How To Study Chemistry: A Guide for the Chemically Challenged

Chemistry is a tough subject. It can be really easy to get lost in its complexities if you don’t know how to study it.

Every student who has taken a Chemistry class either at secondary or JC has experienced feelings of confusion and frustration while trying to understand the concepts. It can be difficult to remember all the information, and it’s even harder to learn the vocabulary.

But, it’s not impossible! We’ll show you how to study chemistry, so you can answer any question the teacher throws at you.

The following are some tips that can help you overcome some if the barriers you may face while studying Chemistry.

Study Notes and Resources Before Going to Class

It’s a good habit to make notes, but what use are they if you don’t routinely go over them? And studying just before class helps to keep everything fresh in your mind, so once the lecture starts, you will be able to connect all the dots between the concepts you have studied before the class. This will help in creating a helpful passageway in your mind, where all the concepts, equations, and lectures will connect and make sense.

Don’t Just Memorize It; Understand How It Works

It’s pretty easy to memorize a small number of formulas, reactions, and the likes. However, it’s just not viable in the long term. Even if you memorize the entire syllabus, exam pressure will inevitably lead to you forgetting a good part of it.

In such a scenario you should try to understand how a phenomenon or a reaction took place. Try focusing on how the laws of Chemistry are working to allow a reaction to happen. 

Make sure to note different situations and their results, so that you may understand the overall process.

For example, just take a common Chemistry procedure of reversible reactions. O and A levels Chemistry contains a lot of reversible reactions which you can tediously memorize fully for your exams. However, if you try understanding the procedure and laws working behind a reversible reaction, you need not memorize a single formula as you can now form them on your own using your strong understanding of the concepts!

Good Note-taking Skills are a Must

Whether you regularly study or rush for last-minute tips before your exams, notes can be genuine lifesavers in either situation!

It’s better if you make notes in every lecture, so later they can act as a mindmap to remind you of the topics. 

Easy to understand, limited to relevant concepts, and neatly drawn diagrams are extremely useful tools for making top-quality notes!

Pro-tip: For making your notes easier to understand, try writing in shorthand. It will simplify your sentences and allow for easier memorization and understanding. 

Practice Daily

There’s no substitute for practice. Practicing right after you have a lecture is ideal, as you will have the topic fresh in your mind and you can use it to solve questions. Putting that aside, many questions also follow patterns that you can master through practice. 

Putting this into perspective, you can be sure that even though you won’t know what questions will come up in the exam, you can be confident that you will have the expertise to solve them if you practice questions regularly!

Make and Maintain Study Groups

Study groups are something that most people aspire towards creating but don’t bother much in maintaining. This is something that should be pursued if you want to improve your academics in an enjoyable way. A study group is a really good way of achieving this , but we know that this plan can also derail very fast when study sessions start transforming into play sessions. 

For a study group to succeed, you and your peers need to keep a conducive environment with a disciplined and serious approach to achieving a fixed objective in each session.

If you are serious, and you get all the conditions right, there’s undoubtedly no better way of studying than with good friends that have the same goals.

Break Large Tasks Into Smaller Ones

Some people love taking on large tasks, but for many, it can be very overwhelming, especially for those who do not enjoy or are already weak in the subject. 

Instead, we suggest that you should try breaking down tasks into bite-sized challenges. 

For instance, if there are 100 questions in a workbook, make it a habit to divide them into groups of 10 and set achievable deadlines for them. Accomplishing those smaller tasks will motivate you to accomplish bigger tasks with much more ease.

Join a Chemistry Tuition Class in Singapore

Attending a tuition class at a good chemistry tuition centre in Singapore can really up your Chemistry expertise. Students in tuition classes are usually very serious about their academics as they, like you, have taken extra time and expense for the subject to ensure they ace it

Unfortunately a good Chemistry tuition center with, especially for JC H2 chemistry tuition, is hard to find as it’s a specialized subject with lots of experience required. It should ideally be helmed by an educator himself/herself who has taught in schools before and and is now very hands on as a chemistry tutor with vast experience and deep insights into the Singapore education system.

However, today, we have a solution for students who are looking for a good O-Level or A Level Chemistry tuition in Singapore. Go ahead and check out our website for top notch JC Chemistry Tuition and O-levels Chemistry tuition in Singapore!!

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For more information about our tutors and our programmes, visit our website.