A few people have asked about the best way to prepare for exams this summer. Preparing for exams in summer is really no different than preparing for exams during the regular year, so this advice works for any time.
1. Review class notes and problems we did in class.
2. For topics you feel pretty confident about, take a look at one or two related problems from your textbook to make sure you're in good shape.
3. For topics that you're a little more shaky on, look over the relevant section of your textbook and follow along with the worked out problems in the text. Then try a couple of the end of chapter problems.
4. After you've reviewed the material from class and your textbook, take a look at a previous exam posted on my web page (http://www.drbodwin.com/teaching/examarchive.php) and see if you've got the concepts and problems figured out. Using the exam, identify your weak spots and go back to your textbook to brush up.
5. If you have questions, ask. Check the blog (that's where you are right now!) to see if there is already an answer posted.
The only thing that's slightly different about the summer class is the way the topics are distributed on exams. In a typical spring semester, Exam #1 covers states of matter, gas laws, solution, colligative properties, and maybe a couple other assorted topics. Exam #2 covers kinetics and equilibrium. For the summer class, Exam #1 hits states of matter, gas laws, solution, colligative properties, and kinetics. If you're looking at an Exam #2 from a spring semester and a question seems totally unfamiliar, it might be an equilibrium question, we'll get to that after this week's exam.
We haven't talked about mechanisms and catalysts in class yet, we'll get to those tomorrow (Monday), so they will be on the exam.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend and let me know if you have any other questions.
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