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Studying (1 Viewer)

Futuremedstudent

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Hi,

I am accelerated at my school for chemistry and I was wondering how to study for chem. Also are excel textbooks any good???

Thanks :)

BTW Good luck to anyone doing their HSC this year!!!!!
 
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hawkrider

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Hi,

I am accelerated at my school for chemistry and I was wondering how to study for this. Also is excel any good???

Thanks :)

BTW Good luck to anyone doing their HSC this year!!!!!
Sorry, I don't understand your question. Do you mean how to study for chemistry?
 

anomalousdecay

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Are you doing prelim while you are in year 10 or are you doing HSc while you are in Year 10?
 

strawberrye

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Excel textbooks are good for a fundamental understanding, but better questions can be found in conquering chemistry and jacaranda chemistry that better replicates the difficulty of the exam/trial questions you will encounter in your preliminary course. I think over this holidays, just have a read through the textbook, get your head around some of the concepts you will learn next term, and make sure you know scientific terminology-reliability, validity, accuracy-in relation to first and second hand investigation, line of best fit, how to draw scientific equipment for experimental set up correctly etc. The following are some tips to assist you to study for chemistry during your school terms:

My top 3 tips for preparing for chemistry assessments and exams(can be applied to science subjects in general):

1)Practical assessments-make sure you know reliability, validity, accuracy, sources of error, possible areas for improvement, independent/dependent/controlled variables, risk assessment for all the experiments you have done in class, make sure you can master basic science skills such as drawing line of best fit, drawing experimental set up accurately, using numbered points in writing a logical procedure, understand the requirements of the exam(I.e. how much time, how many parts) and allocate your time accordingly, make sure you understand the chemical principle/theory behind why you did each experiment

2)Theory assessments and exams-make sure you PERSONALLY write a set of summarised notes according to each dot point of the syllabus in a concise but detailed manner-make sure you include appropriate diagrams as well, after you wrote the notes, make sure to start practising questions and CHECKING YOUR ANSWERS in textbooks-i.e. Roland Smith's Conquering Chemistry has an exam question section which is quite good, ask your teacher for practice questions and make links between dotpoints and across modules to reinforce your understanding. Throughout the year, you should be progressively cutting down your notes as you store more things into your long term memory-revise regularly. Before your final trial exam-you should try to get your hands on as many preliminary exams as possible to practice-and look at the marking guidelines, remember to practice under EXAM CONDITIONS. Make sure when you make notes you are at least referring to 3 different sources to synthesise your information. (colour-code and use mind-maps to make your notes engaging and easy to remember). In your notes, don't neglect to include all your experiments and second-hand investigations.

3)For other types of assessments such as group presentations, individual research assignments, second-hand investigations-you should strive to always include a comprehensive bibliography that indicates you have sourced your information not only from websites, but from journals/books as well, you should understand how to evaluate accuracy/reliability/validity in relation to the sources of information you are using, like other types of assessment, pay close attention to the marking criteria and make sure you fulfil it as much as possible, make sure your information is comprehensive, non-repetitive and answers the verb of the question: i.e. discuss, evaluate, compare, contrast, assess, examine (so for that matter, memorise what the main verbs used in your exam questions means

Hope this helps:)
 

Futuremedstudent

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Excel textbooks are good for a fundamental understanding, but better questions can be found in conquering chemistry and jacaranda chemistry that better replicates the difficulty of the exam/trial questions you will encounter in your preliminary course. I think over this holidays, just have a read through the textbook, get your head around some of the concepts you will learn next term, and make sure you know scientific terminology-reliability, validity, accuracy-in relation to first and second hand investigation, line of best fit, how to draw scientific equipment for experimental set up correctly etc. The following are some tips to assist you to study for chemistry during your school terms:

My top 3 tips for preparing for chemistry assessments and exams(can be applied to science subjects in general):

1)Practical assessments-make sure you know reliability, validity, accuracy, sources of error, possible areas for improvement, independent/dependent/controlled variables, risk assessment for all the experiments you have done in class, make sure you can master basic science skills such as drawing line of best fit, drawing experimental set up accurately, using numbered points in writing a logical procedure, understand the requirements of the exam(I.e. how much time, how many parts) and allocate your time accordingly, make sure you understand the chemical principle/theory behind why you did each experiment

2)Theory assessments and exams-make sure you PERSONALLY write a set of summarised notes according to each dot point of the syllabus in a concise but detailed manner-make sure you include appropriate diagrams as well, after you wrote the notes, make sure to start practising questions and CHECKING YOUR ANSWERS in textbooks-i.e. Roland Smith's Conquering Chemistry has an exam question section which is quite good, ask your teacher for practice questions and make links between dotpoints and across modules to reinforce your understanding. Throughout the year, you should be progressively cutting down your notes as you store more things into your long term memory-revise regularly. Before your final trial exam-you should try to get your hands on as many preliminary exams as possible to practice-and look at the marking guidelines, remember to practice under EXAM CONDITIONS. Make sure when you make notes you are at least referring to 3 different sources to synthesise your information. (colour-code and use mind-maps to make your notes engaging and easy to remember). In your notes, don't neglect to include all your experiments and second-hand investigations.

3)For other types of assessments such as group presentations, individual research assignments, second-hand investigations-you should strive to always include a comprehensive bibliography that indicates you have sourced your information not only from websites, but from journals/books as well, you should understand how to evaluate accuracy/reliability/validity in relation to the sources of information you are using, like other types of assessment, pay close attention to the marking criteria and make sure you fulfil it as much as possible, make sure your information is comprehensive, non-repetitive and answers the verb of the question: i.e. discuss, evaluate, compare, contrast, assess, examine (so for that matter, memorise what the main verbs used in your exam questions means
Thanks sooo much!!!! Ur a genius :)
 

strawberrye

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Thanks sooo much!!!! Ur a genius :)
You are welcome:)-by the way-I am not a genius, I just happened to talk from my experiences-which includes failures as well as successes, mistakes as well as achievements. This is by no means conclusive-ultimately you will still have to work very hard to achieve the marks that you want to get, and some of the study techniques which has worked for me might not necessary work as well for you-so trial and error-and always stick with what works for you. Best wishes for the next few years:)(I have no doubt you shall achieve brilliant results)
 

study1234

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Pretty much what strawberrye said, but I'll just what I think is important.

Skim over the textbook (Excel, Conquering Chem, Jacaranda) over these holidays. Try to understand the chemical concepts, but you don't necessarily need to memorise them. The difficulty of the course comes from the large amount of content that is needed to be learnt, not the actual difficulty of the concepts.

Before school starts, make some brief summary notes based on the syllabus (shouldn't take too long). Build on these notes as the term progresses, and constantly revise them.

A few weeks before an exam, start really revising the concepts and memorise the facts/points. Do some past papers.

Hope this helps :)
 
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strawberrye

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Pretty much what strawberrye said, but I'll just what I think is important.

Skim over the textbook (Excel, Conquering Chem, Jacaranda) over these holidays. Try to understand the chemical concepts, but you don't necessarily need to memorise them. The difficulty of the course comes from the large amount of content that are needed to be learnt, not the actual difficulty of the concepts.

Before school starts, make some brief summary notes based on the syllabus (shouldn't take too long). Build on these notes as the term progresses, and constantly revise them.

A few weeks before an exam, start really revising the concepts and memorise the facts/points. Do some past papers.

Hope this helps :)
Nice advice-basically you have summarised what I did when I studied for preliminary and HSC chemistry/physics:)
 

someth1ng

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Nice advice-basically you have summarised what I did when I studied for preliminary and HSC chemistry/physics:)
Same here...lol.

Just a tip, don't stress if there's something you don't fully understand at first. When I went ahead, there were many things I couldn't completely grasp but in time, when it was shown to me (usually by the teacher), I managed to understand it as well.
 

anomalousdecay

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Nice advice-basically you have summarised what I did when I studied for preliminary and HSC chemistry/physics:)
Yeah I basically went ahead each holidays and did notes for Physics and Chemistry ahead of time.

It gave me so much more time to revise over Chemistry and to do work for other subjects too.
 

AB940

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Same here...lol.

Just a tip, don't stress if there's something you don't fully understand at first. When I went ahead, there were many things I couldn't completely grasp but in time, when it was shown to me (usually by the teacher), I managed to understand it as well.
Really good advice. I used to struggle heaps with chemistry because when I didn't get something at first I automatically just thought 'too hard, cbf.'
If you don't get something at first, don't beat yourself up or dismiss it as being too difficult, because really it's pretty normal to not completely understand everything the first time you learn it. Full understanding often requires a certain amount of revision and clarification. Ask the teacher (preferably), or ask someone on here/someone you know who might know the answer/ etc.
 

hawkrider

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Really good advice. I used to struggle heaps with chemistry because when I didn't get something at first I automatically just thought 'too hard, cbf.'
If you don't get something at first, don't beat yourself up or dismiss it as being too difficult, because really it's pretty normal to not completely understand everything the first time you learn it. Full understanding often requires a certain amount of revision and clarification. Ask the teacher (preferably), or ask someone on here/someone you know who might know the answer/ etc.
You could also watch YouTube videos - I know a channel called letslearnscience where they go through the concepts which makes it easy to understand.
 

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