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NUS Life Science Module Review: LSM1301 General Biology

The first half of the chapters was taught by Prof Seow and every lecture had a pop quiz (full marks worth 1% awarded as long as you submitted something). The second half of the modules was taught by Prof Jaafar and there were no pop quizzes in her lectures (resulting in a massive drop in attendance), with the exception being her final lecture where she presented us with a surprise pop quiz worth 2% of our final grade. Unfortunately for me, I was not present at the final lecture and subsequently lost that 2%.

I took LSM1301 to fulfill my science module requirement as a computer science student, with my only bio background being from sec 2 biology classes (no O level or A level bio). That being said, I was definitely at a disadvantage as most other students were Life Science majors or had taken O level bio/A levels H1 bio.

Thankfully, all the lectures are webcasted and additional/alternative explanations can be found online with relative ease. Since there are no midterms, it is important to score well for the finals and weekly lab sessions. We had take home assignments after every lab session where we would have to submit later on in the week. Do note that marking can be quite strict on the lab assignments and they are not to be taken lightly. I also made the mistake of simply searching for the answers to the lab assignments online, which backfired on me as they want to see application of concepts taught in the lectures for that chapter. My advice would be to review the lecture while doing the lab assignments on top of searching for the answers online.

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