Introduction

Chemistry is a language that is common to all areas of science that deal with Nature at the most basic level that we can manipulate.  To develop a fluency in this language, you must develop the necessary vocabulary and practice using it.  During this semester we will do this in the lecture and laboratory sessions, but if you wish to do well in the course it is critical that you practice outside of class.

Work to do on Your Own

You are to work all of the "Exercises" and "Additional Exercises" with the blue numbers at the end of each chapter.  These questions have answers in the back of the text and are worked out in the Solutions Manual.  You should get to the point where you can work any problem in five minutes, or less, without looking back in the text or your notes for help.  The Study Guide also has problems that you can work.  It is important that you spend no more than five minutes on these problems, because that is all the time you will have on the exams.  If you get stuck on a problem, flag it as one to ask me about, and then go to the next one (this is also a good test-taking strategy!).  If you get through a problem, but do not get the correct answer, first look to see if it is a simple math error or something similar.  If it is, then you should feel confident that you understand that material, but you should be more careful in working the problem.  If you can't find your mistake, don't spend more than five minutes looking for it; ask me about it in office hours or stop by C³ to ask another faculty member.

The "Challenge Problems" are also to be worked, but with these allow yourself about ten minutes. 

Remember that I will draw most quiz questions and some exam questions from the "Exercises" and the "Additional Exercises".  Every exam will have at least one "Challenge Problem" (sometimes more).

I have included links to some questions from old exams, homework and quizzes (all in PDF format) and grouped by lecture.  These should give you a feeling for the types of questions that I will ask.  The keys are separate so you can print out only the question set, work the problems and then evaluate your answers without the temptation of peeking at the answers.  The order of topics has changed from when questions were written, so parts may refer to material that we have not covered yet.  You may skip these and come back to them once we have covered the material.