Preparing for the Final

Some thoughts from Hannah on Preparing for the final

1. First, remember how far you've come this year, especially if you haven't taken Chemistry before. In September, you didn't know what a mole was. Now, you can calculate the cell potential of a battery, convert between different projections of a sugar molecule, correctly preserving the stereochemistry, calculate the pH at any point in an acid-base titration, and the list goes on. Some of the conversations we've had in class and discussion section are relatively scientifically sophisticated, and you should be very proud of your progress. You will learn more in future Chemistry courses, of course, but you will never make the same amount of shear progress as you do in Gen. Chem. A zero to sixty effort--congratulations on making it to this point!

2. Studying for a final should be a different process as studying for a midterm. There's a lot of material, and synthesizing ideas and getting to a summary-level understanding should be your goal. This helps to reduce the cognitive burden of holding all the information we've looked at in your head and helps you master the topic as you move on to other classes. The key to doing this is making connections. Here are some guiding questions to help:

Everything we've studied this semester shakes out into three different categories: I. Kinetics II. Thermodynamics III. Three dimensional descriptions of molecules and reactions. This summarizes much of Chemistry as a field well, too.

I. Kinetics:

a) What is the connection between kinetics and equilibrium?

II. Thermodynamics:

a) What topics am I talking about here? (Hint: consider what relates to thermodynamics-- equilibrium is one).

b) Speaking of equilibrium, what are some of the common factors in all the examples of equilibrium Chemistry we've looked at (basic equilibrium, acid/base chemistry, electrochemistry, etc.)

c) What are the connections between reaction progress/quotient and thermodynamic values, such as cell potential? How do we use reaction quotient Q to represent how far along a reaction is?

d) In what ways can we apply very basic stoichiometric ideas about limiting reagents, excess reagents, mole ratios, etc. to more complicated examples like acid/base chemistry or electrochemistry?

III. Structure and Reactivity:

a) Naming compounds is something we've looked at for a number of types of compounds now. What commonalities are there in process? What are the differences, and why do the differences exist? (Hint: these rules are never arbitrary, they are meant to communicate, and a lot of times are meant to disambiguate.)

b) Chirality and isomerism are big concerns when we are thinking about molecules that exist in three dimensions. What are all the different ways we see this come up for the different classes of molecules we've looked at? Why are the systems that we use to classify different kinds of chirality or isomerism different? (Again, not arbitrary, these systems are needed based on specific needs for the class of molecules.)

c) We've seen reaction chemistry in polymers as well as our Intro to Intro to Organic Chemistry chapter. What are the commonalities? What are the ways to think about a chemical reaction, regardless if the substrates are large polymers or small organic compounds?

Please note there is no "key" to the questions on this page. These questions are meant to spur reflection and while some answers would be better reflection of truth and science than others, these are not practice questions with defined correct answers. However, they are great for discussion-- talking about them with a peer or an instructor is encouraged. Additionally, making study guides for yourself with a defined structure/organizational scheme that reflects the insights you may have gained from thinking about the above questions are a great way to help you synthesize large amounts of information.