Chemistry 3/4 Exam Discussion!

[sweetiepi]

With 3 weeks until the Chem exam, here's a place for exam revision discussion! (assuming most of y'all are doing practice exams for it!)

Has anyone attempted the 2013 VCAA yet and what are the thoughts on it?

[Elizawei]

Nahhh im saving VCAA recent study design till the end

Interesting thought, what is the hardest exam you've ever done?

[HasibA]

doing VCAA last
im doing a lot of STAV/Neap trials, they seem to be harder than the actual VCAA ones ahah
but hardest exam would be Thushan's trial exam, or one of the exampros/chemology unit 4 exams
multiple choice felt like short answer,a nd short answer felt like some new extended response shit HAHA LOL
idk
chem is a struggle , but oh well, plenty of time

[blacksanta62]

With 3 weeks until the Chem exam, here's a place for exam revision discussion! (assuming most of y'all are doing practice exams for it!)

Has anyone attempted the 2013 VCAA yet and what are the thoughts on it?

Great idea
I did the 2013 exam way back in term 2 (worked throught it slowly). Back then any exam was frightening but looking back, it wasn't that bad.

Nahhh im saving VCAA recent study design till the end

Interesting thought, what is the hardest exam you've ever done?

The VCAA 2014 exam was a pain, it has to be the hardest imo
Also, some of the neap ones just annoy me because they contain long paragraphs where you have to find useful imformation
But I enjoy chemistry so much that I don't even mind the challenge, I embrace it 

[sweetcheeks]

I've done the VCAA papers and would say that by far the 2014 was the hardest. It introduced several concepts that were relatively new to me (PPM calculations).

I have been going quite well on practice papers, dropping at most about 10 marks. I do struggle with the explanation areas, something that I need to work on if I want to do well on the exam.

ZSteve has written a brilliant article: http://atarnotes.com/countdown-to-chemistry-exam-part-1/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email&utm_content=email

[sweetiepi]

Interesting thought, what is the hardest exam you've ever done?

Being honest, it was one of the QATs and I can't remember for the life of me what the year of it was lol!

I did the 2013 exam way back in term 2 (worked throught it slowly). Back then any exam was frightening but looking back, it wasn't that bad.The VCAA 2014 exam was a pain, it has to be the hardest imo

1. That's awesome, I wasn't hitting the chem exams until honestly way later than that!
2. I heard from my teacher that the 2013 one was actually harder than the 2014 one! D:

Also, some of the neap ones just annoy me because they contain long paragraphs where you have to find useful imformation
But I enjoy chemistry so much that I don't even mind the challenge, I embrace it 

Neap ones are quite wordy, I agree! In essence, Chem is great fun, so I don't mind in the least, either!

im doing a lot of STAV/Neap trials, they seem to be harder than the actual VCAA ones ahah
but hardest exam would be Thushan's trial exam, or one of the exampros/chemology unit 4 exams

STAV and Thushan have a name for themselves for that, but when the time comes, I reckon that you'll smash the real deal!
I'm yet to touch a STAV though, hahah.

I've done the VCAA papers and would say that by far the 2014 was the hardest. It introduced several concepts that were relatively new to me (PPM calculations).

I have been going quite well on practice papers, dropping at most about 10 marks. I do struggle with the explanation areas, something that I need to work on if I want to do well on the exam.

ZSteve has written a brilliant http://atarnotes.com/countdown-to-chemistry-exam-part-1/?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=email&utm_medium=email&utm_term=email&utm_content=email]article

1. PPM calculations are the BANE of my existence, so I agree with that much!
2. Good job! Keep going and correcting the mistakes and redoing those questions, you'll smash it!
3. I know, zsteve's article is inspiring!

[Sine]

I've got 2011-2015 VCAA left.

Hardest Exam : Maybe LisaChem2013 did it quite a while back so might not be too hard now.

How many marks can you drop on the exams from 2008-2012 across both Units to get a 50 or 45+?

[HasibA]

I've got 2011-2015 VCAA left.

Hardest Exam : Maybe LisaChem2013 did it quite a while back so might not be too hard now.

How many marks can you drop on the exams from 2008-2012 across both Units to get a 50 or 45+?

isn't it 2-4 marks , both exams, for a guaranteed fifty? not sure. id say a total of 2 marks on each exam (4 across both) to get a 50 in pretty much any year, not  sure, thushan should know tho ahah

[mtse]

Just wanted to pipe in quickly :')
2015 chem exam was notoriously easy - dropping a total of 7-8 marks out of 120 (so 225/240 post doubling) meant that the SS was around 45, so for a 50 you could drop at most like 1 mark (i.e. 238/240)
Hopefully the 2016 exam will be a lot harder - I can literally hear you groan but the harder the exam the better differentiation you get between students... and for all the insanely hardworking students on AN, that's a good thing

Also just in case anyone was interested, here's a short list of "difficult" / "must do" papers/questions:
(I'll add to this if I come across anything while I review some of my stuff from last year)
- 2009 VCAA Unit 3 Paper - according to a guest lecturer who came to my school this paper is gold-standard
- 2012 VCAA Unit 4 Question 2 SA - this was one of my chem teacher's favourite questions in his 50 years of teaching chem
- 2008 VCAA Unit 4 Question 3 SA - this was so badly done....especially part e - only 5% of students got 2/2

For those who didn't know - exam distributions for each year can be found and they show you what score was needed to get an A+/A/B+/B etc in the exam
e.g. 2015 - http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/statistics/2015/statssect3.aspx ,
2014 - http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/statistics/2014/statssect3.aspx
i.e. just google VCE ___(year) grade distributions

good luck!

[Sine]

Just wanted to pipe in quickly :')
2015 chem exam was notoriously easy - dropping a total of 7-8 marks out of 120 (so 225/240 post doubling) meant that the SS was around 45, so for a 50 you could drop at most like 1 mark (i.e. 238/240)
Hopefully the 2016 exam will be a lot harder - I can literally hear you groan but the harder the exam the better differentiation you get between students... and for all the insanely hardworking students on AN, that's a good thing

Also just in case anyone was interested, here's a short list of "difficult" / "must do" papers/questions:
(I'll add to this if I come across anything while I review some of my stuff from last year)
- 2009 VCAA Unit 3 Paper - according to a guest lecturer who came to my school this paper is gold-standard
- 2012 VCAA Unit 4 Question 12 - this was one of my chem teacher's favourite questions in his 50 years of teaching chem

For those who didn't know - exam distributions for each year can be found and they show you what score was needed to get an A+/A/B+/B etc in the exam
e.g. 2015 - http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/statistics/2015/statssect3.aspx ,
2014 - http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/statistics/2014/statssect3.aspx
i.e. just google VCE ___(year) grade distributions

good luck!

Thankyou!!
Yes definitely a harder exam is better for those who have prepared well.

I did 2009 Unit 3 was definitely the hardest VCAA one i've done so far. If anyone wants a confidence boost do 2010 Unit 4.

[sweetiepi]

Just wanted to pipe in quickly :')
2015 chem exam was notoriously easy - dropping a total of 7-8 marks out of 120 (so 225/240 post doubling) meant that the SS was around 45, so for a 50 you could drop at most like 1 mark (i.e. 238/240)
Hopefully the 2016 exam will be a lot harder - I can literally hear you groan but the harder the exam the better differentiation you get between students... and for all the insanely hardworking students on AN, that's a good thing

Also just in case anyone was interested, here's a short list of "difficult" / "must do" papers/questions:
(I'll add to this if I come across anything while I review some of my stuff from last year)
- 2009 VCAA Unit 3 Paper - according to a guest lecturer who came to my school this paper is gold-standard
- 2012 VCAA Unit 4 Question 12 - this was one of my chem teacher's favourite questions in his 50 years of teaching chem

For those who didn't know - exam distributions for each year can be found and they show you what score was needed to get an A+/A/B+/B etc in the exam
e.g. 2015 - http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/statistics/2015/statssect3.aspx ,
2014 - http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Pages/vce/statistics/2014/statssect3.aspx
i.e. just google VCE ___(year) grade distributions

good luck!

If I could upvote this any more than once, I would!!
I'm definitely hitting up those exams!

[nt2387]

Thankyou!!
Yes definitely a harder exam is better for those who have prepared well.

I did 2009 Unit 3 was definitely the hardest VCAA one i've done so far. If anyone wants a confidence boost do 2010 Unit 4.

Why did you think it was the hardest?

[Sine]

Why did you think it was the hardest?

Complexity of questions and took longer than usual but my score was pretty similar to what i'm getting on the other VCAA's.

[Biology24123]

I just did VCAA 2014. What did you guys score on it.

[HasibA]

I just did VCAA 2014. What did you guys score on it.

i have left 2013-2015 vcaa until i finish methods next week- so ill get back to you.
from a quick glance/hearsay, it appears to have a lot of 'interesting' questions on it haha