Chemistry Study Design 2013

[charmanderp]

http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/vce/chemistry/ChemistrySD-2013.pdf

The new study design, now that midyears have gone the way of the purple spaghetti monster!

Ethene is no longer an option as a selected industrial chemical for detailed study in Unit 4. Presumably not enough schools were doing it.

Personally I was hoping to see some of the Unit 4 Outcome 1 stuff introduced in Unit 3. It'll be interesting to see the sample exam they put out, for the kinds of questions and how they amalgamate the two units.

Units 1 & 2 are more or less the same, from first glance.

[charmanderp]

And this is in the wrong board.

[VivaTequila]

wow, that's interesting... sucks to all the '13 grads who have no practice exams!

[Lasercookie]

And this is in the wrong board.

moved to the right board now.

Also there's a summary of changes in this document here (click the chemistry link): http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/bulletin/2012/2012julsup.pdf

other subjects at this link: http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/studies/futuresd.aspx

[charmanderp]

wow, that's interesting... sucks to all the '13 grads who have no practice exams!

They can do all of the practice exams dating back to 2000, just excluding the odd question And they don't have to sort through Unit 3 and 4 exams pre 2007 like we did! It's more the 2.5 hour exam covering an entire year of material which will screw them over.

[vashappenin]

Are we seriously that screwed? In terms of content, do you think we're better off with some of the topics gone, or doesn't it make much of a difference? Will it be harder?

[charmanderp]

You aren't really screwed, you'll just have to make sure to constantly revise and do practice questions from Unit 3 throughout the year.

[Somye]

Interesting, from what I can see, they don't have to specifically learn the instrumentation/function of chromatography/spectroscopy, just how to analyse readouts from them

[charmanderp]

principles and applications of chromatographic/spectroscopic techniques (excluding features of instrumentation
and operation)

The bit in parentheses is interesting, that certainly wasn't part of the current course. Maybe they feel it would be too much to remember for the 10 odd chromatographic/spectroscopic prcoesses on top of all the other Unit 3 and 4 stuff? Personally I found it to be really interesting, especially with NMR, IR and Mass-spec.

There's nothing in the new study design about fractional distillation either, something that was fairly involved in this year's Unit 3 exam. Also it specifies now the 'production of biochemical fuels' rather than just 'biochemical fuels' so maybe students will have to learn about actual production processes? Similarly to sulfuric acid?

[Biceps]

They'll be fine exams of first year of every study design are always easy. In the end they are all in this together so they will all still be ranked accordingly. GOOD LUCK YEAR 12s OF 2013!!

[Scooby]

They'll be fine exams of first year of every study design are always easy. In the end they are all in this together so they will all still be ranked accordingly. GOOD LUCK YEAR 12s OF 2013!!

Hahaha, tell that to the people who did Psych last year 

[VivaTequila]

15 marks alzheimers i heard? haha they covered it in like a lecture slide at my school, everyone was so mad

[Shenz0r]

They'll be fine exams of first year of every study design are always easy.

Not always the case. Look at the A+ cut off for the 2006 Biology mid-year examination (54/75). That exam was definitely as tough as nails.

[slothpomba]

Doesn't look like there's any major changes from when i did it, not that there needs to be for a year 12 level, chemistry isn't moving at the rate of say bio.

This one stuck out to me:

• comparison of energy sources: types, uses and sustainability of sources including brown coal, natural gas, nuclear fission and biochemical fuels

VS

• comparison of the renewability of energy sources including coal, petroleum, natural gas, nuclear fuels and biochemical fuels

It seems like they're focusing less on use (eg. ethanol is for cars) and some of the chemistry behind it and more on the sustainability.

Changing world but i think it was better as it was.

[charmanderp]

There wasn't really much about the chemistry of it though, unfortunately - I don't think it's ever come up in a Unit 4 exam. All we learnt in class was the energy transformation and combustion equations. Stuff about synthesis was done in Unit 3. I think they've just made the wording more concise.