Chemistry revision help

[Mawiege]

Hey, I'm doing chemistry HL and I'm really nervous about my end-of-year exam (i'm in 1st year of IB).

Please write down what you think are the best and most effective ways of revising for chemistry to be well prepared...because I spend ages studying for every chem test we have and my marks are still usually pretty average...and i really want to do well on the exam.

Thanks

[Sandwich]

Practising calculations and questions from past papers is the best way to revise for Chemistry, in my opinion. You get a good understanding of the equations and how to manipulate them that way

[x___x]

Here are few tips which i find useful:

You should try to get the most out of every practical you do. It’s better that you read the teacher's instructions for the practical before coming to class, plus you have to actually involve yourself in the practical so you do understand what this is all about. You should also write the lab report as early as you finish the practical. When you write the report, you will automatically go back to the related section from the syllabus for facts and reasoning, this will help you in "absorbing" the information in the book and actually understand what the book is talking about. so you see, the practicals are most helpful in understanding most of the concepts in chemistry, especially the latter topics, like oxidation and reduction, and energetics.

Besides that, make sure you study for Chemistry as a whole entity, meaning that you should relate things together. I think that the order in which the syllabus is presented is perfect in that the basics are first, and then come the deeper things that are based on the basics. So I recommend that you study for chemistry in the same order as the syllabus.

Also, if your exams are discrete rather than cumulative, meaning that you take exams for the topic you studied recently rather than all what you studied from the beginning of the IB, then make sure to RELATE things, for example, some of the mechanisms in organic chemistry topic are somehow related to the rate-determining step, a concept found in the Kinetics topic, thus, you should start studying for the mechanisms by refreshing you memory and re-reading the kinetics topic. This is an example for clarification only, and you should be able to apply it to other topics as well.

One more thing: you should have the syllabus details with you while studying. As you might have noticed in the syllabus details, there's a column labeled "Teacher's notes", these instructions are for teachers, but it's IMPORTANT that you know and follow them, since they provide guidance, and well as restrictions to the assessment statement they are describing, since the assessment statement sometimes tend to be vague or have a general nature.

if the teacher's notes state that "restrict this to..." then make sure you do restrict what is supposed to be restricted, if you didn't, well, no bad things will happen, but you're going to waste your time studying things you're not supposed to study. Also make sure you note the objective level next to the assessment statement. They guide you to how much you should spend from your time to study that part. if the objective level was 1, it will require less effort and time than an objective level 3, for example.

Chemistry is a nice subject that is really easy compared to other group 4 subjects. Make sure you score 7 on it. Study hard from now so you won't regret losing marks on such easy subjects later on, as I’m doing now.

Edited May 18, 2010 by x___x

[Tilia]

I find it useful to do P1 on time. Those are usually slightly stressful, so to practise them with 1.5 minutes per question is a good idea. Also, learn the definitions! Those are usually only one-mark-questions, but they are easy marks.

And the most common advice, do all past papers you can get hold of, so that you know how you should answer. For instance, if the question is "State and explain the difference in boiling point of X and Y", it's not enough to say "X has a higher boiling point because...", you have to say "X has a higher boiling point than Y, because bla bla"

[Stereoisomer]

I agree with Tilia on the definitions

you really should know all your definitions, hehe whack yourself on the head if you get them wrong in the exam

haha i am kidding.

Make sure you memorise notes, i know this is not biology, but you really should memorise your notes and then make sure you actually understand it.

Also do some calculations, esp in topics like kinetics, energetics and quantitative chemistry. They are less theory based, so you should always practice..

Actually, i have a chem exam tomorrow hehe. And oh SLEEP before hand

SLEEP. don't pull an allnighter like what i did 1 year ago, sure i got over 90% but i made so many stupid silly errors. There was I remember, a question that involved counting something (as one part of it).. lol and i wrote down 5 when it was obviously 6

ok bad example, but you know what i mean right? English IOC, chem exams need sleep.

[Mawiege]

Thanks for all the tips guys, I've tried them all and they are pretty useful

My chem exam is tomorrow so wish me luck, hopefully I'll be able to keep calm and not do something extremely stupid...

[Tilia]

ok bad example, but you know what i mean right? English IOC, chem exams need sleep.

ALL exams need sleep