Chemistry 1/2 SAC 1

[argent]

Hi all,
I'm still fairly new to these forums so bear with me please
So I have my first Chemistry SAC in about two weeks (last week of school) and a couple of weeks ago we did a practice SAC. It was a lab report on a prac that we'd done in class prior, where we had to change copper -> copper nitrate -> copper hydroxide -> copper oxide -> copper sulphate -> copper. I got it back and I scored 11/24...

These were some of the questions:
- Why were you told to add the 7M Nitric acid in a fume cupboard?
- How do you identify the type of reaction given in Question 4? (it was a precipitation reaction)
- Explain how uncontrolled vigorous boiling of the solution could affect a group's final percentage of copper calculations.
- Most groups would have calculate a percentage of copper that was below 100%. Explain how a group could get a result that was about 100%.

etc. (i didnt get marks for any of those questions) I've never done stuff like this before but it seems kind of more common sense than memorising things?? No one in my class knew how to prepare for it, so we kind of all walked in blindly but honestly I don't know how to prepare for the actual SAC in two weeks, I'm not really good with writing up practicals and all this evaluation and observations and making inferences??? It's really annoying me because I didn't think chemistry would involve this, it seems like kind of basic work, like why do we need to do this etc, it seems pointless and boring haha. idk is there a way for me to get better at these kinds of things bc that's just what chem entails, or am I just screwed bc i dont have that ability like other people do in these situations to make inferences and draw conclusions like i dont know how to improve on this hahah

Like my friend was saying how she probably scored really badly because she made a lot of things up, but she got 20/24 so obviously she's doing something different to me?? she's really good at applying common chem knowledge to these kinds of things tho. but I don't see how anyone could have 'studied' for it either

I'm not bad at chem, it's one of my stronger subjects, but im good at theory and all that kind of stuff, things i can actually study for and practice, however practicals are just my weakness at this point and idk how to get better at them
If anyone can give me some tips to improve it would be greatly appreciated!