CHEMISTRY (1 Viewer)

dumNerd

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If the syllabus says included or not limited to, do they usually ask questions regarding other things? Eg. rate of a chemical reaction can be affected by a range of factors, including but not limited to:
– temperature
– surface area of reactant(s)
– concentration of reactant(s)

Can they ask me about the catalyst or like mixing and stirring etc.
 

jazz519

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then why wouldn't they just write it in the syllabus....
Pretty much lol. A lot of the stuff in the new syllabus sometimes they don't lay out everything you can get asked. Best reference you can have is look at a textbook. If it's in the textbook it's probably something they can test
 

CM_Tutor

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A major problem with the old syllabus (from an educational perspective) was that it was overly constrained. Every question had to be tied to at least one dot point. Thus, you could be asked about increasing the yield for the Haber process, but not for another industrial process where similar considerations were important. Students could rote learn the Haber process without actually being able to apply the principles of equilibrium to a any other specific case. The new syllabus fixes this by citing examples that could be used as cases but not mandating that no other case can be examined. The "including but not limited to" wording that you cite is an example where the syllabus allows for flexibility. It does not mean that an exam would cover some obscure special case that few students would have encountered, but it does mean a question could treat the effect of pressure on rate in a gas-phase reaction or the role of a catalyst in optimising an industrial process.

I agree with Jazz that textbooks provide a useful guide to what is reasonably examinable in relation to such parts of the syllabus. Typical coverage of rates of reaction would include surface area, concentration / pressure, temperature, and catalysts. Stirring / mixing is less clear as they bring in some atypical cases. For example, a reaction occurring at the interface of two immiscible liquids would clearly be faster if stirred as mixing is increased, for reasons akin to the surface area issues with a solid. Mixing would also alter the rate of a diffusion-controlled reaction but I think that would be unfair to test without significant scaffolding.
 

Etho_x

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If the syllabus says included or not limited to, do they usually ask questions regarding other things? Eg. rate of a chemical reaction can be affected by a range of factors, including but not limited to:
– temperature
– surface area of reactant(s)
– concentration of reactant(s)

Can they ask me about the catalyst or like mixing and stirring etc.
When it says “included but not limited to” it’s exactly like it’s said. You study the examples they give you but there’ll be others you cover. So yes they can ask about catalysts and stirring because it’s referred to in the “but not limited to” part of that dotpoint.
 

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