Don’t let the difficult stuff mount up on top of you. At the end of the day, chemistry is one of those subjects where you have to understand what’s going on. So ask your teacher for help if you need it.
Study every experiment on the course. You must answer two experiment questions, but if you choose to answer three then you have 37.5 per cent of the marks in the bag (assuming your answers are correct). Also, they tend to ask sneaky questions about the experiments in section B so you’ll be prepared for that too.
Repeat after me: “Past papers are my best friends”. After every chapter, complete every possible exam question you can get your hands on. I kept a copy book of past exam questions based on every topic, and I was surprised by how many similar questions were on the paper in June.
They are a pain, but definitions account for up to 15 per cent of your overall marks. If you know them, then you’re literally being handed marks for nothing. So, learn them.
Another topic that features every year and makes up the bulk of your paper is organic chemistry, so a good understanding of it is advisable. Over the years they’ve pretty much asked everything they can, so they tend to repeat a lot of questions/topics now.
Start studying bit by bit early on in the year so you don’t have a mountain of work to do in May. Chemistry is manageable once you get your head around it, in the exam just stay calm and you’ll fly it.
Claire Lawless
Medicine
Trinity College, Dublin