How to quickly improve CP?

[Noctámbulo]

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Hi All,

My test date is coming up, and I'm still doing disproportionately badly in CP compared to other sections. Any recommended practice books or tips for how to improve quickly (128 to 130+)?

 

[Hospitalized]

Practice problems, go through the EK reasoning skills book and get good at doing calculations quickly.

 

[DameJulie]

I am struggling in the C/P section as well, and I am starting to do both passage practice and free-standing Qs. Still in the painful stage of slowly correcting and seeing a handful of wrong answers.

Practice problems, go through the EK reasoning skills book and get good at doing calculations quickly.

Which one is the EK reasoning skills book? The Verbal passage one?

 

[Hospitalized]

Yeah. Part of the 2015 book set, or the 2016 book set. It has a lot of good math tricks to help with calculations. Also use leah4sci.

 

[Noctámbulo]

Yeah. Part of the 2015 book set, or the 2016 book set. It has a lot of good math tricks to help with calculations. Also use leah4sci.

Can you share a link to the book you're referring to? Is there a chemistry version of the EK 101 practice books?

 

[Hospitalized]

Amazon product ASIN 1893858715

 

[DameJulie]

Can you share a link to the book you're referring to? Is there a chemistry version of the EK 101 practice books?

I believe @Hospitalized is referring to a newer version of this book (Amazon product ASIN 1893858685).
Are you using the 10th edition? I have an older version but wondering how much update the 10th edition has.

 

[Noctámbulo]

Thanks, guys. The trend that I'm noticing with practice tests is that I don't struggle as much with data interpretation as I do with fact-based knowledge. Chem foundation is good, but I'm missing some details here and there, which often lead me astray, so I think doing practice problems would be the best way to identify these gaps for more focused study. Having said that, is EK or PR generally better for building fact-based knowledge (as opposed to learning how to interpret data) for chem?

@aldol16 , any thoughts?

 

[aldol16]

Thanks, guys. The trend that I'm noticing with practice tests is that I don't struggle as much with data interpretation as I do with fact-based knowledge. Chem foundation is good, but I'm missing some details here and there, which often lead me astray, so I think doing practice problems would be the best way to identify these gaps for more focused study. Having said that, is EK or PR generally better for building fact-based knowledge (as opposed to learning how to interpret data) for chem?

I think it's critical to find those gaps early because sometimes even data-based questions will have foundations in basic chemical knowledge. Once you find those gaps, I think you could use any well-reputed source - I found Khan Academy videos very useful for looking over concepts that I had gaps of knowledge in.