ATAR Notes: Forum
VCE Stuff => VCE Science => VCE Mathematics/Science/Technology => VCE Subjects + Help => VCE Chemistry => Topic started by: Amber Fluid on July 25, 2012, 04:38:52 pm
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Hey everyone, I was curious to the difficulty of year 11 chemistry. I myself have never done much chemistry before and was wondering if I would find units 1 and 2 hard.
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some of it is
some isn't
i would only consider doing it if you need it !
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i think the main thing with year 11 chemistry is just to keep ontop of the work
make sure you pre-read so its re-learning the information in class and overall it isnt too hard especially if you find the content interesting...
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Hey everyone, I was curious to the difficulty of year 11 chemistry. I myself have never done much chemistry before and was wondering if I would find units 1 and 2 hard.
Its not very hard because its just some basic knowledge and not lots of work.
If you have never done much Chem before, its still alright. I just did last year :P
Unit 3/4 is harder I think
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The stoich can get a bit to get used to, but in general, units 3 and 4 is harder :)
Protip: ignore all that history crap and environment stuff unless you're really keen on that stuff ;)
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Protip: ignore all that history crap and environment stuff unless you're really keen on that stuff ;)
You forgot all that nanotech stuff as well like buckyballs and all that, don't think I ever came across them again in Year 12.
Topics to learn well in Year 11 are:
1) All your different types of bonds - they should be second nature - for e.g. I could give you any molecule and you should be able to tell me if it's polar or non-polar
2) Organic chem
3) Acid/Base
4) Redox
5) Basic Stoichiometry
6) Gas Laws
If you have them under your belt, Year 12 shouldn't be too hard!
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^yep, good call :)
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The stoich can get a bit to get used to
Stoich is my fave part, full of calculation :P
Topics to learn well in Year 11 are:
1) All your different types of bonds - they should be second nature - for e.g. I could give you any molecule and you should be able to tell me if it's polar or non-polar
2) Organic chem
3) Acid/Base
4) Redox
5) Basic Stoichiometry
6) Gas Laws
If you have them under your belt, Year 12 shouldn't be too hard!
Its hard. Unit 3 are about spectroscopy, chromatography stuff that are not in unit 1/2 at all.
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Spectroscopy and chromatography are all concepts which are based on knowledge from Unit 1/2. Not to mention that you have gravimetric and volumetric analysis as well, both of which are essentially Year 11 stoichiometry extended.
The only thing in AOS 1 which I think isn't related at all to Y11 would be NMR - which is admittedly hard.
AOS 2 - half of it (first half) should be familiar if you did well in Y11, Biochemistry is new stuff though.
So essentially a lot of content from Y12 is based on Y11.
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is mole stuff similar ??
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You won't really have "mole stuff" per se, even around a few months from now, because the mole concept becomes so second nature and just so central to many other things that you don't think about it anymore, and it just makes sense.
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You won't really have "mole stuff" per se, even around a few months from now, because the mole concept becomes so second nature and just so central to many other things that you don't think about it anymore, and it just makes sense.
what?
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A bit off-topic but may be relevant to the OP, is there a lot of organic chem in 3/4?
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It's like fractions in maths, they were once something you had to think about, but once you've reached a certain stage, they just form the backbone of what you do and you don't think about them anymore, because it's second nature.
A bit off-topic but may be relevant to the OP, is there a lot of organic chem in 3/4?
It's one Area of Study - so essentially a little over 1/4 of the course (cause NMR would include a bit of organic too)
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Ok, gotta work on that before next year then :P
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One thing which I didn't pay much attention to was the very end of Unit 1 about surface tension and nanoparticles. Is this relevant for next year?
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One thing which I didn't pay much attention to was the very end of Unit 1 about surface tension and nanoparticles. Is this relevant for next year?
I'm doing unit 4 and dont know what that is. Hence, its not really relevant though :P
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One thing which I didn't pay much attention to was the very end of Unit 1 about surface tension and nanoparticles. Is this relevant for next year?
Nup - VCAA just put that in the 1/2 course as a joke ::), but once again, I didn't find it funny :-\
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One thing which I didn't pay much attention to was the very end of Unit 1 about surface tension and nanoparticles. Is this relevant for next year?
Nup - VCAA just put that in the 1/2 course as a joke ::), but once again, I didn't find it funny :-\
I'm not sure what you mean. Not everything is about Units 3/4. They're different units for a reason, if they were the same you might as well skip 1/2 and just do 3/4.
As an aside, I'm not sure how you could not like surface tension :P http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_tension#Effects_in_everyday_life
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Is unit 1 very introductory?
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Is unit 1 very introductory?
Not too sure what you mean by this. But I can tell you what we cover in unit 1:
* history of the atom (at my school we did this in year 10 as well for science) ~ don't need to know this for year 12 though
* relative atomic mass and the mole
* periodic table with Mendeleev and Moseley ~ I don't think this is required for year 12?
* a bit of stoichiometry (even though this is actually covered in Unit 2)
Just a list that's off the top of my head, but if you really want to know, check out the VCAA study design for unit 1 on their website :)
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It's pretty easy stuff and not really consequential at all to year 12 Chem, I found, although having somewhat of a solid foundation in stoich is helpful.
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Is unit 1 very introductory?
Not really, it's important foundation work