Best Chemistry Question Textbook (1 Viewer)

[dude431]

What's the best chemistry question/answer textbook? Like, a book with questions and nothing more (possibly).

I have Conquering Chem and Excel, and was wondering if there's any textbooks that contain heaps of questions (i.e. possibly a textbook that's just question based, no dot-points). Available? Otherwise if there's dot-points, preferably more questions than Conquering Chem.

 

[AK Gumbi]

I would say get the Success One book...they should be available in shops, i think.

 

[CHUDYMASTER]

I bought the Pre Uni practise HSC exam papers + answers. They seemed well worth it for 24 bucks. (better than wasting more money on an actual preuni session)

 

[Zarathustra]

I bought "Problems in Chemistry" from a library booksale, it is the companion book for conq Chem (though for the pathways HSC ). It has prelim and HSC Qs in it, I doubt the calculations would have changed much so I feel comfortable using it. Maybe a version for the new HSC has been released?
Re Successone, are the 2001 books completely different from the newer versions, as I purchased some from a member of this board. I know the maths one would be similar as they are just past papers - but what about phys/chem???????? Would it be worth having multiple versions

 

[dude431]

Problems in Chemistry? Sounds about right, I'll look into it, thanks.

 

[abdooooo!!!]

Originally posted by Zarathustra
I doubt the calculations would have changed much so I feel comfortable using it.

but there is no calculations in the hsc... the only reason i would do them is because i want to study chemistry lol.

 

[~*HSC 4 life*~]

Originally posted by CHUDYMASTER
I bought the Pre Uni practise HSC exam papers + answers. They seemed well worth it for 24 bucks. (better than wasting more money on an actual preuni session)

where could you buy them?

 

[dude431]

Zarathustra: is this the book? http://www.dymocks.com.au/ContentDynamic/Full_Details.asp?ISBN=0074705199

but there is no calculations in the hsc... the only reason i would do them is because i want to study chemistry lol.

You're kidding right? So what's chemistry in the HSC? Just memorize all the dot-points? No theory/calculations/chemical formula?

 

[elizabethy]

Originally posted by CHUDYMASTER
I bought the Pre Uni practise HSC exam papers + answers. They seemed well worth it for 24 bucks. (better than wasting more money on an actual preuni session)

yeah , i had got these too!! i think they were quite good. i even got the pre-uni notes from a friend who actually attended pre-uni.
they were fine .....moreover i got it all for free

 

[eeyore]

Success One is a book full of questions. But really, it's not a very good book. Alot of the questions are repeated several times (because they add new questions each time the book is reprinted, but sometimes they are the same as other years...) and also several of the answers were wrong. I wouldn't recommend that you bother buying this book..
If you already have Conquering Chem and Excel I think you should have enough questions. Just do lots of past HSC and trial papers and you should be fine.

 

[abdooooo!!!]

Originally posted by dude431
You're kidding right? So what's chemistry in the HSC? Just memorize all the dot-points? No theory/calculations/chemical formula?

no. didn't you know?

thats why everyone here is ignoring the actual chemistry/physics books for books like successone which is just the syllabus dot points with crappy teachers' answers that only gets you around half the marks most of the time in a question.

go look at last years exam... you'll find there are less than 10 marks of calculation questions... so calculation and chemical equation questions are only worth about 10% of the whole exam normally. and the questions that they ask are so much easier than the basic ones that you get in conq chem and pathway.

 

[*girl04*]

im using conquering and excel

 

[Zarathustra]

Yes dude431 that's the book I was talking about
For $40 though I would definitely think twice before purchasing it (mine was $3 ). On the site it says that it was published 1997, so it would have to be for the old syllabus - the questions are a lot harder than anything that will be in the HSC, but is that a bad thing? It is a good book - look for a second hand copy.

Eeyore - are you saying that they add questions every year - so that the success one book would get progressively chunkier - or that they change the questions completey but are really just the old Qs reworded

- any advice as to whether I should buy the 2004 (if it exists) as well as the 2001 one????

 

[abdooooo!!!]

Originally posted by Zarathustra
any advice as to whether I should buy the 2004 (if it exists) as well as the 2001 one????

they just add the answers to last years hsc ie 03 exam and the stansw 03 paper with answers... so yea it gets chunkier. everything else is the same.

 

[eeyore]

Originally posted by Zarathustra
Eeyore - are you saying that they add questions every year - so that the success one book would get progressively chunkier - or that they change the questions completey but are really just the old Qs reworded

- any advice as to whether I should buy the 2004 (if it exists) as well as the 2001 one????

My chem tutor told me last year that they bring out a new edition each year and it's got a few more questions in it than last year. If you look through each topic (it's set out by topics) you'll find that there are often 2 or 3 questions which are worded slightly differently but are actually asking the exact same thing.
If you really insist on buying it (which I strongly recommend you don't because it's really not a very good book), just buy the newest edition..

 

[dude431]

If you really insist on buying it (which I strongly recommend you don't because it's really not a very good book), just buy the newest edition..

Well, I'll take a good look at the new edition before purchasing of course. But for just under $20 it seems reasonable... considering I spent $110 for economics already (Riley, Dixon, Economics Workbook).

My version of Conquering Chem seems a little too difficult for the course (i.e. there's quite abit of stuff from the old HSC syllabus that's not req.)

abdooooo!!!: so you're saying if I can memorize each dot-point by heart (and not know how to apply them) I could potentially get a +90 mark for chem? I always thought chem required quite a lot of practical knowledge.

EDIT: abdooooo!!!: I just went through last years exam, and there are quite a few calculation/formula based questions, with lots of application/experiment style responses. I've got to admit its quite a long exam as well, I'm assuming its a 3-hour?

 

[jims]

u odd ppl and ur desire to acquire textbooks...

macmillan + success one + ever past trial paper i could find = 95%

cost $19.95 all up.

all textbooks will seem too difficult wen u first start out but as the year goes on ull quickly realise that its not complicated enough (they always screw you on the obscure dot points) and ull end up here trying to get info for that potentially 8 mark discuss question that was dealt with in 2 swift lines in ur textbook. if u dont understand wat u read then ask someone, perhaps even the teacher (from experience, its like asking an audio version of the textbook); peer support has come full circle.

the success one book is most useful in showing you what they actually expect for a full mark answer, but u dont always get full marks if u were to actually use them, as some i rmbr complaining about last year.

and yes the test is 3hrs (i think it says so on the cover page), more than enough to complete the test at a medium pace. ur only screwed if u dont actually know the answer.

the calculations are as simple as they come and theres only 1 formula and its given to you on the data sheet. the experiments can b tricky but theyre based on ones u should have already done in class so you should b set.

 

[eeyore]

Conquering chem (the newish edition) is easy to understand and doesn't overload you with too much info.

Seriously, I think you're going overboard buying textbooks. You're going to have so many textbooks and not enough time to read them all, and it's just going to be a waste of money. I only had one or two textbooks for each subject, and most of the time I only used one of them and that was fine.

 

[dude431]

I haven't spent any money on the sciences as yet, since conquering chem was lent to me from the school, and excel was from somebody else, so really I haven't spent anything yet.

But I understand what you mean, as all past HSCers have told me - all you basically need to do is complete heaps of past papers prior to the exams and you'll do really well. That's according to them.

 

[jimmik]

Originally posted by CHUDYMASTER
I bought the Pre Uni practise HSC exam papers + answers. They seemed well worth it for 24 bucks. (better than wasting more money on an actual preuni session)

does ne1 know how to get their hands on a copy? im very interested tho my bro quit pre uni so i hav no contact with them anymore.