SAT II Chemistry Test-Taking Strategies
All the strategies discussed above can be applied equally to the SATII Chemistry test and the SAT II Modern Hebrew test. That's why they'recalled “general hints.” However, as you may have noticed in the past,there are a number of dissimilarities between the study of chemistryand the study of modern Hebrew. And because chemistry is unlike modernHebrew, and even unlike English and biology, a number of strategiesapply uniquely to the SAT II Chemistry exam. Some of these strategieswill help you out in chemistry generally, while some are suited to theunique idiosyncrasies of the SAT II format.
Chemistry Hint 1: Know Those Formulas!
As you know, you aren't allowed to bring acalculator into the SAT II test, nor are you allowed to bring in asheet of paper with useful information on it. That means that if youhaven't memorized formulas like Boyle's law and the ideal gas equation,you're going to lose points.
This doesn't mean you have to do a lot ofrote memorization. In fact, it's more important to truly understand theprinciples of chemistry than it is for you to memorize equations.You’ll find that as the principles of chemistry become second nature toyou, the equations that express these principles will becomeincreasingly intuitive. Knowing your chemistry will help guide you tothe right conclusions.
A lot of people feel burdened coming into anexam with lots of formulas and equations in their head. It's like yourmind is “full,” and there's no room for the problem solving at hand. Ifyou have trouble remembering formulas, you might want to look them overcarefully in the minutes before the test and then, before you even lookat the first question, write down the formulas you have a hard timeremembering on the back of the question booklet. That way you can referback to them without any painful effort of recollection.
Chemistry Hint 2: Estimate
This hint goes hand in hand with one of thegeneral hints above: Know What You're Being Asked. Don't dive blindlyinto five possible answer choices until you've already taken your beststab at coming up with the answer yourself. Obviously, estimation isonly useful in questions involving calculation: you can't “estimate”which law of thermodynamics states that the world tends towardincreasing disorder. In questions involving a calculation, though, itmay save you from foolish errors if you, for example, have a sense ofthe order of magnitude you're looking at. If you're being asked tocalculate the pH of a slightly acidic solution, you can be prettyconfident that the answer won't be pH = 0.50, which would be too small,or pH = 14.00, which would be too big. You know that the correct answermust lie somewhere between 2 and 6. Estimation is a good way toeliminate some wrong answers when you're making an educated guess.
Chemistry Hint 3: Put It on Paper
Don't be afraid to write and drawcompulsively. The first thing you should do once you've made sure youunderstand the question is to make your own notes about what you'redealing with. Sketch molecules when dealing with a bonding question, orelectron configurations for periodic trend questions, or whatever elsemay be appropriate. Not only will a visual representation relieve someof the pressure on your beleaguered mind, it may also help the solutionjump right off the page at you.
Don't forget to write down importantinformation! Writing down all of the information may lead you to acorrect answer even if you don't really understand the question.Suppose the question asks for the volume of a gas produced in a certainreaction. Write a balanced equation, plug in values, fiddle around alittle, and see if you can come up with an answer that looks right.Chances are, it will be.
Chemistry Hint 4: Answers Are Not Convoluted
Remember, on the SAT II Chemistry testyou're not allowed to use a calculator, and you're only given, onaverage, 42 seconds to answer each question. If you're working on aproblem and you find yourself writing out lines and lines ofconversions as you try to figure out the answer, you're probably not onthe right track. These questions are designed in such a way that if youunderstand what you're being asked, you will need at most a couple ofsimple calculations to get the right answer.
Chemistry Hint 5: Eliminate Wrong Answers
In the general hints above, Know How toGuess, we explained the virtues of eliminating answers you know to bewrong and taking a guess. For most questions, there will be at leastone or two answer choices you can eliminate. There are also certainstyles of question that lend themselves to particularprocess-of-elimination methods.
Classification Questions
The weakness of classification questions isthat the same five answer choices apply to several questions.Invariably, some of these answer choices will be tempting for somequestions but not for others.
Questions 1–3 relate to the following molecules:
(A) Sugar
(B) Ammonia
(C) Hydrochloric acid
(D) Carbon dioxide
(E) Acetic acid
1.An organic solid with a low melting point
2.Acts as a weak base when bubbled into pure water
3.Would be the best choice of the above to neutralize excess NaOH
For instance, if you're pretty sure thatammonia, hydrochloric acid, and acetic acid are not organic solids,just from your general knowledge of chemistry, then you can eliminate B, C, and E.This helps you narrow the answer choices down to two, and if you haveto guess, you have a 50-50 chance of choosing the correct answer.
Another point that may help you guess in apinch is that you’ll rarely find the same answer choice being correctfor two different questions. True, the directions for classificationquestions explicitly state that an answer choice “may be used once,more than once, or not at all,” but on the whole, the ETS people shyaway from the “more than once” possibility. This is by no means a surebet, but if you're trying to eliminate answers, you might want toeliminate those choices that you’ve already used on other questions inthe same set.
If you’re wondering, the answers to the above questions are 1 A, 2 B, and 3 C.
“EXCEPT”-Type Questions
“EXCEPT” questions are five-choicemultiple-choice questions that contain a bunch of right answers and onewrong answer. The questions always contain an all-caps EXCEPT, LEAST,or some other similar word. Even if you aren't sure of the answer, youshould be able to identify one or two of the answer choices as beingtrue statements and eliminate them.
32.Most compounds containing primarily ionic bonds are characterized by all of the following EXCEPT:
(A) High melting points
(B) Exist mainly in the gaseous state of matter
(C) An attraction between positive and negative ions
(D) Usually composed of a metal and nonmetal or polyatomic ion
(E) Most dissolve readily in water
Perhaps you're not sure which of the five answer choices is wrong. But you should be able to identify that choice C or D might be correct because of the word ion in the statement. See, you've already eliminated two possible answers and can make a pretty good guess from there.
If you’re interested, the answer is B: ionic compounds usually exist as crystalline solids, not gases, at room temperature.
“I, II, and III” Questions
As we discussed earlier, I, II, and IIIquestions are multiple-choice questions that provide you with threepossible answers, and the five answer choices list differentcombinations of those three.
11.A student performed an experiment todetermine the heat ofneutralization of a strong acid with a strongbase. Which of thefollowing statements are true of this type ofexperiment?
I. The reaction is exothermic.
II. Energy for this reaction cannot be directly measured.
III.The specific heat must be calculated for the acid.
(A)I only
(B)II only
(C)I and II only
(D)II and III only
(E)II and III only
There's an upside and a downside toquestions of this type. Suppose, for example, that you know that inexperiments involving heat of neutralization for acids and bases, youneed to know the specific heat—and you suspect that you need thespecific heat for the acid. This means that you can eliminate A, B, and Cand significantly increase your chance of guessing the right answer. Aslong as you're not afraid to guess—and remember that you should neverbe afraid to guess if you've eliminated an answer—these questionsshouldn’t be too daunting. By the way, the answer is E.
