help! I need to figure out how to study for chem, and manage my time!!

[qualityhealth]

am i the only one?? i've been trying to figure out nameing polyatomic atoms, and its going pretty bad.

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[emttim]

am i the only one?? i've been trying to figure out nameing polyatomic atoms, and its going pretty bad.

All I did for this was make flash cards and study them for a day or two, boom, had 'em all memorized.

You may find it easy to see what has patterns...for instance, SO3 (sulfite) and SO4 (sulfate) have -2 charges, so study those together. Hydrogen sulfite, HSO3, and hydrogen sulfate, HSO4, have -1 charges so study those with other polyatomic ions that have -1 charge like NO2 (nitrite) and NO3 (nitrate). The only real quirky ones are acetate, CH3CO2, which you just need to remember has a -1 charge, and phosphate, PO4, which has a -3 charge. And then there's a couple other oddballs like ammonium, NH4, that has a +1 charge.

Like I said, write down all of the ones you're expected to memorized, then separate them into groups. Make one group of -1 charge polyatomic ions, one group of -2, and then lump the rest into an "oddball/etc." group. Study each group until you intuitively know them.

 

[jochi1543]

am i the only one?? i've been trying to figure out nameing polyatomic atoms, and its going pretty bad.

Of course it is, there are no polyatomic atoms.


Flashcards, yo. And practicing naming actual compounds.

 

[pakbabydoll]

sorry I can't help I just got a 71% on my first chemistry test so I am down.....

 

[emttim]

Lol, I didn't even notice he said polyatomic atoms and not polyatomic ions. Shows how fried my brain is from doing 4 hours of chem homework tonight.

Which class are you taking pak, gen chem 1?

 

[pakbabydoll]

not even that, I am taking intro. I got a 2 on my AP chem test so I decided to step back one class. I did good on the short essays and short answers and all the gas laws but I did horrible on the math part. I have never been good in conversions. I studied them and I got them but when I saw them on the test I forgot everything.

 

[Bacchus]

I learned this in high school, and I hope I don't screw it up. No one else in my classes was taught this, wierd.

In the attached image all red elements have XO3 compositions, all that are lime are XO4 compositions. I know its a small tip, but it will save you a lot of time trying to just purely memorize. If this theory is wrong, aka I forgot it from probably 6 or 7 years ago, let me know so I can edit this.

 

[jochi1543]

not even that, I am taking intro. I got a 2 on my AP chem test so I decided to step back one class. I did good on the short essays and short answers and all the gas laws but I did horrible on the math part. I have never been good in conversions. I studied them and I got them but when I saw them on the test I forgot everything.

Just go one step at a time. For example, if you need to convert volume of gas into micrograms of gas, convert volume to moles first; then moles to grams; then grams to micrograms. The more detailed steps you take, the less likely you are to make a mistake.

 

[emttim]

not even that, I am taking intro. I got a 2 on my AP chem test so I decided to step back one class. I did good on the short essays and short answers and all the gas laws but I did horrible on the math part. I have never been good in conversions. I studied them and I got them but when I saw them on the test I forgot everything.

http://www.chemtutor.com/numbr.htm#da
http://chemistry.alanearhart.org/Tutorials/DimAnal/
http://www.alysion.org/dimensional/fun.htm

Those 3 links look like they have some good tutorials on dimensional analysis, which is what conversions (or equivalence statements) fall under. You really do need to be good at basic algebra to do well in chem since some equations, such as the ideal gas law (PV=nRT), require you to divide certain parts of the equation to isolate the variable you want to find when given the information for the rest of the variables.

The meat of intro chem and gen chem 1 was significant figures/digits and dimensional analysis...I'd focus on those the most if you're having trouble doing conversions.

 

[pakbabydoll]

am i the only one?? i've been trying to figure out nameing polyatomic atoms, and its going pretty bad.

Our chem teacher made us remember a lot of those. What helped me was to make either a Lewis Dot structure or write a structural formula on notecards. I also tried to remember alikes together like NH2, NH3, SO4, SO3, and you get the idea.

This website helped me a lot too
http://home.earthlink.net/~ssbeaton/addlinfo/polyions.html

 

[Mayday]

I always tried to come up with sentances for each one that would help me remember them. Something like "sulfate and chromate are mates" they both have 4 oxygen, and a negative 2 charge. Mates come in pairs of 2, thus the -2 charge, and 2 pairs of 2 is 4.

I remembered the phosphate groups because they jsut work well together. there are 3 common phosphate groups, so the one with no hydrogens has a -3 charge, the one with one hydrogen has a -2 charge, and the one with two hydrogens has a -1 charge. Carbonate and hydrogen carbonate works the same way.

OK, so some of this might be kinda cheesy, but it worked for me *shrug*

 

[pakbabydoll]

http://www.chemtutor.com/numbr.htm#da
http://chemistry.alanearhart.org/Tutorials/DimAnal/
http://www.alysion.org/dimensional/fun.htm

Those 3 links look like they have some good tutorials on dimensional analysis, which is what conversions (or equivalence statements) fall under. You really do need to be good at basic algebra to do well in chem since some equations, such as the ideal gas law (PV=nRT), require you to divide certain parts of the equation to isolate the variable you want to find when given the information for the rest of the variables.

The meat of intro chem and gen chem 1 was significant figures/digits and dimensional analysis...I'd focus on those the most if you're having trouble doing conversions.

Thank you so much! these look great!! I am good in algebra! after biology thats my favorite class. We had like 4 questions on pv=nrt and I got all of them right. We also had questions on Boyle's, Charles, and that Gay Lussacs guys laws and I got them right too. I did however had some trouble with dimensional analysis, and just the normal English to metric conversions.

 

[qualityhealth]

just ignore this

 

[brsboarder]

less studying, more enjoying what I'm assuming is your freshman year. If your worried now, life will be horrible in 3 years, don't go down that path. Relax, read the text book, make flash cards, and you'll be fine.

 

[GoldShadow]

I would have to disagree on flash cards...

I've never liked flash cards because they are not a good use of time. You could use the time spent on making the flash cards by instead memorizing something in your head by repeating it over and over. Flash cards breed bad study habits.

 

[geneticclone]

I would have to disagree on flash cards...

I've never liked flash cards because they are not a good use of time. You could use the time spent on making the flash cards by instead memorizing something in your head by repeating it over and over. Flash cards breed bad study habits.

I love Flash cards. I took chem 1 in the summer and my group realized that we had to memorize the polyatomics 30 minutes before the test, and i did. I didnt do half bad.

 

[qualityhealth]

I learned this in high school, and I hope I don't screw it up. No one else in my classes was taught this, wierd.

In the attached image all red elements have XO3 compositions, all that are lime are XO4 compositions. I know its a small tip, but it will save you a lot of time trying to just purely memorize. If this theory is wrong, aka I forgot it from probably 6 or 7 years ago, let me know so I can edit this.

how does it work? what does XO4 stand for?

 

[jochi1543]

I would have to disagree on flash cards...

I've never liked flash cards because they are not a good use of time. You could use the time spent on making the flash cards by instead memorizing something in your head by repeating it over and over. Flash cards breed bad study habits.

Not really, you memorize things while you write them down on flash cards. That's why I always transcribe things when I study material that's very dense (think cell bio, microbio) - I memorize more by reading once/writing simultaneously than I do by reading 3 times.

 

[capn jazz]

how does it work? what does XO4 stand for?

"X" is any element attached to O4 (4 oxygen atoms)

 

[capn jazz]

Not really, you memorize things while you write them down on flash cards. That's why I always transcribe things when I study material that's very dense (think cell bio, microbio) - I memorize more by reading once/writing simultaneously than I do by reading 3 times.

I agree with this. For my bio and chem classes, I take notes in a notebook while I read (occasionally highlight too) and it helps a lot. However, I usually just read over them once or twice before the test, or not at all. The act of writing something solidifies it and helps you remember it. Flash cards aren't necessary if you take bullet-point style notes, though.

 

[Revenant]

sorry I can't help I just got a 71% on my first chemistry test so I am down.....

What was the average?

Because if you hit near or above average and are still aiming for the A you aren't tanked yet.

And if it makes you feel any better I've screwed up many a test...

(imagine reading 1-1=1 instead of 1-1=0 on a differential equations test....and it costing you 22% on its own)

Better yet if it's gen chem and a big class you can be sure the average won't get any better.

 

[GoldShadow]

Not really, you memorize things while you write them down on flash cards. That's why I always transcribe things when I study material that's very dense (think cell bio, microbio) - I memorize more by reading once/writing simultaneously than I do by reading 3 times.

I agree with this. For my bio and chem classes, I take notes in a notebook while I read (occasionally highlight too) and it helps a lot. However, I usually just read over them once or twice before the test, or not at all. The act of writing something solidifies it and helps you remember it. Flash cards aren't necessary if you take bullet-point style notes, though.

Actually I do this too, but writing down concepts and things as you read them is very different from writing out flash cards IMO. With flash cards, you're just associating a word or phrase with a specific definition; nothing else. On the other hand, taking notes while reading a chapter, you're putting concepts/ideas/terms together in a logical flow as you read.

 

[emttim]

Actually I do this too, but writing down concepts and things as you read them is very different from writing out flash cards IMO. With flash cards, you're just associating a word or phrase with a specific definition; nothing else. On the other hand, taking notes while reading a chapter, you're putting concepts/ideas/terms together in a logical flow as you read.

I disagree with this. You can learn concepts/ideas/terms from flash cards; the flash cards just need to have this information on them.

 

[pakbabydoll]

What was the average?

Because if you hit near or above average and are still aiming for the A you aren't tanked yet.

And if it makes you feel any better I've screwed up many a test...

(imagine reading 1-1=1 instead of 1-1=0 on a differential equations test....and it costing you 22% on its own)

Better yet if it's gen chem and a big class you can be sure the average won't get any better.

we had 3 "A"s, 5 "B"s, 7 "C"s, 12 "D"s, and 5 "F"s.
She did not exactly tell us the average.

 

[Nasem]

most common ways to memorize crap are
a) flash cards
b) writting them down time after time..
c) photographic memory (99.999% of people don't have this)

for me, I like b) much more than flash cards....
You have to try things out for yourself and see what works best

 

[cheezer]

am i the only one?? i've been trying to figure out nameing polyatomic atoms, and its going pretty bad.

i did the flash cards as review before a test, but for memorizing i used to bump into a lot of them while doing chem problems and tried to see if i remembered what their names were. eventually naming them became natural, mainly because i am a superhuman genius

 

[Hyperstudyosis]

I haven't had my first chem test yet, but I can be pretty sure I'll be at the top of the class judging my the grades on quizzes and judging my how lost most of the people seem. And in our class, class average is a mid C, so if the class average is a 60, then a 75 is an A. It's all about staying ahead of everyone else for us. Of course, I'm aiming for a 90 or higher, but there's so much you can screw up. I mean, sig figs alone could really screw your grade if you mess up on them. We're doing electron configurations right now and it's pretty abstract, but I like electron configs and I'm catching on to it. I'll let you know how my test goes. Everyone says his tests are extremely hard, but everyone always says everything is hard.

 

[capn jazz]

we had 3 "A"s, 5 "B"s, 7 "C"s, 12 "D"s, and 5 "F"s.
She did not exactly tell us the average.

So your grade was borderling C/D. 15 people had higher than you, 17 people had lower, if you're right in the middle. Sounds about average, so it depends on what she curves to.

 

[BlitzSleep]

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but i'm havin the same problem, but with Stoichiometric Mass Calculations. I am only studying hard, not smart. I studied and tried to solve the practice problems in the book, but i'm still having trouble. I studied the material for 8 hours yesterday, but the gain was not worth the time spent. Any suggestions?

 

[Mayday]

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but i'm havin the same problem, but with Stoichiometric Mass Calculations. I am only studying hard, not smart. I studied and tried to solve the practice problems in the book, but i'm still having trouble. I studied the material for 8 hours yesterday, but the gain was not worth the time spent. Any suggestions?

The only thing I can suggest is to think of it as a puzzle. (This is a lot easier to show then tell, I'll try though.) you know what you start with, and you know what you need to end with. Look at the ratios that you have (moles of atom per grams of atom, moles of one element per the other element, moles per gram, etc) and try to figure out how they fit together. This may be easier if you write the ratios on 3x5 cards and you can turn them over to try and fit them together. Once you see how they go together a few times, then you can try to think of them as puzzle pieces inside your head.

(edited to say - the whole point of this is to understand how it WORKS, not how to do it, as well as to give you a different way of looking at it.)

 

[pakbabydoll]

So your grade was borderling C/D. 15 people had higher than you, 17 people had lower, if you're right in the middle. Sounds about average, so it depends on what she curves to.

She does not curve it. She said we can drop one at the end of the semester but we don't get curves unless more then half of the class fails it.

 

[BlitzSleep]

The only thing I can suggest is to think of it as a puzzle. (This is a lot easier to show then tell, I'll try though.) you know what you start with, and you know what you need to end with. Look at the ratios that you have (moles of atom per grams of atom, moles of one element per the other element, moles per gram, etc) and try to figure out how they fit together. This may be easier if you write the ratios on 3x5 cards and you can turn them over to try and fit them together. Once you see how they go together a few times, then you can try to think of them as puzzle pieces inside your head.

(edited to say - the whole point of this is to understand how it WORKS, not how to do it, as well as to give you a different way of looking at it.)

That is what my Chem E buddy told me when he was helping me with it.

I'll try to visualize it as a puzzle. Good idea, thanks.

 

[capn jazz]

She does not curve it. She said we can drop one at the end of the semester but we don't get curves unless more then half of the class fails it.

I don't think professors are really into giving half the class D's, though I suppose that's within their rights. Either way, it's your first chem test, you have to get used to the structure of her tests and how to study for them. Figure it out and you'll do much better. Go to office hours if she has them and ask for help with problems you don't understand.

 

[Techmed07]

I have my frist chem test in 2 weeks.. but we'll have this chapter finished this week I hope... It is really staying ahead of everybody else. The sig figs are kind of kill me but just because my hs taught it differently. Electronic configuration is abstract?...please explain. We are on that right now I trying get it isnt to hard to figure out. But the first test is very important since chemistry builds on itself. Hopefully I get an A.



Well off to my english book...I hate it.
and looking over chemistry again.. Im kind of addicted in figuring out the problems.


...To get an A you do have to stay ahead of everybody self... I never saw it like that but it sounds just about right.