How I Passed Organic Chemistry Without Studying

You know everyone says study, study, study.  I say if you know your GPA is high and your going to get A’s in the rest of your classes then use my way and you will at least get a C, but I got a B+, I was freakishly close to an A- but that final killed that opportunity.  As you can tell I really don’t care about getting a C in organic chemistry which is the hardest class ever.

1. So one thing you definitely have to do is at least go to class everyday.  My class was also offered on pod-cast but I really don’t recommend that, its nothing like sitting in the class and listening and seeing what the professor is writing.
2. Which brings me to writing.  Always copy down the notes and keep them as organized as possible.  Writing is key, its really the best way to memorize something without memorizing it on purpose.
3. Listen effectively, sometimes I would just stare at the screen and start thinking about my favorite song or something.  Yeah, that’s not good because I would get really lost and have to go and listen to the recorded lectures to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Also if you make yourself think the class is interesting then it will be easy for you to effectively listen.
4. Sit in the front of the class.  I always sit in the front row of the class.  Our class was held in a huge lecture hall with 400 other students and the last thing you should do is sit in the back of the class with the under achievers.  They play games on their laptops, they talk, they play with their cell phones.  Professors at least mine would call out students in front of the whole class if she saw someone on their phones and the last thing you want to be doing is sitting next to one of those students.  Plus you make a lot of friends in the front row, some are weird though so watch out.
5. Have fun.  My favorite thing I like to do in any of my science classes is quiz myself on the material.  There are supplement websites provided by your teacher or the textbook.  They provide quizzes and I recommend doing those.  You don’t have to write anything down or make a big deal of it.  Just do the quizzes.
6. The majority of my professors do in class interactive quizzes.  We use CPS.  We all go out and buy this little remote control looking thing.  The professor brings her little CPS things that connect to her laptop.  Then she asks us a question and we just enter what we think is the answer and submit it, then the data is collected and we find out what the right answer is.  Its really fun we get points for just answering the question and it doesn’t even matter if we get the answer wrong.  If you ever used or will use CPS, don’t succumb to peer pressure.  If your like me a love to get questions right then stick to you first choice.  I actually changed my answer because everyone else was saying the answer was something else and to find out my original answer was right.  But I recommend this because some student just don’t buy the CPS which costs them 35 points and some who bought it don’t even use it which costs them 1 point a day.
7. At least skim though the chapters which for me means just looking at the pictures.
8. Do the stupid homework don’t lose points because your too lazy.  But Im lazy so what I did was use the solutions manual.  Most professors, unless their mean, will assign homework assignments that include the odd numbered problems.  Solution manuals for the most part only give you the answers to the odd numbered problems.  Also it important to know that the even numbered problems are done the same way as the odd numbered problems that preceded them. So, problem number 2 is similarly done the same way as problem number 1.  This is all common sense but, for some reason people take their homework too seriously and if your in a rush then this is the fastest way to do the homework.
9. Also my professor provides quizzes online and we got two tries to do the quiz.  Something that I do not recommend is taking the hardest easy way out.  But if you want to do that then your going to need some friends in your Organic Chemistry class.  Then all of you do the quiz once putting in different answers and then at least one of you will get the answer right so that the second time you take the quiz you have the right answers.  This is an unnecessary way of doing it because it involves major time, friends which some people don’t have, and more then one computer if you want to speed the process up.  My way is easy, do the freaking quiz the correct way which is not cheating the first time.  If you have been doing the last 8 steps then you should get many of those quiz problems correct.  Then you cheat by just entering the problem into ask.com or google, ask.com is better because they their search engine includes sites that might not appear in google.  But, most likely you will find the exact same question on the Internet as well as the answer.  The reason is because most professors seem to get their quiz questions from the same people or they just exchange problems.  Many professors post their answers to past exams and quizzes on their websites for students to study off of.  And many of the answers to the quizzes that you may need are on those old exams on the Internet and you just get the answers from there and your set to go.
10. Stoichiometry (possible spelling error) all that necessary but, if you don’t know it you should have known it by know. But, it is helpful when doing wavelength and other stuff like that.

In conclusion make sure you build up enough points from homework and quizzes so that you can do mediocre on the exams and still be able to have enough points to pass.  Most of the things on the list are things you should already be doing if your in the class.  Things like doing homework and quizzes even if your taking the easy way out.  If your not a fan of chemistry then this list if for you.  If your taking 4 other hard classes while taking Organic chemistry then this is your list.  I used all of these methods to get through organic chemistry.  One thing I don’t recommend is trying to memorize everything because that definitely wont work in this class.  You will still retain some of the material if you use my method.  I should also add that Im a 3.8 student and in the honors program.  I don’t recommend doing this in all your classes.  This is really a list for convenience but, if you have all day to read the textbook and study in other ways then do so.  And if your a procrastinator with your homework and quizzes then definitely do numbers 8 and 9.  So thats it, wish me good luck for Organic Chemistry 2 next semester.