Urgent: No idea... Help me!!!!!!!!! (1 Viewer)

[dragon658]

Hey guys,

I've pretty much reached the end of year 12 Chemistry and I have little to no idea what is happening.
I've sort of woken up to myself now (a tad late ) but I'm making a final 2 month hurrah to hopefully
get a 60-70, that's the goal anyway, don't think its too optimistic but it isn't going to come easy.

Can someone give me any ideas on what to study specifically. I mean, I can't really do any calculations, which
are a big part of the extended response questions in the HSC papers I believe - might be a good place to start.
Right now, I've been trying to go through the 2015 HSC paper and work my way through the questions with an open book,
figured I might learn that way, or at least get familiar with some things if they happen to appear.

It's going to be a difficult time ahead for me but I believe I'm willing to put in what it takes to get to that 60 and above.

Thanks guys

 

[Queenroot]

If you can't do any calculations then study everything else

 

[blackbird_14]

tbh, the extended responses for HSC rarely require calculations, they're usually the "society" questions, ie. the production of fuel from sugar cane. If you memorise all that, and memorise the first steps of caculation problems, ie. finding moles, writing equations, setting up a table etc. you'll probably get over 60%.

 

[dragon658]

Ok cool, can anyone go a bit further and give me a sort of structure?

 

[Snowflek]

But calculations are guaranteed in every single exam so you should know it.

 

[polskicygan]

Don't skip the calculations entirely because you can get 1 mark usually just for writing down the chemical equation and then another mark for writing the first steps of the equation.

Make sure you learn all the dot-points relating to development of theories, processes, etc. and the societal impacts. Also learn how to integrate 2 or more of these concepts together in an extended response if you have to. For example they may ask along the lines of how ethanol can be made (bacteria, yeast, sugar cane, etc.) and then ask what its advantages are over petroleum. Another one might be how free radicals are formed in the atmosphere and then it might also ask in the same extended response q when CFCs were banned, why and what technologies replaced it. The common theme in extended responses is that there's a component where some knowledge of chemistry is needed (and you MUST write a chemical equation in the response to get full marks). Then the question will usually ask you to link that knowledge to society in some way and how chemistry has benefitted us.

The option is worth the most marks (because it is guaranteed to be - i think 25? - marks of the exam whereas the other core topics are all assessed together in the other questions). So learn your option well.

But you might also want to ask your teacher about calculations and equations because they make up probably up to a 1/4 at the most of the exam paper.

 

[dragon658]

Alright sounds like a plan, albeit not an easy one

 

[zeee1999]

im in a similar situation im doing well in all my other subjects but chemistry just wont stick with me and i only have 10 units so it counts ughh just when think i understand something i get to the exam and either go blank from being stressed or not properly understanding the concepts my trial for chem is in 9 dayys and i am in no way prepared

 

[eko367]

I think for now, it's also important to get some notes (I know that there are heaps online, written by people who have done amazingly), and maybe you could print those out because often they are much simpler and easier to understand than really really boring and long textbooks. But don't worry, chemistry is really hard!