Memory Work for General Chemistry

For Chang, Chemistry, 9th Edition (may need minor revision)

"Some things you just gotta remember."
Anonymous, 3rd century BC

Get off to a faster, easier start in each chapter by simply memorizing a few things. Memory work gives you a working vocabulary and some basic knowledge that will have you reading with greater retention and understanding. Modern teaching methods often disparage memory work. Big mistake. Every successful scientist I know has a great memory and takes delight in exercising it, such as in coming up with that little recollection that suddenly makes sense of a puzzling result in lab.

When someone tells me that chemistry is all memory work, I know that they might have taken chemistry, and they might have passed chemistry, but they did not GET chemistry. Either they never got down to the memory work in the first place, or they tried to memorize everything rather than building understanding and skills on a few memorized fundamentals. GETTING chemistry means learning how to build understanding and problem-solving skills so that chemistry begins to make sense to you. Memory work is the first step, the basics, square one. The fun, the challenge, the interesting stuff is what you learn to do with these basics.

Complete these memory tasks FIRST, before reading the chapter, and certainly before the first class on the chapter. If you do, new territory will seem more familiar from the start.

Click desired chapter number: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 22 23 24 25

Chapter 1

  • Terms and symbols in Tables 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3.

Chapter 2

Most of these are names and formulas to give you a working chemical vocabulary.

  • Formulas and names of all monatomic cations and anions of elements in the main (A) groups of the periodic table
    (see Figure 2.11, and for anions, see Table 2.2)
  • In Table 2.3, formulas and names of the following ions: ammonium, copper, iron, carbonate and hydrogen carbonate (also called bicarbonate), chromate and dichromate, cyanide, phosphate and hydrogen phosphate, sulfate and hydrogen sulfate, nitrate and nitrite, permanganate, peroxide. Add one important anion not mentioned in this chapter: acetate ion, C2H3O2–.
  • Prefixes in Table 2.4
  • Formulas and names of the simple acids in Table 2.5, the four "parent" oxoacids, middle of page 65, and one important acid not mentioned in this chapter: acetic acid, HC2H3O2.
  • Formulas and names of the first four compounds in Table 2.7.

Chapter 3

  • Learn Avogadro's number and its meaning.
    Avodagro's number is 6.022 x 1023 particles/mol, which is the number of particles (atoms, ions, or molecules) in one mole of a substance.

Chapter 4

  • Table 4.1: Be able to recognize the compounds in this table as strong, weak, or non-electrolytes.
  • Know the formula of one new monoprotic acid: acetic acid, whose formula can be written HC2H3O2 or CH3COOH (the bold hydrogen is the one that the acid can release).
  • Know the formula of one new anion: acetate ion, whose formula can be written C2H3O2-or CH3COO-. Acetate ion is the conjugate base of acetic acid.
  • Table 4.2: Know how to use, but do not memorize, solubility rules for ionic compounds. Know that all ionic compounds of alkali metal ions, ammonium ion, acetate ion, and nitrate ion are soluble in water.
  • Rules, page 119; Know how to determine oxidation numbers of elements in compounds. This list of rules is not as daunting as it looks. If you have been diligent about memory work so far, many of these rules will seem like common sense.

Chapter 5

  • Equation 5.7, the ideal gas equation, PV = nRT. With this equation, you can do any calculations involving equations 5.1 through 5.8.
  • The definition of mole fraction: Xi = ni/nT.
    In this equation, Xi is the mole fraction of gas i in a mixture of gases; ni is the number of moles of gas i, and nT is the total number of moles of gas in the mixture.
  • Equation 5.11, Dalton's law of partial pressures, Pi = Xi • PT
    In this equation, Xi is the mole fraction of gas i in a mixture of gases, and PT is the total pressure of gases in the mixture.
  • Know how to use, but do not memorize, the other equations in the chapter.

Chapter 6

  • The following equations: 6.1, 6.3, 6.4, 6.8, 6.9, 6.12, 6.13, 6.18. If you think about the meanings of the terms in these equations, they make a lot of common sense, and are not difficult to remember. NOTE: Some instructors omit certain sections in this chapter. Memorize only those equations in sections assigned by your instructor.

Chapter 7

  • Equation 7.1. Remember that u = c, the speed of light, for electromagnetic radiation like light.
  • Equation 7.2.
  • Figure 7.23. Learn the orbitals in order, from lowest energy (1s) to the highest (4d) shown in the figure. This is the order in which eletrons fill up the orbitals in atoms.

Chapter 8

  • Classifications of elements in the periodic table (Figure 8.3, page 319).

Chapter 9

  • Formula for computing formal charge on an atom in a Lewis diagram, equation 9.3, page 346.
  • Learn the following formula for computing oxidation number of an atom in Lewis diagram:
    Oxidation number = (number of valance electrons in the free atom) - (number of assigned electrons),
    where electrons in each bond are assigned to the bonded atom of greater electronegativity.
  • Equation 9.3, p. 387.

Chapter 10

  • In Tables 10.1 and 10.2, be able to identify and name all possible arrangements of electron groups (electronic geometries) and molecular geometries.

Chapter 11

  • Know how to use equations 11.2 and 11.5. They will be provided if needed. 

Chapter 12

  •  Equations 12.3, 12.4, 12.6, 12.7, 12.8, 12.9.

Chapter 13

  • Equation 13.1. I will provide Table 13.3 on exams. Be sure you know how to use the equations in that table.
  • I will provide the Arhennius equation (13.8) if you need it. Be sure you know how to use it.

Chapter 14

  • Equation 14.2, 14.5 (OR know how to interconvert Kc and Kp), 14.9. 

Chapter 15

  • Equations 15.3, 15.4, 15.5, 15.7, 15.8, 15.9, or the relationships they describe.
  • Know that the following are strong acids: HCl, HBr, HI, H2SO4 (first ionization only), and HNO3.
  • Know that the following are weak acids: H2O, HF, HCN, H3PO4, NH4+ , and all compounds containing the -COOH (carboxyl) group (like acetic acid, CH3-COOH).
  • Know that the following are strong bases: All alkali metal hydroxides (like NaOH), and all other metal hydroxides that are soluble in water (consult solubility tables).
  • Know that the following are weak bases: H2O, NH3 , and all compounds containing the -NH2 (amino) group (like methylamine, CH3-NH2).

Chapter 16

  • Equation 16.4. 

Chapter 17 (not covered)

Chapter 18

  • Equations 18.4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13, 14. NOTE: Some instructors include certain sections of Chapter 6 with Chapter 18. Also see memory work for the sections of Chapter 6 assigned by your instructor.

Chapter 19

  • Equations 19.1, 2, 3, 4, 7. Equations 19.4 and 19.7 are easy to derive from Equations 18.9 and 18.10. 

Chapter 22

  •  A few common ligands from Table 22.3: ammonia, CO, CN–, water, ethylenediamine, oxalate ion, AND their names in coordination compounds, Table 22.4. Equation 22.1 (learned earlier).

Chapter 23

  • Equation 23.1 (I'll be you already know it.)

Chapter 24

  • Names of straight-chain alkanes, Table 24.1; alkyl groups, Table 24.2; and substituents, Table 24.3. All these names are mostly common sense.
  • Names and structures of a few common functional groups: carbon-carbon double and triple bonds, halogen, hydroxyl, carbonyl, carboxyl, ester, amine. See Table 24.4. Most of these are familiar from previous chapters.

Chapter 25

  •  The general structure of an amino acid, and the structure of a dipeptide.

CHY 113 Syllabus

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