ATAR Notes - Countdown to the Chemistry Exam

There are only 2 days remaining until the VCE Chemistry exam. That’s right – only 48 hours until the culmination of an entire year’s effort! Hopefully your other exams have been going great… here are a few last-minute exam tips for chemistry exam success.

Have an exam plan

The chem exam is a long paper – 2 ½ hours of writing time and 15 mins reading, for a total of 120 marks in a single sitting.

You’ve only got one shot. Use it wisely.

It’s important to have a plan for approaching each and every exam you take – and now is just the right time to start thinking about it. Planning out your exam strategy will help immensely with time management and risk minimisation on Tuesday – you won’t waste time figuring out which questions to attempt first, or by spending too much time on a single question.

Multiple choice or short-answer first?

There are benefits and risks to both methods, so it’s important that you choose the approach which suits you best personally.

Multiple-choice first

Pros: you start off with shorter, simpler questions which will give you time to ‘warm-up’ and build your confidence with the exam.
Cons: you need to watch your time carefully so that you don’t spend too much time on the multiple choice (and consequently have to rush the short answer). Marks-wise, short answer is a lot more valuable than multiple choice.

Short-answer first

Pros: you’ll finish off the short answer section first (worth 90/120 marks) before progressing to multiple choice. This way, you’ll secure the majority of marks in case anything unexpected happens. In the case that you need to rush, multiple choice questions are a lot more rush-able than short answer (in the worst case, you can guess them)
Cons: most super-difficult questions crop up in the short answer section. If you attempt short answer first and get stumped on a single question, it could ruin your confidence or mental state for the multiple choice section as well. Also, it’s very easy to spend too long on the short answer (and consequently not have time for multiple choice)

Keep an eye on the clock

We’ve all been there. Happily working away at a problem on an exam, when you look up at the clock and there’s only 15 minutes left… *@$#! and you’re only halfway through the paper.

One great way of making sure this kind of thing doesn’t happen is to set ‘checkpoints’ at regular intervals through the paper, and checking your work against the clock regularly (say every 10 or so minutes) to gauge your pace.

Here’s what I did…

5 hours for 120 marks means 1.25 mins/mark. Let’s play it safe and say a little over 1 minute per mark (that way, I’d finish with a little time to spare, which would be ideal)
30 multiple choice, so I’d need to finish Section A by the 30-35 minute mark.
90 short answer, so I could afford to spend around 1 hour 50 minutes on that part.

In the exam, I’d look up at the clock every so often to check how I was going. Going off a minute or so per mark, I would then adjust my pace faster (Steve, hurry up!) or slower if necessary (relax, bro)

In the worst case, this may also mean skipping a question if the time taken is too long. As a guide, if you’re stuck on a 2 marker short answer question, twice the normal time allowance (say roughly 5 minutes in this case) is the maximum ‘spend’. Any longer than that, and it’s generally no longer worth working through.

Use your reading time effectively

On top of your 2 hours, 30 minutes of writing time, you have a precious 15 minutes of reading time. How you spend your reading time will set a precedent for your exam. Here’s what I did for the chemistry exam (you’ll find this roughly the same as what I did for Methods, but the length of the exam prevented making a detailed breakdown)

I spent the first 5-8 minutes of reading time skimming through the paper. I skimmed very briefly through the multiple choice (~2 mins), just looking for anything unfamiliar. The length of the exam (usually 40+ pages) prevented a more detailed look.
The remaining 5-6 minutes I’d spend skimming through the extended response, keeping a mental tally of what questions and general topics (e.g. electrolysis, titration, NMR) were present.
I would then proceed to taking a more detailed look at the short answer questions, reading briefly through each one, getting the gist of each question. Most importantly, I’d take note of any really tricky questions so I could set aside potentially more time to tackle them.

Focus on explanations

Explanation questions are a key question type, and for many students are more challenging than calculations questions. Here are a few tips for answering these on the exam:

Use keywords – if there’s a chemical word for an idea, use it! Examiners want to see you demonstrate your grasp of the course content. For example, the usage of ‘aliquot’ bears more merit than ‘solution in the conical flask’.
Be concise and relevant – read the question carefully, and make sure your response adheres to the topic. If too much peripheral (or unrelated information), it could be taken as a sign that the student doesn’t actually know what they are talking about!
Use the mark allocation and number of lines to gauge how much detail you need to go into.
Re-read your response after you’ve written it – does it answer the question? Have you included enough detail to go with the mark allocation?

Watch your states and sig figs

These are not as important in comparison to ‘getting’ the questions on the exam, but just reminding you to keep them in mind. They are still pretty damn important!