Chemistry and Math books/study tips

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BH07

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So I took the August PCAT and felt that the biology, verbal, writing, and reading sections were very easy. However, the chemistry and math I felt were very difficult. This came after 2 months of studying from the PCAT Kaplan and some other chemistry study guides from Barnes & Noble.

Does anybody have any recommendations on what should I do to do better on the chemiistry. On the exam day I felt like I knew about 60% of the questions but the other 40% I knew what they were talking but didnt know how to solve it.

I had a lot of time due to answering the right questions but I think I skipped too many to do well. Next time I take the exam, I want to be know how to solve at least 90% of the questions

Any suggestions would be nice

here are the books I used to study for chemistry (which i felt i did bad)
PCAT Kaplan
AP Chemistry: 5 steps to a 5
AP Chemistry: Cliffnotes
General Chemistry and Organic Chemistry for dummies

thanx in advance

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Can anyone give any tips please. Im concerned about these two sub sections to improve on
 
Can anyone give any tips please. Im concerned about these two sub sections to improve on

I found the McGraw-Hill PCAT book had a decent O-Chem section, but I mainly used flash cards I made in my O-chem classes to study with so I suggest going through your class notes/textbooks and getting your O-Chem reactions down.

Also make sure you're good with nomenclature in O-chem, as well as being familiar with chirality.

As for general chemistry I mainly just went through my old exams/notes as well, but those AP and Cliff books could be just as useful I don't really know. I had read the 'For Dummies' books and they weren't amazing but not super bad either.

Definitely go through all the equations you can (just know what their units are, problems they're associated with, etc), especially with those concerned with equilibrium. Get 'PV=nRT' tattooed on in your brain. Handiest equation ever.

Get your constants down. R=0.0822 in PV=nRT, for example. Always handy.

Get good at conversions. Be able to go form Molarity to moles in a second if given volume (L). Know how to go from 'mL' to 'L' in the blink of an eye, etc.

Get your acid reactions and naming down as well, and don't forget electrochemistry (anodes and cathodes, etc).

Get very good with electron configurations (Cl is 1s2,2s2,2p6,3s2,3p6 etc)

Know how to tell if a compound is polar or not (ie know the trends with polarity going across the periodic table as well as size up/down the table) and also by the three dimensional shape of molecules (VESPR theory http://lebochem.wikispaces.com/file/view/VSEPR_geometries.png/32280573/VSEPR_geometries.png)

Become familiar with stoichiometric ratios (1 mole of X gives you 2 moles of Y and you can convert from moles X to moles Y with this ratio)

Also get very good at mental math as well, so you can quickly blow through an equation.

I took the PCAT in August for the first time, but these are the kinds of things I paid particular attention to and I believe I did ok on the section. Let me know if you have any questions about something I suggested, and I may add more later since I need to keep this material fresh anyway for October just in case.
 
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