My Modules Review

Tuesday, 3 May 2016

AY2015/2016 Semester 2 PL3239, PL3281, PL4205, EC2303, SW2104

It's going to be the final year of my uni years. Time flies really fast. As I am graduating in a year's time, I asked myself certain questions. Do I know what kind of career I want? Have I prepared myself well for job hunting? Have I made good use of the uni days to build up my skill sets to make myself more outstanding in the working world? Economy recession is here and will be at its peak in a year's time. Are there alternative plans if I did not get a job? What if I don't get the kind of job I want? I am glad I answered all these questions and have been exposing myself well. The key is to start early! All the best for the new academic year! Feel free to drop me comments for advices for academic purposes/how I get exposures.

PL3239 Industrial and Organisational Psychology
Lecturer: Dr. Au Kin-Chung, Al

Assessment
10% Tutorial Participation

12% Tutorial Group Presentation

13% Individual Commentary

20% Midterm Quiz

45% Final Exam

2 hours lecture every week and 2 hours tutorial once every 2 weeks. Prof Au is very friendly and passionate in his teaching. But to be honest, I have some difficulties catching his accent (HK) sometimes. In my opinion, the content of I/O psych can be quite dry and technical. It was not as interesting as expected. Nonetheless, I had understood more about I/O psych and HR related stuffs from this module. I would say I/O psych is quite related to the working world, and you may consider taking it if you are interested in management too.

Prof Au's midterms and finals have many application questions so do understand the concept well and not just purely memorise them. If I did not remember wrongly, the exams are usually 40 MCQs and essays. For each tutorial, there was a group doing presentation followed by add on content by the tutor and discussions.

PL3281 Lab in Cognitive Psychology
Lecturer: Dr. Nicholas Hon

Assessment

30% Proposal Write-up (group)

50% Full project write-up (individual)

20% Full project presentation (group)

3 hours of lab every week. In the first few labs, Dr. Hon went through with us basic and general things e.g. paradigms that we should know. Then, we have to form groups of 5 in the subsequent labs and come out with our topics. There were group work: Group proposal, group presentation. The final lab report is an individual report. Dr. Hon usually will end the class early for us to have our group discussion and will always offer us help at the end of the class. For lab modules, it is always important to revisit the stats knowledge! Or have some group members with very good stats and SPSS knowledge.

PL4205 Developmental Processes
Lecturer: Dr. Yu Rongjun

Assessment

35% Group presentation

15% Class participation

20% Midterm

30% Final exam

3 hours seminars every week. Dr. Yu provided both the slides and a handout, which has most of the information in the slides and elaborations. It is good to combine information on the slides and handout together to study more efficiently. Every group has to present twice in the whole semesters. The group members and dates of presentation are all allocated by Dr. Yu. The only readings were the research papers for group presentations (plus points of this module - not a lot of readings!). It is important to read the papers and create a summary for it. He will test the information in the research papers for MCQs in both mid terms and finals. It was quite content based for the mid terms, and hence bell curve was really steep. Midterms we have 10 MCQs and 5 short answered questions (20marks). Finals' format was also quite similar to midterm's! I guess the only challenge in this module is to catch lecturer's words. He has an accent that I found it hard to catch esp at the initial phase.

EC2303 Foundations for Econometrics
Lecturer: Dr. Seo Juwon

Assessment

10% Tutorial attendance and participation

40% Midterm exam

50% Final exam

2 hours lecture and 1 hour tutorial every week. Lectures were webcasted. However, I didn't really like her lecture styles. She gave slides but she would wrote down most of the things she went through in lecture on paper and projected onto the the screen. It is compulsory for econs major. I would advise the non-econs major to not take this module! Unless you have knowledge of uni econs modules because she would use all those knowledge and you will be disadvantaged if you didn't take econs modules before. Mid terms was quite manageable - practicing the tutorial questions helps! However, she likes to come out with questions that were very different from the tutorial as well. And that's what she did for finals. Most of the questions were not seen before and were not of tiny bit of similarities to tutorial questions. I couldn't do the finals. But I believe if you are very good with econs stats, and get the logic, you will be able to score.

SW2104 Human Development over the lifespan
Lecturer: Dr. Ong Teck Hong

Assessment

40% Group project

- Attendance (punctuality)

- Participation

60% Final exam

2 hours lecture every week and 2 hours tutorial once every two weeks. It is important to go for lectures as he will test the little things and newspaper report that he mentioned in the lecture. He would also give out some sheet of papers (1 page kind) and these will also come out in the finals!

My group got an A for our project report. Apply all the theories learnt in lectures to the topic he wants you to do in the project. As for submission of the project, what he wants is good and clear photographs and elaborations of the points. The relevant photograph(s) and it's points should be put in a page!

His finals were tricky. A bit of logic and yet also tough to choose the MCQs. Memorise and study well for finals. Apply all the theories learnt in the essays!

Saturday, 5 December 2015

AY2015/2016 Semester 1 LAM1201, PL3240, PL3242, PL3251, PL3259

It's module review time! This semester has been a really busy and tough semester for me. Taking 4 core modules at the same time is as if I am fighting a war constantly for 4 months everyday. Readings is never ending (imagine having at least 30 pages every week for each module (multiply by 4) and then 12 weeks), mid terms and assignments are one after another all in different weeks, it was a tough journey but nevertheless I survived it! I am just not going to take 4 psychology modules ever again (please plan your modules well and take 3 psychology modules every sem will be good).

The modules I took this semester are LAM1201, PL3240, PL3242, PL3251 and PL3259.

LAM1201 Malay 1
Lecturer: Mr Sew Jyh Wee

Assessment

10% Tutorial
20% 2 Quizzes and Blog
45% 2 Tests
10% Listening
15% 2 Oral

Weekly 2 hour lecture and 2 hours tutorial. Mr Sew is a really funny lecturer and attending his lectures are entertaining. Sometimes, he will show us Malay Music Videos which were refreshing. There is a booklet for the tutorial as well and there were many practice questions (but without answers...). My tutor will go through during lessons but somehow my tutor did not go through most of the questions. It will be good if individuals self-do the questions and ask for answers. There were A LOT of practices inside so it is really good to do and also the vocabularies inside will be tested on top of those went through in the lectures. The quizzes were half an hour each and it is just writing a short paragraph.

How to study for Malay?
Be familiar with the sentence structures, and constantly revise the vocabularies. Make sure you memorise everything. The tests tested a lot of vocabularies.

It is a much easier language to study as compared to Korean. I think because it is an alphabetic language which is similar to English and some words are similar to English language, hence it is easier to learn (but still have to remember vocabularies and there were really a lot of them).

PL3240 Group Dynamics
Lecturer: Dr. Cha Yeow Siah

Assessment
50% CA:
20% Midterm Quiz
15% Group Project Presentation
15% Written component (Project Report & 2 Critical thinking assignments)
50% Final exam

Weekly 2 hours lecture and biweekly 2 hours tutorials. This is one of my favourite psychology modules. In my opinion, Dr. Cha is a very good lecturer. He tried to make lectures interesting by sharing his funny/embarrassing past experiences and also said some jokes. His lectures itself is already interesting. He will show us videos and relate it to the content he went through which is very helpful for applications.

I love the group project. It is a group project that you can bond with your new friends and don't bother going to the same tutorial as your friends as you will highly likely be separated from your friends and it really will defeat the purpose of the project. It will be really a good experience if you have great group mates! We are supposed to film a video and do editing to the video. Put in effort, and you will be really satisfied with the results! My group is quite bonded now after many meet up sessions (other than for the project).

The exams consist of MCQs, fill-in-the-blanks and for finals it is also inclusive of short-answered questions and case study. Fitb requires us to remember very clearly what each concept/theory exactly is and also the names of people who came out with the concepts/theories and we will be thought in tutorials how to handle case study as well.

It is important to go for the tutorials because we will learn skills which is very helpful for other modules/for exams. It will be very lucky if you get Dr. Cha as your tutor. He is really good!

PL3242 Health Psychology
Lecturer: Dr. Griva Konstadina

Assessment
60% Coursework:
20% Leaflet Report
10% Instagram Photo and written narratives (Photovoice data)
30% Photovoice Report
40% Final exam

Weekly 2 hours lecture and biweekly 2 hours tutorial. Dr. Griva's lecture notes are very clear and that's why there were a lot of of content is the notes but it is a good thing. Sometimes her accent is a bit hard to catch, but I think most of it are fine. This module has a lot of concepts and theories as well, and I would say it is very relevant in understanding people's mindset toward health and also patients, hence it is quite relevant in daily lives. I didn't do well for the reports and I wished I had gone for the consultation to understand better how to handle the report. Tutorials were helpful for the report writing as well as answering exam essay question. There were 40 MCQs and 1 essay for the exam.

PL3251 Atypical Development of Language
Lecturer: Dr. Leher Singh

Assessment
10% Tutorial attendance and participation in discussion
30% Midterm exam (50MCQs, Open book)
20% Term Paper
40% Final exam (50MCQs, Open book)

Weekly 2 hours lecture and biweekly 2 hours tutorial. THIS IS ONE OF THE HARDEST MODULE EVER OMG. Don't get fool by MCQs AND open book exams. It seemed easy uh? Uh, no. Attending Dr. Leher's lectures are as if you are taking bullet trains every week. She speaks really fast, and it is quite hard to catch. Be attentive and try very much to focus and catch her words. She will also show clips of her children to better understand the content of the lectures

Her readings were really hard to read... How do I say this? There were many technical terms and it seemed as though every single sentences is very relevant to take note. There were many different types of tests to detect atypical language throughout the entire readings as well. Unless you have an interest in this module, you might want to think twice. But if you know how to prepare for exams, it can be quite manageable I guess. Doing notes for the readings are very helpful and most importantly, integration of all the content from all the chapters in the readings. Do integrations, organisations, categorisation (e.g. what are all the tests and relevant details of the tests), and understanding of the content will be helpful for the exams.

Her tutorials were very chill and very interesting as well. During each tutorial, we will watch videos/films regarding people who have the disorders followed by a short discussion. The video clips she showed is helpful in understanding about those with certain types of disorders.

PL3259 Psychology of Aging
Lecturer: Dr. Grace Lee

Assessment
10% Group presentation
10% Assignments
10% Elder mentor reflection paper
30% Midterm test
40% Final exam

Weekly 2 hours lecture and biweekly 2 hours tutorial. I enjoyed this module a lot too because it is very applicable to ourselves, our aging parents/grandparents and better understanding of older adults. I have learnt a lot about aging successfully and this is definitely very relevant to ourselves. Dr. Lee's lectures are very clear and she will share her experiences as well as those of the people around her. Elder mentor reflection paper requires us to meet up with an elder mentor weekly (at least 1 hour) for a minimum of 6-10hours throughout the whole semester and then write a paper about the experiences and how do they link to the content we had learnt in the module.

For every tutorials, it will be group presentations followed by the tutor's lesson. The tutorials were important for the exams. Tutorial contents are tested in the exams, so do take notes during the exams because they are not provided. Ms Chan Wei Ting was our tutor for the tutorials. She is extremely strict about her markings for the presentations. She even remarked about narrow eye contacts, not engaging to the audience etc... Other than her annoyingly picky marking style, she is clear in her teachings. The final exam format was MCQs and short-answered question.

Have a great winter holiday ahead!

Thursday, 23 July 2015

Important links for NUS undergraduates (AY2015/2016)

Thursday, 7 May 2015

AY2014/2015 Semester 2 PL3233, PL3237, GEK1527/LSM1302, GEM2027, LAK3202

It is end of year 2! Next semester will be year 3 and finally our badge's guys are going to university. University life pass by really quickly every semester. The usual semester routine: Relaxing beginning of the semester (and hence, thought that there is a lot of time to play), then soon some presentations are coming up week 3-4, then mid terms!!, and after mid terms whala~ It is like water gushing out from the over pressurised small circumference water pipe. Assignments, projects, reports just KEEP ON COMING. One after another and one assignment isn't that easy to deal with and there are more. And then all of the sudden it is week 13. There is only 1 week to prepare for final exam. *PHEW* Congrats to all, you have conquer one year of uni! Time for summer break, we all deserve it!

Here is my modules review while most of the things are still fresh in my mind.

The modules I took this semester: PL3233, PL3237, GEK1527/LSM1302, GEM2027, LAK3202

PL3233 Cognitive Psychology

Lecturer: Travellia F. Tjokro

Tutor: Wilbur Koh

Assessment

Tutorial assignments 25%

- 2 Essay assignments

- Online-based assignments

Mid Term Exam 25%

Final Exam 50%

2 hours lecture weekly and 2 hours tutorial biweekly. I like Dr. T.'s lecture and enjoy her lectures a lot. She is clear in her delivery and she is very funny! She also shared with us fun facts related to the topic she will be going through for almost every lectures.

The readings for the module were not extremely heavy or difficult to understand (probably the textbook is quite clear). Every chapters is around 30 pages and some lectures she went through 2 chapters.

The mid term exam requires us to compare this and that theory which makes it slightly harder because they are usually from different chapters or very similar and hence caused confusions (testing on our understanding of concepts). The final exam requires less of comparison (almost none?) but need us to evaluate the essay. She also tested on the experiment from our online-based assignment, totally caught me off guard. (She said she might or might not come out with questions from the experiments. But she did.)

I think it is kind of tedious to do essay for every tutorial though. The module was not as bad as I thought cognitive psychology module would be after reading some of the past years' review on the module. The tutor told us that the readings were much lesser and easier to understand compared to a few years back when he took it. Wilbur is also clear in his explanations during the tutorials and he seemed to know a lot. For our tutorials, we basically have to present and share about the article we had chosen.

PL3237 Language & Cognitive Processes

Lecturer: Rickard Liow, Susan Jane

Tutor: Choo Rui Qi

Assessment

Discussion Groups Presentation 10%

Mid Term Quiz 30%

Final Exam 60%

2 hours lecture weekly and 2 hours tutorial biweekly. This is one of the modules that I disliked a lot for this semester. I did not really understood what the lecturer said and the content in the lecture notes were not organised, hence even though there were a lot of slides within one lecture (60-80++ slides) I did not really know how to link the contents and how to apply them. I had a really hard time studying for this module.

What is reasonable for this module is the readings. We were asked to buy the readings compiled by the lecturer and the readings consist of research papers. There is only 1 compulsory research paper reading for the tutorials and 1 reading for tutorial group presentation. But for my group, we took turns to present for every tutorial and each person presented twice (i.e. 2 readings). The marks allocation for tutorials presentation were really low. We are split into groups. We had to present about the research paper for 4 tutorials. We had to come out with presentation slides and some papers were not easy to understand, and all these efforts are only worth 10%. There isn't any textbook for this module, probably it is really hard to find one as well or there is none. But the readings did not help me in understand the lectures' content.

The tutor was nice as she went through additional information that aids in understanding the lecture. She clarified the things that were not that clear in the lecture with us.

GEK1527/LSM1302 Genes & Society

Lecturer: Lam Siew Hong

Assessment

CA 40%

- Online quizzes/survey participation (IVLE)

- Short structured questions assignment

- Essay assignment

- Mini project (brochure) assignment

Final Exam (60MCQs) 60%

2 hours lecture twice a week. This is the module that I disliked the most!!! I can see that the lecturer is very passionate in the subject he is teaching. However, I did not like his lecture style. He elaborated A LOT for each and every slides especially those at the beginning of the lecture and towards the end he had no time but rushed through and ended late each and every lectures. It will be alright he elaborated to help us understand the concepts. However, majority of what he elaborated was not that useful in my opinion. I managed to attend half of his lectures but during the second half of the semester, I stopped going.

He would randomly give questions during the lectures and we had to submit the answers on IVLE. He would not post the questions on IVLE, everything will just be letters. And only correct answers will be awarded the marks (I only know at the last lecture). Perhaps, he did not want anyone to skip the lectures, but majority of the people skipped it anyway.

I took this module because I heard that it is very similar to H2 biology. I would say 1/4 is not and I had a hard time remembering these contents. It would also be better if you study with your H2 biology notes. 60 MCQs for final exam may seem to be easy. But it is definitely not. The options are hard to choose. For example, A is point a, B is point b, C is point c, D is point a and b, E is point a, b and c. Almost all questions are like that! The knowledge and understanding of each and every topic is very important.

GEM2027 Public Speaking

Lecturer: Elizabeth Veronica Cardoza

Tutor: Jenny Lam

Assessment

Informative Speech 15%

Persuasive Speech 20%

Responder/Critique Speech 15%

Reflective assignment 15%

In-Class Quiz 20%

Participation 15%

1 hour lecture weekly and 2 hours tutorial weekly. This module is considered very heavy for a GEM module but a useful module that equip you with life skills. There are also ungraded speeches: Introductory speech, commemorative speech and impromptu speech. The tutor will allocate which week we will be presenting the speeches. (Time management is important - do not wait till last minute to write the speech)

The preparation for the speeches are tough and effortful because we have to write the entire speech on our preparation outline, have to practice to be familiarized with the speech (we are not allowed to make editing to our script during the speech), and have to meet the criteria of both speech content and presentation. This have to be done for commemorative, informative, persuasive and critique speech.

For the reflective assignment, it is a project that we have to make video about what we learn from the module. This is effortful as well.

Finally, the textbook reading is compulsory because the quiz will test on everything from textbook as well as lecture notes. You will realized the lecture notes are the summary of the textbook and you would not know the content just by reading the lecture notes. Furthermore, she tested a lot on the textbook examples and some of the questions are like "from the textbook ...". I did not like her lecture style as well. I don't really understand her lectures, and sometimes I don't go for it.

Nevertheless, this is a module that I had fun. It is a module I felt that I have learnt about myself and see much improvement in myself. I have also learnt a lot on speech writing and delivering a speech. The tutor gave my class many additional tips to improve our speech and they are very useful even out of classroom.

LAK3202 Korean 4

Lecturer: Park Hyunjeong

Tutor: Yoon Boo Young

Assessment

2 Assignments 15%

Project (Skit) 15%

Attendance/Participation 10%

Mid Term Test 20%

Final Term Test 30%

Oral Test 10%

2 hours lecture twice weekly and 2 hours tutorial weekly as usual. Korean 4 has much more grammars to learn as compared to Korean 3. There are more grammars that are similar to what is used in native speakers. I feel that the expectations and workload for Korean 4 is not as demanding as Korean 3. The amount of workload more reasonable as compared to Korean 3. The lecturer is clear in her explanation but lectures can be quite drilling because we have a lot of grammars to cover every lessons. The tutor made the lesson more interesting though she used more advanced Korean language such that I could not understand some things that she mentioned. Korean 5 will be more on speaking than writing, I shall consider whether to take it or not.

Saturday, 6 December 2014

Tips for managing timetable

Currently, I have completed 3 semesters in NUS. Since being an FASS student allows me to plan my module and timetable, I learn more about what I want and do not want for my timetable in the future semesters.

1. Free Day
I dislike travel to school. Even though travelling to school only takes around 1 hour, but I dislike transferring from train to train and then train to bus. Having a free day not only allow me to have more time at home to rest/study, I don't have to travel to school every weekday. I usually like to have free day on Monday or Friday so that I have a longer weekend and it is really helpful in producing more free time for myself. Even if you can't have a free day on Monday or Friday, having a free day in between school days is good too. You can choose to rest at home or study in school and to catch up on work.

2. Early Classes
I realised that travelling in the morning (e.g. 8am classes), I have to take slightly more than 1 hour to travel sometimes due to human jams and traffic jams at the station and roads respectively. Furthermore, it is really pack and uncomfortable. I will avoid 8am classes as much as I can unless it is lectures and I have no choice. I dislike morning classes as well because waking up before the sun rise is quite difficult for me. However, some people might prefer to start school early and so that they have a longer day to study after school. 10am classes are more comfortable for me because I can sleep more and avoid the jams.

3. Long Breaks
I am not a person who will study in school all the time. Sometimes, I can't really concentrate in school as well. Hence, I dislike long breaks in between lessons. I will try to put my lessons back-to-back with tutorials in between my lectures if possible. I can start school later or end earlier whenever I don't feel like studying in school or to meet my friends.

4. Exams Schedule
This semester I felt that I have more time to prepare for my exams which make me feel more secure. I found out that exam schedule is important as well. I will avoid having more than 1 papers in a day. Exams on consecutive days are alright for me if I have enough time to study before the papers, otherwise I will also avoid choosing modules with exams on consecutive days. Cramming all the exams within few days may be good because we end the exams early, but I will rather have more time to prepare for my exam since I have a long break after exams anyway. Nevertheless, do not choose modules with exams day towards the very end too, unless you are prepare for it. What I mean is that when you see others finishing their exams early, don't lose focus and get too envious, but still prepare for exams as per normal. But if one is prepared that they are going to be the last among their friends to finish the exams, it will be fine I supposed.

AY2014/2015 Semester 1 EC1101E, LAK3201, GEK1520, PL3234, PL3235

The modules I took: EC1101E, LAK3201, GEK1520, PL3234, PL3235

EC1101E (Introduction to Economics)

Lecturer: Ong Ee Cheng, Chan Kok Hoe

Tutor: Chmel Oon

Assessment

Pre-lecture IVLE Quiz (graded on effort): 12%

Tutorial (attendance and participation): 10%

Midterm Exam: 26%

Final Exam: 52%

3 hours lecture and 1 hour tutorial every week. There were quite a lot of questions to prepare the tutorials (MCQs + Short-answer questions) and it is better to do to understand the concepts better. We have to present our answers to earn points for the tutorial participations. My tutor is really good, she put herself in our perspective and understand our difficulties and gave us tips accordingly. She helped me a lot in understanding the concepts better during lessons. If you have taken economics in JC, the micro part will not be that difficult to understand in this module. Dr Ong was very clear in her lectures, I understand much better as compared to during JC. We had to do quiz before/after the lectures first half of the semesters. Midterm exam was tested on micro, so it was ok. After the recess week, Dr Chan took over and went through macro. I honestly do not like macro, it is so confusing... We did on money, banking and financing, a little here and there. Doing the tutorial practices definitely helps. This module is really competitive with a large cohort (600+ students). The mean for the midterm was 40+/60.

LAK3201 (Korean 3)

Lecturer: Chi Seo Won

Tutor: Lee Misun

Assessment

Class participation: 10%

Project (15%)

- Skit on Week 5 and Week 10

Tests (Midterm and Final): 40%

Oral test on Week 6 and Week 11: 20%

Assignment on Week 4 and Week 8: 15%

2 hours lecture twice a week, 2 hours tutorial every week. One interesting activity was kimbab making session during the second half of the semester. The session of quite short though, 25 mins or less, but kimbab is easy to make. We had class quiz (5 fill in the blanks questions) every tutorial but it is not counted into CA. I had quite a hard time coping with level 3 because there were so many vocabs (my lecturer also added her own vocabs for our own knowledge) and I did not spend a lot of time on studying korean. There were slightly more to study as compared to level 2. But much more were tested. There were actually 3 skits, but the lecturers decided to cut down to 2 after we did the first one. We have to write the script from scratch and record our skit instead of performing in front of the class. It is definitely less stressful without presenting the skit out but when you want perfection for both you and your skit partner, many tries have to be done. Sometimes, it is good to just aim for near perfection but not entirely perfect. Oral tests were hell for me. 2 questions each test. It may seemed easy, but no. We only have 2 minutes to say our answer and then the tutor will cut us off. My tutor (also examiner) also had an alarm which rings after 2 mins, which was rather distractive. The second oral test was paired with another student from the class. 1 min to plan 2 mins to say for 2 person. I would advise that practicing speaking korean and using the grammar regularly will help in preparation for the oral test because the questions for 2nd oral test were not practiced in class before. Tests and assignments' formats were rather similar to Korean 1 and Korean 2.

GEK1520 (Understanding of the Universe)

Lecturer: Ng Shao Chin

Tutor: Ching Chee Leong

Assessment

Term tests on Week 7 and Week 13: 45%

Project: 30%

Tutorials: 10%

Participation in e-learning: 5%

Participation in star gazing session: 5%

Participation in discussion forum: 5%

2 hours lectures twice a week and 1 hour tutorial every biweekly. The module is really interesting and I love it. The lecturer usually ended 30 mins earlier. The contents went through during the tutorials were mathematical. The tests were mostly MCQs with few short answered questions. Since the module content is factual, memorising the handouts helped a lot. Calculation questions tested were also very similar to the tutorial questions. This module is really competitive. The mean score for the midterms was 27/34.

PL3234 (Developmental Psychology)

Lecturer: Qin Lili

Tutor: Lin Wenzheng

Assessment

Term paper: 20%

Midterm Exam: 30%

Final Exam: 50%

2 hours lecture every week and 2 hours tutorial every biweekly. The lecturer has a baby voice, some may find it rather irritating. Nevertheless, the lecturer is very clear during the lecture and she explains a lot, hence I guess the reason why we have lesser readings. The readings were only around 10 pages each week. The lectures were easy to follow and understand as well. Tutorials have readings as well and many contents were gone through and tested. There were a mixture of MCQs and short answer questions for both tests.

PL3235 (Social Psychology)

Lecturer: Jia Lile

Tutor: Ranjith

Assessment

Group presentation: 15%

Midterm Exam: 40%

Final Exam: 45%

2 hours lecture every week and 2 hours tutorial every biweekly. The lecturer is very engaging and very clear. I really enjoyed the module a lot, partly because of the content and also the way the lecturer held the lectures. There was also a guest speaker during the second half of the semester. The lecturer mostly tested us on application hence grasping the concept well is important. We did 1 chapter every week, hence 1 chapter of readings each week (around 30+ pages), which is quite a lot. Mostly are already covered during the lectures, but still there are some not covered during lectures, hence it is safer to read them and for better understanding.

Hopefully all these helps! I am super lazy to do module reviews but I think it is good if there are reviews. I always look for reviews too, but found out that many modules do not have reviews. Do post some reviews if you can too, that will help a lot of people :)

AY2013/2014 Semester 2 CL1101E, LAK2201, PL2132, PL3232, PL3236

The modules I took: CL1101E, LAK2201, PL2132, PL3232, PL3236

CL1101E (Introduction to Chinese Language)
Lecturer: Xu Zheng

Assessment
Tutorials: 20%
Final Exam: 50%
Assignment: 30%

2 hours lecture every week and 2 hours tutorial every biweekly. The lectures were held in Chinese by a Chinese lecturer. The accent did not affect me much, so I think it is ok just that he spoke quite fast sometimes and it is hard to catch if you hadn't take Chinese Language lesson for too long like me. But the lecturer or tutorial practices do have quite a number of very difficult Chinese words. Most of the students taking this module were also Chinese, so I felt quite disadvantaged because I definitely don't have a standard that can match theirs. Some of contents were really quite tough, I took quite a long time to do the tutorial practices to get it right. The final exam was tougher than I expected too. I would not recommend this module, unless one has a strong language base.

LAK2201 (Korean 2)
Lecturer: Park Mihi

Assessment
Class participation: 10%
Skit on Week 12: 15%
Tests (Midterm and Final): 50%
Oral test on Week 11: 10%
Assignment: 10%
Homework: 5%

2 hours lecture twice a week and 2 hours tutorial every week. Level 2 is slightly harder than level 1. The skit was done in pair and the script was half done, and we were supposed to complete the story and the script. Then, we have to perform in front of the class during tutorial. The oral was much easier than Level 1. There was only 2-3 questions, it was fast and rather manageable. The format for tests and assignments were quite similar to level 1 or level 3 as well. Taking language module requires many effort and time to remember the vocabs and get familiar with the grammar. Also, it is important to practice writing and speaking regularly. I feel that commitment and passion is a must to have to take language module.

PL2123 (Research and Statistical Methods 2)
Lecturer: Winston Goh

Assessment
Empirical project (25%)
- Project proposal (Week 6): 10%
- Group presentation (Week 11): 15%
- Project report (Week 12): 55%
- Evaluation of contribution: 20%

Midterm open-book exam: 35%
Final open-book exam: 40%

2 hours lecture and 2 hours lab session every week. The lecturer is very clear and passionate in giving lectures. I understand the lectures quite well. I had Dr Goh for lab sessions too, and he is really very clear and easy to follow. I think the contents are rather ok, as long as you get to understand the concept. Since it is open-book, getting to understand the concept is important so that application will not be too difficult. (I did not understand the content well during first half of the semester, I did quite badly for midterm.) Practicing the past years question will be useful.

PL3232 (Biological Psychology)
Lecturer: Derbyshire, Stuart

Assessment
Midterms Exam
Final Exam

2 hours lecture every week and 2 hours tutorial every biweekly. This module really gave me a lot of headache. The lecturer was new in giving lectures in NUS so he was quite unfamiliar with the format of testing and he did not really have a very clear structure of what he is going through. I felt confused as he went through the lectures. Many contents were not from the textbooks and lectures were not in order with the chapters. I gave up committing to this module, hence having many difficulties coping with it. The contents for this module is really A LOT. So much to memorise so have to plan the modules well.

PL3236 (Abnormal Psychology)
Lecturer: Keng Shian Ling

Assessment
Research Report: 15%
Case study presentation: 20%
Attendance and participation: 5%
Midterm Exam: 30%
Final Exam: 30%

2 hours lecture every week and 2 hours tutorial every biweekly. The lecturer is very clear in her lectures, I felt really comfortable following during the lectures. I personally like the module too, so I enjoyed the lectures. It is also content heavy but Dr. Keng was very lenient in the format for tests. We had only MCQs for finals.