Welcome to another semester, and another community challenge! Just like this past spring, we are going to the community to help populate exam questions on the VIPEr website that we can all use on our midterms and finals. This is especially important to me, as I am making my return to the fall first-year curriculum for the first time in a decade! We are significantly changin our first-year course, but that will be the subject of another BITEs post--once I know how it is going. Exam questions are easy to write and post (as problem sets). We’d love it if you participate in our exam question challenge.

The challenge. By Wednesday, September 16, post your favorite exam question on coordination chemistry, focusing on the general chemistry curriculum. It can be an exam question you’ve already used or one you’d like someone to try out. You can use any question format that you like.

The constraints. We’re looking for small contributions. Quality, low bar questions are great.

• Your question must be on coordination chemistry, broadly defined. Possible topics include isomerism, nomenclature, charge, crystal/ligand field theory, d-orbitals, etc.

• It should be posted as a problem set question with a minimum of the question and answer and student learning outcomes.

• Your question must not be from a textbook - it has to be an original. Avoid copyright restrictions and draw your own figures if needed.

I’ll be doing a quick review of all of these questions (I’ll find someone else to review mine!) and they will be on the website no later than September 19 so that everyone can try them out on their exams. I will send a prize to the first LO submitted and the one that I find most original. I also plan to post assessment data and comments on any questions that I use on my first hour exam. I hope you’ll join me in this challenge!