Hi, I’m new to the forum and I had had a question. 2 summers ago I took intro to general chemistry and I made a 2.0 which was enough to pass me to general chem I. the reason i scored low was because it was my first time taking a college class in 6 years. I am ready to go back to school and I was wondering if i should retake the intro chem class or go straight into general chem? would you retake the class because of the grade, or just take the general chem?
thanks for your help!
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Hi, I’m new to the forum and I had had a question. 2 summers ago I took intro to general chemistry and I made a 2.0 which was enough to pass me to general chem I. the reason i scored low was because it was my first time taking a college class in 6 years. I am ready to go back to school and I was wondering if i should retake the intro chem class or go straight into general chem? would you retake the class because of the grade, or just take the general chem?
thanks for your help!
Hi there,
The answer to your question depends on why you scored so low in the Introductory class. Was your math in need of a review? Did you have difficulty with the concepts? Were you distracted by work, family, illness etc?
General Chemistry takes a working knowledge of college-level algebra. If your math is rusty, then get it up to speed before you take General Chemistry. You may want to pick up a math for general science-type review book and brush up your math skills.
If you were having trouble with the concepts, then you may need to re-take or audit the introductory course to make sure that you get the basics. Again, if you jump into a higher level course, you may find yourself struggling. Another option is to audit the introductory course and get tutoring also. If you had distractions, then make sure they are taken care of before you spend money in tuition.
I do not think you should re-take this course just because of the grade and for no other reason.
Good luck!
Natalie
Math, If you are rusty with Math please start with some math courses. Chemistry math I found a lot easier than Physics math. Without a lot of hard work in math Physics will be really dissapionting and you will struggle a lot.
If math is not a problem then you can make it through okay but these courses take a lot of time. From week one of Physicis for example, I studied every day doing problem after problem. For Chem same thing. A mistake some undergrads make is to relax too long during the first couple of weeks thinking they can “catch up”. Sometimes this catch up can bite you. I’ve learned my lesson a long time ago and study all the time, that way when I have a bad day and can’t concentrate, well I close the book and do something else but it’s then just one day out of seven or six. (you should study six days with one off in Med school but I sometimes do seven.) I’m afraid in undergrad it’s the same a lot of study time to get the grades. One way I focus is hey this is my job! I used to work 5 to 7 days a week at work 8 to 24 hrs a day (Hospice RN) so to study 4 to 5 hours a day Mon-Fri and 8 hours Sun is not a big deal! Think about what you can do.
Good luck 
Thanks for your responses. I received a 2.0 because my teacher felt i knew the information enought to take the general chemistry at another community college but not at the one i am attending because of the rigorous curriculum that the next teacher imposed. She helped me figure out that my study habits were all wrong for chemistry and that i didn’t always ask for help when i needed it. that class was tough for me because of the education gap in years from high school. If i wanted to stay at my cc, she said i should retake the intro class. I didn’t want to hear that at the time, but here i am 2 years later and time has passed me by anyway. My other reason for wanting to maybe stay in the general chem was the time conflict. because the class was full, they opened another section that starts at 8am. I’m afraid I may not be able to make it to school before 9am because of dropping my husband off at work and taking the kids to daycare ect…
My math is also shabby. I took precalculus and got a 2.1 but needed a 2.2 to move on to precal 2. the class was taught by a teacher who was on his way to retirement. He asked the class to answer questions out of the book and look at you as if you were stupid if you couldn’t. I thought he was supposed to be teaching us, not us teaching him. I should of dropped the class, but i was so wrapped up in chemistry that pre cal was far from my mind. chemistry took up at least 4 hours of studying a day. i had 2 other classes that summer as well. i’m just glad i made it out alive. I had a really good teacher, she taught me chemistry and really opened my eyes that this was not going to be easy.
Oh well, I want to be a doctor, so I guess i’ll be taking the intro class over or be prepared to work my tail off in general chem.
Seems like you have the right answers there. Yes it’s hard work, I found it all has been but I’m really happy that I’m doing it! Hey working as an RN was hard this is different but I love it!
Hang in there and good luck!
I’m worried about your math skills. Can you take a free math placement test at your CC or somewhere? Confirm that your algebra is solid before you take the real chemistry. It’s a bit of a simplification, but not completely off base, to say that general chemistry is a math class with molecules in the word problems.
Math is not a very subject, but i took a math placement test at my cc the summer i took those classes and placed into pre calculus I at the end of the summer. That’s why i want to take that class again before i take pre calculus 2 and intro to physics et al… the pre cal class was mostly advanced algerbra and the second pre cal is trigonometry. In high school i took advanced math and trigonometry as well as algerbra II, I really regret not taking calculus my senior year, that would of really helped me right now. I think what really tripped me up in chemistry was the word problems. my teacher would give a problem like density for example, and then the next 3 problems would all go off of the answer you got for the first problem. If you made a mistake and got the wrong answer on the first problem, then the not only was that problem wrong, but the next 3 problems were wrong as well. I should of practiced more with the word problems and tried not to have a brain freeze when I saw those problems on the test.
So, i’m going to retake pre cal with a better teacher and a better focas and more practice and rely on it to help me with the math that’s intergrated in the chemistry.
Sheez!!! I really hope this will help!!!
Retaking the pre-calc should help. I agree that practicing the homework problems OVER AND OVER is the key to success in general chemistry. You have to learn to be able to figure out the problems fast enough that you have time to check your answers, because science is full of problems that depend on your first calculation being right.
Yes to all above, don’t feel so bad I had been out of school a Looooooong time and I bought some cliff notes for math and home school pre calc and calc books to help me. While I made it through physics like that retaking the math is 10 times better since it will pay off in a big way for the rest of your courses and the MCAT.
Good Luck