Chemistry Year 12 2013

[Tirana]

Is there any advice from current Year 12's doing Chemistry, for Chemistry year 12 students next year? What resources are useful? As well as any general advice to do well in the subject. Any advice would be appreciated!

[michak]

I would defiantely get the checkpoints books and this is for every subject you do.
They are thee best resource of questions I have ever seen - they aren't just old exam questions.
They can also be used for SAC and exam revision

[gibsonaxxxs]

Hey!

I haven't got my score yet, so I can't really comment on how effective my strategy was, but here's what I did (and averaged in the 90s for my sacs):

As in all my subjects, I focused on the fundamentals. Don't bother on questions before you're sure that you understand them. Look for outside materials/notes/etc that guide your understanding, NOT questions. The more you understand, the better you will be able to answer explain questions, which form the majority of the exams. Also, the more you understand, the more you will be able to apply to questions that aren't the usual. VCAA seems to be heading in this direction more (although both papers this year weren't that hard).

Once everything is consolidated, work on commercial papers. Try to do them fast; I would finish each paper in around 45 minutes, because in the exam, you want to have heaps of time to check and consolidate your explain questions, and in the exam you generally go slower.

Hope this helps PM me if you want extra tips/anything

Good luck

[nisha]

I second the fact that chemistry is a subject more about understanding and less about rote learning.
But with prac exams, I generally did them to time, so I got used to them timing and checking over my work (instead of completing them in 45 mins and then correcting). I started with the vcaa ones initially receiving scores around the 50% mark and then worked my way up to the top whilst doing a collection of NEAP, STAV, Kilbaha (are the best, I saw a few explain questions in the vcaa exam that they just slightly tweaked from the kilbaha 2008 and 2009 exams), Thushan's and TSSM exams.

[Tirana]

Thank you very much guys! Much appreciated