Definitions? What are those?
Funny thing happened today that made idiots out of all of the bright intelligent UCI chemists:
The prof drew on the board a benzene ring, *the* easiest compound to memorize so we were feeling pretty smug about ourselves knowing what a benzene ring looked like. Then he wrote in BIG BOLD letters the word "AROMATICITY". Ok so it wasn't anything new of course we all knew benzene ring was aromatic. But then THEN! he turned to the class and asked the simpliest question: "What is aromaticity?" and then he waited and waited and waited...and not a single hand was raised!!
Sure we all know what aromatic compounds looked like and how to tell but MAN! Some guy tried to explain that aromaticity deals with conjugated double bonds and delocalized electrons but the prof just shot him down! We all felt like the dumbest group of chemistry students on the planet because we just *can't* explain aromaticity! Made me realized that I wasn't the only one in the group...haha! Also made me realized that as chemists or in general as "scientists" (excluding bio people) we don't learn to memorize the exact definitions, just the general concepts.
Another proof? Last year, the mean for the Pchem midterm was below 50% because half of the test asked for the exact definitions and *no one* had study the definitions. True that it was not fair for Pchem because Pchem deals with mostly *difficult* calculations and not a whole lot of definitions because why would a student memorize definitions when he/she needs to figure out how to work the problem?
The prof drew on the board a benzene ring, *the* easiest compound to memorize so we were feeling pretty smug about ourselves knowing what a benzene ring looked like. Then he wrote in BIG BOLD letters the word "AROMATICITY". Ok so it wasn't anything new of course we all knew benzene ring was aromatic. But then THEN! he turned to the class and asked the simpliest question: "What is aromaticity?" and then he waited and waited and waited...and not a single hand was raised!!
Sure we all know what aromatic compounds looked like and how to tell but MAN! Some guy tried to explain that aromaticity deals with conjugated double bonds and delocalized electrons but the prof just shot him down! We all felt like the dumbest group of chemistry students on the planet because we just *can't* explain aromaticity! Made me realized that I wasn't the only one in the group...haha! Also made me realized that as chemists or in general as "scientists" (excluding bio people) we don't learn to memorize the exact definitions, just the general concepts.
Another proof? Last year, the mean for the Pchem midterm was below 50% because half of the test asked for the exact definitions and *no one* had study the definitions. True that it was not fair for Pchem because Pchem deals with mostly *difficult* calculations and not a whole lot of definitions because why would a student memorize definitions when he/she needs to figure out how to work the problem?