Saturday, December 02, 2006
Friday
Good times at the Christmas Concert last night. If you missed the show, you should check it out tonight. It's like an early Christmas gift.
AP: we covered the "electron-deficient" species of Be (relatively stable with 4 valence electrons) and B (relatively stable with 6 valence electrons), which we will see again when we do Lewis Acids (electron pair ACCEPTORS=ACIDS). We also covered some compounds in which we are forced to expand the octet around the CENTRAL atom i.e. SF6, IBr5, SF4.... and we finished up our talk on "formal charge" emphasizing the MAGNITUDES , NOT THE SIGNS, of the formal charges in order to determine the most significantly contributing resonance structure....ONLY IF there is a tie between/among structures do we invoke/use rule 2: the structure with the negative charge on the more/most electronegative atom is more significant.
This class is on point even with our tight schedule (thanks to minimal disruption from a certain courtyard during certain periods!). Keep up the good focus and we will be even better prepared for the topics ahead.
Your lengthy written responses on the last test were pretty good although you will see that errors in logic, CLARITY, spelling, and grammar cost you some points here and there. There were also some laziness points lost due to unsupported Zeff and OPEL contentions and some nice drawings that were NEVER USED OR REFERRED TO!
Regents: we further practiced our ionically bonded salt formulas and some even saw a shortcut that I will NOT BE TEACHING due to the damage done/errors/points lost from its misuse and inconsistent use. ITS NOT EVEN much of a shortcut. Using it, you might save a second on a GOOD day.
Bring in the tests that I gave back on Friday. We will go over select questions on Monday.
Honors: you took the multiple choice version of your Quantum/Periodic Table exam. From what I saw, a lot of students UNNECESSARILY RUSHED through the test and ignored good test-taking practices such as READING EACH QUESTION CAREFULLY AND DRAWING OUT A COMPLETE PREDICTED ANSWERS. This ignorance (in the true sense of the word, "to ignore") cost a lot of students a lot of points! It's getting pretty late in the game to still refuse to properly employ good test-taking advice. How many more careless errors are you going to have to make before you are more careful? Because every performance counts in this class, you should be motivated to improve earnestly your test-taking skills.
AP: we covered the "electron-deficient" species of Be (relatively stable with 4 valence electrons) and B (relatively stable with 6 valence electrons), which we will see again when we do Lewis Acids (electron pair ACCEPTORS=ACIDS). We also covered some compounds in which we are forced to expand the octet around the CENTRAL atom i.e. SF6, IBr5, SF4.... and we finished up our talk on "formal charge" emphasizing the MAGNITUDES , NOT THE SIGNS, of the formal charges in order to determine the most significantly contributing resonance structure....ONLY IF there is a tie between/among structures do we invoke/use rule 2: the structure with the negative charge on the more/most electronegative atom is more significant.
This class is on point even with our tight schedule (thanks to minimal disruption from a certain courtyard during certain periods!). Keep up the good focus and we will be even better prepared for the topics ahead.
Your lengthy written responses on the last test were pretty good although you will see that errors in logic, CLARITY, spelling, and grammar cost you some points here and there. There were also some laziness points lost due to unsupported Zeff and OPEL contentions and some nice drawings that were NEVER USED OR REFERRED TO!
Regents: we further practiced our ionically bonded salt formulas and some even saw a shortcut that I will NOT BE TEACHING due to the damage done/errors/points lost from its misuse and inconsistent use. ITS NOT EVEN much of a shortcut. Using it, you might save a second on a GOOD day.
Bring in the tests that I gave back on Friday. We will go over select questions on Monday.
Honors: you took the multiple choice version of your Quantum/Periodic Table exam. From what I saw, a lot of students UNNECESSARILY RUSHED through the test and ignored good test-taking practices such as READING EACH QUESTION CAREFULLY AND DRAWING OUT A COMPLETE PREDICTED ANSWERS. This ignorance (in the true sense of the word, "to ignore") cost a lot of students a lot of points! It's getting pretty late in the game to still refuse to properly employ good test-taking advice. How many more careless errors are you going to have to make before you are more careful? Because every performance counts in this class, you should be motivated to improve earnestly your test-taking skills.
# posted by C @ 1:51 PM 
