Math and chem tips?

[milk95]

Does anyone have any advice on how to study math and chemistry more effectively? I barely passed gen chem I and II with a C- and C and I'm a little concerned, because I'm taking orgo I this fall and I've heard bad things about that class. I also had to retake pre-calc I this semester after making a D+ the first time and finally passed it with a B. It was the algebra review section that destroyed me. I've taken advantage of Khan Academy and showering my professors in a billion questions during their office hours a few times a week, and I had tutors for both chem classes as well since math tutoring isn't offered at my school unfortunately.

I struggle a lot with numbers and formulas and knowing where and when to apply them, so I'm just wondering if anyone has any tips they'd like to share and their own happy success stories too. Also, if anyone has tips on how to better retain and recall material that'd be appreciated too. I've done some research, but it's always nice to have suggestions from other students. Thanks in advance!

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[jtd2081]

To be honest orgo and gen chem are so different. So you can have a little less worrying. That was my experience at least.
I find that flashcards are really helpful for me. Granted they may not work as well for math I have had good success with flashcards.
You sound like you have been doing all the things that I could recommend. I guess just keep working at it, and hope that something clicks. I am sorry I can't offer better advice. I wish you the best of luck!

 

[kopftonmd]

For chemistry (especially OChem), it was doing the practice problems. Practice tests, book problems, etc. I also found that running the general reaction mechanisms for OChem until I knew what happened and why it happened cold was incredibly helpful.

 

[mistafab]

Spend 1 hour every day for each subject. Use the time to study effectively. Do this every day, 6 days a week, starting with the first day of class.

 

[milk95]

Thank you everyone! I admit I could have done more practice problems, especially for chemistry. And I often made flash cards yet rarely studied with them, so they were just there collecting dust. I'll try to utilize them more next semester.

Spend 1 hour every day for each subject. Use the time to study effectively. Do this every day, 6 days a week, starting with the first day of class.

Last semester, I made the mistake of solely focusing on one class per day or every couple of days and I'd dedicate a good 4-6 hours to studying just that one subject. I know I probably won't be able to do that in med school, and even doing it now wasn't all that effective since I basically ignored my other classes to focus on the ones I struggled with the most. So that's a really great idea! It's going to be hard to force myself to stop focusing on a subject and move on to another one, I bet. But it's definitely worth a try.

 

[MoDiddy]

A little concerned? If you honestly put in your best effort and worked as hard as possible and ended up with a C & C- then I would be worried. Be honest with yourself though, at the end of the day did you really put in the work? Techniques that have helped me succeed include reading the textbook for Gen Chem and doing as many practice problems as possible.. if you stumble across a problem you don't know how to do, don't just skip over it, make sure you use your resources to figure it out. I used the same study technique for Calc. Best of luck my friend

 

[moisne]

So Ochem isn't numbers heavy class. You can suck at math and do well in Ochem. I bought my Ochem book and the answer key that came with it on Ebay or maybe it was an illegal pdf answer key... I would look at the problem and read the answer. Now I didn't "passively" read it. I read it to see "why" the answer key did the problem the way they did. Then I did second half of my homework problem set by myself and checked it with the answer key. To be fair - I believe my class didn't have homework grades but even if it did - what matters is you learning.

 

[mrpeduncle]

Get the book Organic chemistry as a second language. It helped me a lot and our TA planned study sessions based on the book. There's also one for general chemistry and physics.

Other than that... You need to practice.