Adding on what the others have said, here's my opinion - just remember that it's my opinion, everyone's approach to study is different but this is what I would do:
The first thing is probably to not get overwhelmed and also realise there's still plenty of time. Break everything up into specific parts and approach it that way.
Take a look at the study design for the main topics, you should be able to take a look at every item and have at least
some idea of what it's talking about.
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/vce/studies/chemistry/chemistry-sd-07.pdfI've copied and pasted them here:
AREA OF STUDY 1 - Chemical analysis
• volumetric analysis: simple and back titrations, acid-base and redox titrations;
• gravimetric analysis;
• calculations including amount of solids, liquids and gases; concentration; volume, pressure and temperature of gases;
• use of oxidation numbers to write redox equations;
• principles and applications of chromatographic techniques and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data from thin layer chromatography (TLC), high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and gas chromatography (GC);
• principles and applications of spectroscopic techniques and interpretation of qualitative and quantitative data from atomic absorption spectroscopy (AAS), infrared spectroscopy (IR), mass spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), and visible and ultraviolet spectroscopy (visible-UV);
• matching analytical technique/s to a particular task
AREA OF STUDY 2 - Organic chemical pathways
• structure and systematic nomenclature of alkanes, alkenes, amines, chloroalkanes, alkanols and
carboxylic acids up to C10;
• common reactions of organic compounds: addition reactions of alkenes, substitution reactions of alkanes and primary chloroalkanes, oxidation of primary alkanols, esterification;
• principles of fractional distillation;
• organic reaction pathways including the production of esters from alkenes, condensation and polymerisation reactions that produce large biomolecules;
• primary, secondary and tertiary structure of proteins and the function of protein catalysts (enzymes);
• biochemical fuels including fermentation of sugars to produce ethanol;
• the structure and bonding of DNA and its applications in forensic analysis;
• use of proteins as markers for disease;
• function of organic molecules in the design and synthesis of medicines including the production of aspirin from salicylic acid.
You should probably set out a few hours this week to get back up to speed with the concepts. You can go back to the theory - reading the textbook, trying to take in the general ideas/principles. Don't set out to write detailed notes - probably a waste of time at this stage, but when you're reading the book,
actively read, scribbling down extremely rough notes and drawing diagrams and thinking about concepts at the same time. Two birds with one stone pretty much.
Also for the general ideas, you can take a look at some of the notes on AN (
http://www.atarnotes.com/?p=notes&search=&subject=Chemistry&units=MyY0), particularly take a look at the Unit 3 summaries.
I would try to move back to smashing out the questions soon enough, but getting your head around the basic ideas first will have it advantages.
Another quite important point is to
talk to your teacher, ask them for help, see what they say.
For things that cost money (you can easily get by without these though):
- Study Guides, same as the others, I'd recommend the AN study guide written by Thushan. The solutions walk you through each question, explaining theory as it goes, so it's quite handy. It's something worth considering to purchase.
http://www.atarnotes.com/?p=estore&a=view&id=2 -- Otherwise, take a look at the school library or local library, they might have a few study guides for chemistry.
- Tutor: dunno, sitting down with someone one on one might be useful, depends if you like that style of learning or not
- Revision lectures: They're all in the next couple of weekends, I'm not too sure but you might not get too much out of them if you're not up to speed with stuff in the first place. Also, a lot of them are overpriced and expensive. If cost is an issue, there's the free Victoria Uni revision lectures.
Once you move back to practice exams (after re-familiarising yourself with the basics), my opinion would be to go all out on the VCAA exams (2008 to 2011) first. This is opposed to the approach of doing other company exams first and then leaving VCAA for the last few weeks to gauge how you're fairing.
It's really important to measure yourself against that VCAA standard and ensure you're up to it - and if not then there's still time to get there. Also, pay attention to the assessor reports, particularly noting the common mistakes that students make - that all goes back to the stage of refining your understanding once you've grasped the basics though.
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