CHE 126

Example of synonyms: CHE 126 and Failure.

That's the name of a course in my University. It's a very infamous course in my school and students are very afraid of it. Mass failure is attributed to the course as a lot of students do not fail the course because it is too complex to understand but because of the weird way in which the lecturer sets the question.

The course itself is not that hard but the way the lecturer presents it is what makes it difficult. Let me start from the beginning of our classes so that you can get the picture.

Due to the ongoing pandemic, we had to resort to virtual classes making us have classes on ZOOM. As this was not difficult enough, the lecturer didn't know how to teach. All he knew how to do was to read the slide displayed on the screen. So this coupled with the fact that there was poor internet connection made it difficult for us to gain anything in his class.

The course was shared among two lectures and he took the second part which was the hard and voluminous part. The first lecturer was kind of okay. Her part wasn't difficult at all and her slides were self explanatory. Her classes were also okay. Her own part went off seamlessly.

The man's part was the direct opposite. His slides looked like they were written in a language no man had ever understand before. So incomprehensible. So many funny and weird looking abbreviations and they were all written in English. This didn't even shorten the slides at all as they were still long. You would wonder if the slides were still going to be long why did he still abbreviate. His lecture slides were really hard to understand and make sense of and there were many for us to read. The fact that even in his lectures he just read directly from his slide word for word including the abbreviation made things world. I'm not exaggerating but you will rather stand in front of a speeding train then stay in any of his classes. It is that bad.

I tried to make sense of it as much as I could but it just proved impossible. To make a note out of it is even harder than you think it will be. In short I didn't understand what I was reading. They announced that we will be having a test soon and that we should prepare. The following week we were going to be tested on the first part (the woman's part) and then the week after that we will be tested on the second part (the man's part).

I knew the first part was easy because the slides were straightforward and you just needed to memorize some point. Do this and you're good, so that is what I did. I wrote the test and I did well only missing two questions. The test was a stroll in the park. Little did I know I was in for a surprise for the second test.

We were going to be tested on the man's part and I didn't know exactly how and what to read. Nonetheless I read what I could. I wasn't prepared for what was to come. The day of the test came and I was shocked. I was shaken to my bones. I was wondering what was this, who sets questions like this?

Those were the questions running through my mind. He brought the questions directly from his lecture slides word for word without changing anything and he will ask you which one is odd and all the options will look like. The odd one is probably the one where he changed SnCl to SnCl2 or PbCl2 to PbCl4. If someone is not careful you won't take note of those little differences which is exactly what happened to me. In the options he would just change a word, letter or even number.

This was a very evil and crazy way to set questions. Testing students on their ability to cram your slides. If you didn't memorize his slides or put it in your head exactly how it is in his slides you will surely fail. It is as sure as the color of the sun being yellow.

Of course I failed the test. I wasn't ready for what hit me. Out of 20 questions I got 2. I was terribly shocked as this was the worst failure of my life. I tried to make them check my script again but I failed again in that respect. I spiralled into depression as I wondered how I was going to get out of this.

If you want to know the rest of the story you have to wait as I will be making it a two part series.

Till next time.