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March 29, 2024, 02:46:23 am

Author Topic: How to Ace Chemistry  (Read 26313 times)  Share 

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Soumiya

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Re: How to Ace Chemistry
« Reply #15 on: February 06, 2019, 01:12:27 am »
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Thank you so much, this is so useful! I'm currently not doing that well in Chem at school (From memory, I ranked 81/88 in my last task). I really want to improve my marks before my next assessment (in 5/6 weeks) but since I didn't pay much attention in the prelim course, I feel really overwhelmed with how behind I am. I know that I should be doing practice questions instead of just reading notes, but I don't know how much is enough! While making notes I realised that I don't have too much trouble understanding the content and doing very simple questions, but I have no idea what I'm doing when I attempt harder questions, especially HSC past papers. I know this isn't something you can easily generalise, but what should I be doing to study for the next exam? How much and how often should I study? Will doing the same past HSC questions repeatedly be effective? Please help.

Also, does anyone have any tips for answering longer response questions that ask you to explain or compare etc. How do you know what to include in your answer that'll get the marks? tysm!!

jazcstuart

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Re: How to Ace Chemistry
« Reply #16 on: February 07, 2019, 09:51:17 am »
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Thank you so much, this is so useful! I'm currently not doing that well in Chem at school (From memory, I ranked 81/88 in my last task). I really want to improve my marks before my next assessment (in 5/6 weeks) but since I didn't pay much attention in the prelim course, I feel really overwhelmed with how behind I am. I know that I should be doing practice questions instead of just reading notes, but I don't know how much is enough! While making notes I realised that I don't have too much trouble understanding the content and doing very simple questions, but I have no idea what I'm doing when I attempt harder questions, especially HSC past papers. I know this isn't something you can easily generalise, but what should I be doing to study for the next exam? How much and how often should I study? Will doing the same past HSC questions repeatedly be effective? Please help.

Also, does anyone have any tips for answering longer response questions that ask you to explain or compare etc. How do you know what to include in your answer that'll get the marks? tysm!!

Hi Soumiya, welcome to AN!
I did the old syllabus last year, but I hope my advice is still relevant. The good news is that prelim content is not assessed in the HSC, so as long as you understand the concepts that are built upon in the HSC course, you should be fine.

For me, chemistry was a subject where I often couldn't understand a concept the first time I learnt it, and would have to look at a couple of resources before it fully sunk in. In these cases I would make sure to revise my notes later in tge week, and sometimes it would help to learn a related concept in class before going back and revisiting the difficult concept. So I would suggest regularly revisiting your notes, and not stressing if you don't understand something immediately, you will get there in the end.

Or, like you, I would understand the basics of a concept but then not be able to write about it properly or answer questions. For me this was just about drilling HSC questions with different conditions. First I would look at the answers to a few questions to see how it should be answered (I would reccommend getting a past paper book with sample answers, they are often more in depth than the ones online, but these work too). Then I would try and answer a question in my own words, but still looking at my notes. Then I would do it without looking at my notes, and eventually timed questions. I would even recommend redoing some questions, and seeing if you can make your answer better each time (as you mentioned in your question). I would say it is still important to get a variety of questions however.

Hope this gives you some suggestions, good luck!

Edit: also head over to the chemistry question thread if you have any more questions
« Last Edit: February 07, 2019, 09:53:36 am by jazcstuart »
HSC 2017 - Mathematics, Music 1
HSC 2018 - English (Advanced), Maths Extension 1, Chemistry, Geography, Earth and Environmental Science

2019 - B Renewable Energy Engineering @ University of Newcastle