Chem/Phys is the Bane of my Existence

[reinesupreme]

Can someone offer words of advice for someone who's been consistently scoring poorly in this section? I don't know what I'm missing or what I'm not exactly understanding. The majority of my problems stem from chemistry.

When I took the Kaplan diagnostic, I scored an abysmal 120 in Chem/Phys. I'm currently working on homework passages and it doesn't look like any of my content review has paid off. Help?

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[xerxesc]

Get the Berkeley Review Books for General Chemistry and Physics.

 

[Altius Premier Tutor]

I'd love to help, but would need a lot more information than what you've provided. It could be any of a number of issues.

How intuitive do you feel about the major basic chemistry topics? Can you speak to or teach confidently about things such as atomic structure, bonding, enzymes, kinetics, and thermodynamics? If you couldn't teach those in layman's terms to your roommate, then maybe you really need to start from scratch and build a confident foundation. However, it could be mostly dealing with the kind of reaction mechanisms and predictions common on Chem-Phys. How did you do in Biochem class?

The test is reasoning based and rewards you mostly for analyzing and interpreting passages and figures, but if you are weak and lack confidence on the basics then it is kind of like not knowing the language--you'll struggle no matter what.

 

[Doctor Dream]

Can someone offer words of advice for someone who's been consistently scoring poorly in this section? I don't know what I'm missing or what I'm not exactly understanding. The majority of my problems stem from chemistry.

When I took the Kaplan diagnostic, I scored an abysmal 120 in Chem/Phys. I'm currently working on homework passages and it doesn't look like any of my content review has paid off. Help?

You're probably not as lost as you think you are, Kaplan really deflates their scores. It was also a diagnostic, so I'm guessing you're just getting started with your studying? When I started studying I scored 121 in C/P section on a NS diagnostic, but ended up with a 129 on the real thing after a couple months of studying. Just relax, keep working hard, and listen to the Altius tutor.

 

[reinesupreme]

Thank you everyone