Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Wednesday, Day 5
AP: we completed our lengthy Le Chatelier explanation with a solid, anchor-example for pressure increase or decrease stresses. We then covered the remaining stresses and their effects on aqueous and gaseous systems.
We then briefly introduced our new unit: Acids and Bases. We will cover a lot of that unit by Friday so that you can do something with that info over the weekend.
Honors: we reviewed gas density at STP to molecular mass problems and then did the reverse process of taking any given gaseous substance and determined its density at STP.
We then began the heart of stoichiometry: taking balanced chemical equations and determining the number of moles, grams, liters, or molecules (or atoms or formula units) of each reactant and product. We will do each type of stoichiometry problem over the next few days.
Friday is our first real Math of Chem test. The questions will cover everything from the beginning of the unit's notes up to what is covered on Thursday (I'll announce the cutoff in class).
It is an indisputable fact that most of you did NOT study for the last exam. If you think that you did study, one look at your test will show you just how inadequate your preparation was. Even those who did study continue to throw test-taking advice away: they fall into the same old pattern of writing long-winded, irrelevant statements instead of drawing and labeling a picture of what is actually happening and then briefly describing and referring to the picture.
Had you written out the answers to the questions that you knew were going to be asked and, BEFORE THE TEST, checked with me that your answers were sufficient, you would not have failed. There is nothing new to this criticism. I have been saying the same thing since September. It is sad that many of you are unwilling to change or grow.
I have already warned you about the mistakes that former classes have made on this upcoming Math of Chem test. The only way to master this unit is to properly and carefully write out many examples of each type of problem so that you can recognize what to do and where to begin for each type of question. If you do not give yourself adequate experience with each problem type, you will come up with non-sequitur answers that earn you no credit.
Regents: we did more percent composition problems including the special case of determining the percent mass of water in a hydrated salt.
We then further developed the "Magic Triangle", which will be at the heart of the rest of the problems for this unit. We will work more with this fast calculation tool tomorrow. We have a test on MONDAY so you should get to extra help tomorrow and Friday (at extra help, most of the Honors students' questions will be relevant to what you need to know).
We then briefly introduced our new unit: Acids and Bases. We will cover a lot of that unit by Friday so that you can do something with that info over the weekend.
Honors: we reviewed gas density at STP to molecular mass problems and then did the reverse process of taking any given gaseous substance and determined its density at STP.
We then began the heart of stoichiometry: taking balanced chemical equations and determining the number of moles, grams, liters, or molecules (or atoms or formula units) of each reactant and product. We will do each type of stoichiometry problem over the next few days.
Friday is our first real Math of Chem test. The questions will cover everything from the beginning of the unit's notes up to what is covered on Thursday (I'll announce the cutoff in class).
It is an indisputable fact that most of you did NOT study for the last exam. If you think that you did study, one look at your test will show you just how inadequate your preparation was. Even those who did study continue to throw test-taking advice away: they fall into the same old pattern of writing long-winded, irrelevant statements instead of drawing and labeling a picture of what is actually happening and then briefly describing and referring to the picture.
Had you written out the answers to the questions that you knew were going to be asked and, BEFORE THE TEST, checked with me that your answers were sufficient, you would not have failed. There is nothing new to this criticism. I have been saying the same thing since September. It is sad that many of you are unwilling to change or grow.
I have already warned you about the mistakes that former classes have made on this upcoming Math of Chem test. The only way to master this unit is to properly and carefully write out many examples of each type of problem so that you can recognize what to do and where to begin for each type of question. If you do not give yourself adequate experience with each problem type, you will come up with non-sequitur answers that earn you no credit.
Regents: we did more percent composition problems including the special case of determining the percent mass of water in a hydrated salt.
We then further developed the "Magic Triangle", which will be at the heart of the rest of the problems for this unit. We will work more with this fast calculation tool tomorrow. We have a test on MONDAY so you should get to extra help tomorrow and Friday (at extra help, most of the Honors students' questions will be relevant to what you need to know).
# posted by C @ 9:12 PM 
