Going from chemistry 1/2 to 3/4; what to do?

[lzxnl]

I've seen this question come up a lot, so I decided I'd just make a thread answering all of these questions.

Firstly, you DO need to know a fair of year 11 chemistry. Sure, the stuff on the periodic table, the history of chemistry, all the individual gas laws (like Charles' and Boyle's laws; I don't even know which is which) and atmospheric/green chemistry aren't really important, but most of the other bits are. Year twelve chemistry is filled with calculations and more calculations and more calculations, so you absolutely have to get on top of calculations. I can't emphasise this enough. The calculations are quite simple, but you need to know what you're looking for.

Some things to revise from year 11 would be stoichiometry (make sure you know this INSIDE OUT), gas calculations (eh, just a formula), concentrations and pH calculations. There are lots of trippy stoich questions that could be asked in year twelve, like burning a known mass of a compound containing C, H and O to form water and CO₂. With stoich, the easiest way of doing these questions is by keeping a clear record, in your mind, of where all the atoms are going as the number of atoms doesn't change in a chemical reaction.

You'll want to know organic naming and perhaps functional group properties as well (is the latter in 1/2? I've forgotten ). It'll make your life a lot easier when it comes to year 12. Knowing your redox chemistry and what oxidation numbers are will be helpful too.

I wouldn't say that 3/4 covers most of 1/2 again even in textbooks. Textbooks tend to go straight for what 3/4 asks and if you can't do 1/2...your life won't be easy. Theoretically, if you didn't do 1/2 and you just studied 3/4, it would be possible to still do well in 3/4 if you could understand everything in the textbook. Thing is, without a foundation in year 11, the textbook won't appear clear.

Secondly, to actually prepare for chemistry, I would suggest flicking through the entire book and getting an idea of what the course is. Then, put some effort in clarifying what you don't get. If you've had a think about the course in the holidays, when you get to class, the course will make sense more readily.

Hope this helps, and good luck everyone!

[PsychoT]

Cheers, should help me out quite a bit.

[PB]

Nice work lzxnl this should probably be stickied! Words of gold coming from the great nliu himself peoples, take heed.