Has anybody found that you don't need to know about batteries and cells?

[Collin Li]

As in: dry cells, etc.

Coz it's never really come up in my experience.

Also answer/cross-collaborate with the thread on Merspi: http://merspi.com/questions/193/do-we-need-to-know-about-batteries-and-cells

[shivesh.varmaxD]

specific knowledge for each hasn't appeared in exams (i.e. write the reaction that occurs in the button cell), but they like to introduce information about a cell (i.e. here is the overall reaction) and then ask questions that test your knowledge of cells (what is the 1/2 eqn at the negative terminal during recharge, etc) - so they can hit knowledge of cells as well as basic redox knowledge like oxidation numbers and writing half equations.

i get my students familiar with the cells and how they work, but i dont tell them to memorise every detail; they should beware of things that are 'special' such as not being able to bring protons into half equations where there is an alkaline electrolyte (as in the nicad cell and amongst others).

[shinny]

I love the advertising.

Anyway, it's been said before that you don't need to memorise them as they'll give you all the details you need on the exam itself. However as Shivesh said, it's good to get an understanding of them and to familiarise yourself with them so that you can jump straight into answering it rather than figuring out what's going on. It also serves as a nice error checker as it'll just 'look wrong' if what you wrote down on the exam is different to what you remember doing previously. As the questions that come up in the exam about cells are quite limited, familiarising yourself with these cells is basically a path to free marks granted you have the time to do so.

[/0]

Yeah I think you just need to know the key concepts of how primary, secondary and fuel cells work, not equations or anything... which is cool