Otago HSFY chat - archive

[greenglacier]

Nah that was there in 2009. The point of that "incident" was that they deliberately examined something that was only made explicit in the readings (not the lectures).

As I've said before though, that was ONE question in ONE HUBS test, and was the only time in the last 2 years that material from readings has been examined.

 

[Cathay]

Thanks for clarifying GG. With CELS saying only the objective-related parts of readings are examinable, CHEM saying their listed readings aren't essential, HUBS saying the readings go beyond the level of detail required (and that we should refer to the lab book), and PHSI being a problem-solving (rather than factual recall) course (with a cheat sheet allowed), I'm getting the impression (more like a reinforcement to what I've seen in the threads on MSO) that the readings are just there for clarification and/or explanation, as opposed to being something to we're expected to base our learning/revision on...

On a side note, not to insult the guest lecturers for CHEM, but they kind of made me feel that pretty much all the usual lecturers of all the papers are actually quite good at lecturing...

 

[papermoth]

On a side note, not to insult the guest lecturers for CHEM, but they kind of made me feel that pretty much all the usual lecturers of all the papers are actually quite good at lecturing...

Chem is my 'can do no wrong' paper, in keeping with that I loved todays lecture, both content wise and the lecturer. I found her, in a word, pleasant, which completely juxtaposed the heavy handed material presented. And of course being a product of NCEA English I totally overstated that one fact, giving it a sort of benign relevance, when really it probably didn’t even need mentioning now. The toxic colonialism angle on the DDT/malaria debate particularly got me thinking. Also I thought it went in hand nicely with something Lyall had said not two days earlier about catalytic converters and benzene emissions.

So much to look into! Since starting uni my “to Google” list has sky rocketed. Man who ever said ignorance is bliss lied. Shamelessly :\

 

[Cathay]

Don't get me wrong, today's lecture was actually good (except that the slides were 4 to a page and there was a crapload of them), the other two biochem ones I can't say the same... I mean, for Lecture 13 I was in Quad 2 and when it came to the focus break, people were just leaving...

 

[Ben]

Chem is my 'can do no wrong' paper, in keeping with that I loved todays lecture, both content wise and the lecturer. I found her, in a word, pleasant, which completely juxtaposed the heavy handed material presented. And of course being a product of NCEA English I totally overstated that one fact, giving it a sort of benign relevance, when really it probably didn’t even need mentioning now. The toxic colonialism angle on the DDT/malaria debate particularly got me thinking. Also I thought it went in hand nicely with something Lyall had said not two days earlier about catalytic converters and benzene emissions.

So much to look into! Since starting uni my “to Google” list has sky rocketed. Man who ever said ignorance is bliss lied. Shamelessly :\

I agree, the Chem lecture today was great - it really makes me want to look into environmental science/biochem - well that and the "How To Unf*ck The World" seminar earlier in the week (hosted by Gareth Hughes - Green Party MP).

Cathay, I think it's plausible to find that the regular lecturers may have more skill at lecturing... They're employed as regular lecturers for a reason.

 

[aaa24]

Don't get me wrong, today's lecture was actually good (except that the slides were 4 to a page and there was a crapload of them), the other two biochem ones I can't say the same... I mean, for Lecture 13 I was in Quad 2 and when it came to the focus break, people were just leaving...

Haha, I remember that lecture. Everyone complained about it but honestly, I liked it, infact ive liked all the hot topic lectures so far, they are a nice change from the normal lecture material.

 

[greenglacier]

Cathay, I think it's plausible to find that the regular lecturers may have more skill at lecturing... They're employed as regular lecturers for a reason.

Not really, they're employed as researchers. They're just the ones who don't mind teaching that much.

Truth be told, the early CHEM191 lecturers are remarkably good as far as lecturers go - don't start treating them as the norm! In fact, both of the biochem lecturers you should have had by now (remembering that the environment lecturer is a chemist) come back as regular lecturers in BIOC192.

 

[Ben]

Not really, they're employed as researchers. They're just the ones who don't mind teaching that much.

Truth be told, the early CHEM191 lecturers are remarkably good as far as lecturers go - don't start treating them as the norm! In fact, both of the biochem lecturers you should have had by now (remembering that the environment lecturer is a chemist) come back as regular lecturers in BIOC192.

This is news to me, oh well - takes more than 1 semester to understand the whole lecturer-department dynamics.

 

[Cathay]

In fact, both of the biochem lecturers you should have had by now come back as regular lecturers in BIOC192.

!!! Oh crap, that's... not ideal.

 

[pete7]

3 years after this thread was started and its still going. Awesome

 

[skyglow1]

Pete haven't seen you in ages...how's med 3 going?

 

[kaixian0011]

I heard otago is increasing their number of places for Medical students for 2012 so the 2011 (current) HSFY students is getting a better chance?

Can someone confirm this to me? Or is it 20 extra RURALS only?

So confused, and is Auckland increasing as well?

 

[Ben]

Thinking back to one of the previous HSFY threads I think I recall a mention of an increase of future available places... Not sure about the specifics though, sorry.

There's been some very recent discussion regarding Auckland's situation (here: https://www.medstudentsonline.com.a...ments-for-NZ-Medical-Schools-(U'grad)/page258).

 

[AmyT]

HUBS results are out.. Average of 70% seems very low compared to last years 82%..

 

[Cathay]

Average of 70% seems very low compared to last years 82%..

Yes... I wonder what this implies about the cohort...

Admittedly the HUBS paper has 1953 students in the streaming list on blackboard vs 1265 HSFY students (according to Craig Rodger at Physics Introductory Lecture), but I don't know about the likelihood of only 35% of the HUBS students being responsible for a 12% drop in average marks across the board...

 

[papermoth]

2009; 77%
2010; 82%
2011; 70%

I mean even compared it with 2009, that's a 7% difference. Very peculiar. Too bad we can't compare test papers between years.

 

[Cathay]

Too bad we can't compare test papers between years.

Given that they never release them, and that greenglacier said "that question was in the test in my year" (page 37, post #362 of this thread) when I was talking about a question I probably got wrong, I believe there is reason to suspect that the papers may not be all that different... (ie it is possible that they reuse questions, or even entire tests)

It follows that since the test may not be vastly different between years, the results would, at least in part, be able to be compared between years.

 

[aaa24]

How'd everyone go? Missed one mark my self, but i saw it coming. Anyways now for the big 20% cells test .

 

[greenglacier]

They most definitely repeat test questions - that's why they don't release past papers.

I wouldn't read too much into the averages - we did last year, and in the end the cutoff for med was almost exactly the same as it had been the year before. Remember that in HUBS it ultimately comes down to a very small group of questions, each of which has a relatively large impact (4%), so it can be a little volatile.

I don't think last years cohort was anything special - their BIOC terms test (50 Q's so a little less volatile) was almost identical to the one in my year, and the average was the same. They also did relatively poorly in the CHEM terms test and the 2nd HUBS192 terms test. Going by their average in the earlier tests though it would have been easy to regard them as a higher performing cohort.

 

[Cathay]

How'd everyone go? Missed one mark my self, but i saw it coming. Anyways now for the big 20% cells test .

Got the antagonist one wrong as I realized when I read through GLM2 (after the test, unfortunately), but fortunately that was all that went wrong.

Going by their average in the earlier tests though it would have been easy to regard them as a higher performing cohort.

Perhaps they can be said to be a cohort that had more steam than usual at the beginning, and faded into ordinarity?