5.12  Organic Chemistry I

The final exams are now graded and are available for you to look at in the Chemistry Education Office (6-205) along with a copy of the answer key.  You are welcome to look at your exams and the answer key but they cannot be copied or removed from the office.  Final course grades are available on WebSIS and are also recorded on the cover page of the exams.

You were a terrific class and we enjoyed serving as your instructors in 5.12 this semester.  Please accept our best wishes for a great summer!

Rick and Beth

The solutions to the past spring semester final exams have now been posted on the Exams page of the 5.12 website.  One hundred and sixty-four pages of thrilling organic chemistry!

The optional review session conducted by Professor Danheiser and Dr. Taylor is scheduled for tomorrow (Friday) from 3 to 5 PM in 10-250.  We will go over the problems from the beginning of the Study Guide and answer questions from the class.  We recommend that you do not look at the solutions to the Study Guide questions ahead of time since we are going to discuss them in the review session; they are included in the Study Guide Answer Key for the benefit of students who do not attend the Optional Review Session.

Some suggestions for how to prepare for the exam:

We suggest that you begin by browsing through a few previous final exams to get an idea of the typical format and scope.  After doing a certain amount of reviewing of this semester's notes, reading, problem sets, and hour exams, the next step is to try to do one or two exams within the three hour limit.  This will allow you to identify which topics you have not yet mastered and help you to focus your further studying.

We have provided you with quite a number of past finals, and the exam this year will not be significantly different from past exams.  Previous experience suggests that it is much more beneficial if you actually try to work problems rather than just looking at the solutions in the answer key.  That is, simply reading through the answer keys does not really help you master the material and does not allow you to determine how well you are prepared for the exam.

Reminder:  please don't forget to complete a subject evaluation via the website  http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation.  The deadline to submit is Monday 9 AM.  As you know, the faculty and TAs cannot see any evaluation results until after the final class grades are turned in to the Registrar.  However, we can view a figure for the percent of the class that has completed evaluations and only about half of the class has provided evaluations as of this morning.  We read all comments carefully and are eager to get your feedback and suggestions how to improve the class for next year.  Thanks!

The winning entries in this year's competition "Poetry in Organic Chemistry" are now posted on the Document Index page of the 5.12 website.  The complete versions of all of the winning entries are included in this pdf file.  Congratulations to the winners, and thanks to all the many students who contributed entries.  There were a number of brilliant compositions in addition to the few we were able to celebrate in class today.

Reminder:  please don't forget to complete a subject evaluation via the website  http://web.mit.edu/subjectevaluation.  The deadline is 9 AM Monday and most of the class has not provided evaluations yet.  We read all comments carefully and are eager to get your feedback and sugggestions how to improve the class for next year.

The Final Exam Study Guide (170 pages!) is now posted on the Exams page of the 5.12 website.  This study guide includes copies of the spring final exams from past years.  The solutions to all of the problems in the study guide will be posted this week.  A printed version of just the first two pages of the Study Guide will be available in class on Monday. Included in the Study Guide are several problems that will be discussed in the optional final exam review session on Friday (3 - 5 PM in Room 10-250).

An expanded version of my presentation announcing the Seventh Annual 5.12 Competition "Poetry in Organic Chemistry" is now posted on the 5.12 website at the end of the Documents Index page.  This file includes the rules for the competition as well as the full versions of many winning entries from past years.  As discussed in class today, entries should be submitted by email to both Professor Danheiser and Dr. Taylor and the deadline is Tuesday (May 10) at 2 PM.  Please submit your entries as Word files attached to the email.