These are the 2005-2006 times.

Reply 10

MC REN

14

Hmm, well I found the 2006-07 ones and they're the same as 2005-06 I think

It's just we were told in Physics lectures that doing Physics meant no Saturday lectures which isn't consistent with these

Reply 11

*Joanna*

Toffee

Do the practicals really take ages and ages to write up?

It depends on which practical it is and how good your grasp of the topic is. Some have extra questions at the end of the standard write up procedure, which can take forever. I remember going round in circles for ages (like, a whole weekend) and giving up a few times. In Lent, everyone does them in a different order, so there is usually someone in college that you can ask for a pointer if you're stuck. Once you get into the swing of them, they're not too bad.

Reply 12

Supermerp

2

MC REN

It's just we were told in Physics lectures that doing Physics meant no Saturday lectures which isn't consistent with these

I got seriously bored once and decided to read the Teaching Committee minutes. I think it said they were changing the Advanced Physics lecture times from Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday to Monday/Wednesday/Friday.

Reply 13

Toffee

OP

1

Yes the Physical Natsci DOS at our college told me that physics have saturdays off from now on, so its definitely right

Reply 14

*Joanna*

It depends on which practical it is and how good your grasp of the topic is. Some have extra questions at the end of the standard write up procedure, which can take forever. I remember going round in circles for ages (like, a whole weekend) and giving up a few times. In Lent, everyone does them in a different order, so there is usually someone in college that you can ask for a pointer if you're stuck. Once you get into the swing of them, they're not too bad.

I assume that's for Chem B practicals, Joanna, which I'd agree with for the most part, though they're never really that long. Occasionally some of the questions can take rather a while to find the answers to, but the write-ups themselves aren't that long (at very most, perhaps 4 A4 sides, including plenty of mechanistic diagrams), and you can get good pointers from demonstrators and friends. Also, the Clayden et al Organic Chemistry textbook is an excellent reference for some of the Organic write-ups, with some of the questions lifted pretty much completely from it (so the solutions manual for the book gives a mobel answer :biggrin:

).

For Chem A practicals, however, the write-up and theoretical understanding is often the bulk of the work, so if you want a good mark (13-14 out of 15), you really have to work at it, with lots of long-winded data analysis needed for some of the practicals. You can usually get away with a fair amount less effort if you're happy getting 10-11 marks regularly; personally, I'm fairly convinced my good practical marks tipped the balance between classes in my final exam result, so I'm glad I put the time in :smile:

Reply 15

Kyle_S-C

Eek...does that mean my chemistry A, chemistry B and physics B thing is problematic?

Reply 16