Almost Done with Straighterline Microbiology!!!

[cypster]

I am thinking of taking the Microbiology WITHOUT the lab.Can you give me any advice on the course itself?

Hi there Larryp! Interestingly enough the main course was pretty easy until I got to the final! The final exam was not open book and it was not a simple rehashing of questions from the previous chapter exams from what I can recall. I am normally really good with mulitple choice tests but the final was a real slap in the face for me. I expected to find questions from the earlier chapters on the final but from what I can remember it was all new material so you will want to be prepared for that. Luckily I had maintained a very high score on most of my chapter test so I still passed this class with a good grade. If you take this course you will need to read the assigned chapters in the text. I felt that the questions were more from the text than the introduction material for the main course and then they went and switched things on me with the lab! grrrr. lol... At any rate the good news is that if you keep your score high on the chapter test (which is easy since they are open book) you can totally fail the final and still do really really well in the class although I'm not advocating that you intentionally fail the final.. Lol! At any rate, here are my suggestions for the main class.

1. I would not go with the printed book for this class since that would take far too much time to search through. I recommend purchasing the PDF version of this book instead so you can search the text quickly.
2. I would suggest reading or at least scanning the chapters and not just relying on searching the text since they often use very cryptic language on the questions for the exam which forces you to use deductive reasoning to figure out exactly what they are asking.
3. If you maintain at least an 82% on all of the six graded quizes and the midterm you can still pass this course with a 70% average if you were to fail the exam with only a 25%! In other words if you only got 25 questions out of 100 questions right on the final you would still pass the course if you had maintained at least an 82% average up to that point in the class. Or you could get a 60% on the final and maintain an 80% average and still pass the course. If you don't do well on your first quiz then you will need to do really well on the midterm and/or the final to catch up.
With these considerations in mind and if you maintain at least 82% or so on every chapter test you should be fine.