What is the best textbook for HSC Chemistry? (1 Viewer)

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fatboy1

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well i use conquering chemistry... it seems ok.... and heaps of ppl use it....
I heard that it contains some illrevelant information on the hsc course.
 

SupaGloo

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all texts books contain some irrelavent info...cept conc chem has alot of crap

i use conc chem... there is also additions made to the text book on their site reachable through the chem resources rection of this site

it has everything you need to know... question/theory BUT ... u have to find all of it amongts all that other crap

note: the bit on oxygen and the oxide anion is WRONG ... syllabus point says u need to do sumtin about oxygen and the oxygen free radical
excel also has some wrong info, and its maths questions arnt too crash hot compared to conc chem. Excel in industrial chem isnt detailed enough... as like excel in sdd option....
alot of the conc chem exercises r just full o SH*T!.. so much of a bother just trying to figure out what exactly are they asking
CSU is way too basic... incomplete aswell


Also.. CC tend to go into WAY too much detail...


_____________________________________

"if you don't know the answer, just make it up" - Mr Singer
 

medea

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none of your fricken business, i know where you li
books

FOR KNOWLEDGE
for writing out notes for contextual crap dot points you have to rote learn use concq chem, it's good for those things.

FOR APPLICATION
there is also this textbook with practice questions which i found hugely useful, its called 'success one, HSC chemistry" - arron butler publishing, science teachers assoc of NSW about $21.95 at dymocks (may have risen since last yr) and if you do teh questions about 4-5 times it really helps, its got full answers and gives you the kinda querstions you'll be espected to answer in the HSC.

forget cath roebucks EXCEL CHEMISTRY, thats not really good. this is from experience.

and basically do a shitlaod of past papers, fatmuscle would've put a range of chem past papers up on www.boredofstudies.cjb.net

and yes.... do try to remeber atleast one battery and its chem eq'ns, effects on environment, society, uses et cetera which are outlined in the syllabus. it was a shocker for some people last year that they actually had to recall that kind of info!
 

Jenn

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sucess one!

Yup, our school ordered a bunch of sucess one books for us... pretty good i reckon... and we saved money too hehe i think it was either $16 or $17...
i dont use excel coz lasts years one was pretty crap.....
 
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Well apparently, we are using Thickett's book in class-- but I could be wrong, I haven't seen that book since the beginning of the prelim course!

Our teacher's have copied conquering chem for us-- and success one is pretty good for practice questions
:)
Speaking of which.. time to go practice before tomorrow... ~gulp~
 

KingofthieF

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Conquering chem!
its great except it often wants you to refer to the preliminary course as well... hehe so for some point you might need to get the preliminary one as well...

the only thing that it's really annoying is that it doesn't have the option which i'm doing "Chemistry of Art" so yeah... one down side hahaha :)
 

Jenn

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this isnt to offend thickett, but... man i have no TOUCHED his text book since pre-lim either

plus where ever our book hire room stored it... eish man... u open up the first page and a gush of "smell" just comes out!!
it totally puts u off chem!!!:confused:
 
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Originally posted by KingofthieF
Conquering chem!
its great except it often wants you to refer to the preliminary course as well... hehe so for some point you might need to get the preliminary one as well...

the only thing that it's really annoying is that it doesn't have the option which i'm doing "Chemistry of Art" so yeah... one down side hahaha :)
You're doing chemistry of art?!? I've never heard of anyone doing that-- what's it like?
 
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waht's wrong with CSU?

its simple on some dot pts but its best out of
thicket, excel and conc chem.. we use all 4 at our school :)

thicket has put harlf book devoted to sylibbus and half on somethin irrelevant. Worse than concq.

excel just goes all over the place.

conc chem is very good but again still has heaps of irrelevent info.

CSU is good . but some dot pts are too simple.

What i do is copy CSU and go thru each dot pt and use Concq chem for stuff i think is too simple in CSU :)
 

the great one

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i am using chemistry contexts which is ok except it weighs a ton

i also have like 3 textbooks in photocopies
 

-=«MÄLÅÇhïtÊ»=-

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EXCEL: Revise Chemistry in a Month

Nice for cramming
=)


But they should make one called "Revise Chemistry in One Night"
 

KingofthieF

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Originally posted by Mistress Lilith
You're doing chemistry of art?!? I've never heard of anyone doing that-- what's it like?
it is about the chemistry behind colours... and it sort of relate to the physics i'm doing which is quantum to quarks...

like we need to know a bit about the history of colour (e.g. Greek cosmatic.. the boring bit of the sylllabus), Bohr's model (getting more interesting), and then the actual scientific reasoning behind colour (e.g. jumping orbital, ligands and complex ion.... now this is the best) :)

its quite interesting~~ and for those doing the same module as me!! There's one thing i learn about Chemistry of Art... and that is every question relates to the good old "3d" orbital electrons.... keep that in mind and i assure u will get at least 1 mark out of 2!hahahaha :D
 

-=AETOS=-

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If your serious bout killing chem you cant go pask Chem Pathways. If you have the time to learn the content from that book you are looking at 90+ easily. It has absolutely everything + extras. Personally I have 4 chem books. Thickett, Conc Chem, Excel + the Past HSC question book. At school our text is Conc Chem but the teacher photocopies from Excell, but mostly from pathways.
 

Ozz^E

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I personally think that Pathways is frankly "pathetic"...like its good for the excercises but even those u have to find and do...coz most of the notes and questions are irrrelevant to the syllabus. E.g module one...STEAM CRACKING!! (y its including ...dun ask me). thats just one example...theres are many many more. Its only good as an extra resource. I reckon conquering is the best for notes but its excercises are rather of no use. I also use contexts but i think the notes in conq r better. But obv its not perfect, there are some excesses and some things thats arent there that should be.


;)
 
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pathway one is in way too much detail

for "identify a chemical " dot pt it shows how to critically analyse the chemical
 

mannnnndy

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ive heard that pathways is such a hard book. were doing some of the tests from it in class and some of the questions are really irrelevent. i have conc chem and its pretty good except as people said has some irrellevent info, just make sure u have the syllabus with u when yur reading it so u dont start panniking about stuff youve never heard of b4. like i did the night b4 my chem trial when i couldnt figure out coulombs. it took me half an hour b4 i thought 2 look at the syllabus:p
 

luigi

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i prefer pathways as well
we use conqueroring chemistry at school , but i find it is not detailed enough, and although some of the extra detail in macmillan might be irrelevant it makes chemistry more interesting..
but yeah whatever suits you the best

i use pathways and the book that was mentioned before with the specimen HSC questions in it, and i think they are good.

i also have excel, but its not so great. i just use it for extra questions etc.

but yeah.. pathways...
 

feaking_out

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Excel is the shitest and crapiest book i have ever seen...............in fact i use it as toilet paper!!!!!!!!!!!!

Conq.Chem is a sick arse- book its got everything and the extension stuff really reinforces your whole image of the course/topic. Plus it is also good for assignments but the questions it has are bodgy........so i use
success one for that.

Besides that the "Revise in a month" book is alright and same thing as "surfing chemistry" series.
 

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