NOV11 Chemistry SL P1 and 2

[laryxle]

How did everyone find P1 and 2?

I was so dumb on P1, seriously, I found it such an annoying paper, full of questions that to me were tricky Usually I have trouble with the first 5 and then the rest are okay but in this exam I was fine for the first 5 and struggled for the rest Even Q30 which is usually so easy you don't need to think required some calculations (admittedly they were easy) but still. I overanalysed things, was paranoid of things, and I know I got quite a few wrong. I'll be lucky to come away with 25 or 24. The worst question were the ones about the pH 1 and pH 2 acid. I think I put that acid A was stronger than B, and there was one where it was about isomers and the question was like which thing is correct, and I thought that all of the options were incorrect so I put something lame about chemical properties.

P2 was SO much better! Did anyone else think that it was different to past papers? Firstly, Section A was only 3 questions, instead of 4, and question 1 wasn't a quantitative chem question which is almost always is. Also, there was pretty poor syllabus coverage. For me, the exam was like:

Q1=Energetics and minimal redox, Q2=Organic, Q3=Bonding, Atomic structure, Periodicity, Q5=Organic. So over 50% of the exam was one topic for me. Overall I thought it was a pretty easy exam, Q1 was the hardest IMO. When people were finding delta T, did you use the line extrapolated from the data (the equation) or the excel info? I found that confusing! Also the hypothesis bit and the graph were annoying, I was confused because wouldn't the enthalpy for Cu be 0 as Cu won't displace Cu and wouldn't Ag not react with CuSO4 as it is less reactive?

Also, in Q2 I only knew one economic importance of polmerisation. I put down something else really stupid like that it makes long lasting products or something like that I LOVED the bit on metallic bonding in Q3, that is the only kind of bonding I totally understand! I didn't know the gas thing in the mass spectrometer though haha.

I did Q5 for section B, thought it was standard organic stuff. What did people get for the empirical and molecular formulas? I was confused because I am certain that the molecular was C3H8, but my empirical was CH3, so I think I screwed that bit up And also comparing the boiling points of propan-2-ol and propan-1-ol...I think I said propan-1-ol had a higher BP. Out of the three SL kids in my class one did 4, I did 5, and the other did 6 for section B, and I thought the other questions looked answerable so overall a good exam, easier than M10 TZ1 and 2 IMO

[bluepopsiclestick]

I agree, for some people they disagreed about the "fairness" of the exam as it wasn't similar to traditional past papers. However, I enjoyed Paper 2 which is a rare thing for me to say, especially since Chem is my weakest subject.

However, I really REALLY liked the exam. Section B, I was absolutely over the moon about. It had all the questions I loved, mainly redox, equilibrium which was great! So overall, happy!

[zzzkzzz]

Chem is my weakest subject and I found section A pretty hard... and I messed up section B because I didn't draw the correct lewis structure for hydrazine.. and I thought it was a bit mean to give us hydrazine as some people who did it in the HL test didn't even know how to draw it

[tenaciousdan]

Anyone find question 1 on P2 super odd? Like there just something really offputting about it.

Rest of P2 was sweet though

Edited November 13, 2010 by tenaciousdan

[laryxle]

Yeah I agree with that, I did Q1 last just because it seemed odd to me.

I'm pretty sure we can talk about P3 now. How did everyone find it? It was a total gradesaver for me, such a great exam. I did Environmental Chem and Further Organic Chem and they were so easy. Further Organic was so good this year, there were no questions about explaining reaction mechanisms, 10/20 marks were for basically drawing simple structures, the benzene question was almost identical to N09, and the acid question was so easy. Apparently the actually had the acidities of ethanol/phenol and ethanoic/chloroethanoic in the data booklet which just makes it even easier. Environmental was actually harder than organic, but still pretty good. I was only unsure about defining nutrients (I said the elements P, N and S) and listing a source of nutrients (said organic constituents not fertiliser). The waste question was weird, but really only needed common sense; its pretty obvious why putting high level radioactive waste in landfill is a bad idea

Great exam for these options IMO, makes me feel heaps better about P1

[Albert]

Paper 2 Q1 and parts of Q2 were tough. The bit in question 2 where it said draw the poly chain thing (my memory is quite bad now) for when n = 3 was odd, because it was quite long. The IUPAC name for one of the structures was also quite weird; something like 1,2-bromo,2-methylpropane or something like that...

Paper 3 was good . I did analytical and biochemistry and I know I got one mark wrong indefinitely because it said the role of carbs other that an energy source and I blanked. I was banking on saying *source of energy* and *can be stored as an energy source* if they asked for 2 advantages but that question flipped me off completely. I gave up and eventually said that they transport oxygen (considering glucose was C6H12O6) but now I know that's completely wrong...

Analytical was reeeeaaal goooood. I worked out the unknown structure (with M = 74) first and then worked backwards to find the answer! Propanoic acid! Yay! Also the question on AA spectroscopy was a bit odd; the WHO (World Health Organisation) only allowed the water with iron < .001% but the graph said the sample of water had .4% iron! I double checked and triple checked my working and I couldn't see anything odd (same with my class) so it was a bit confusing but hopefully it's still right!

Paper 1 I must admit was very difficult. Your right when you said the chemical properties for isotopes. That was definitely one of the harder questions though! Originally I probably worked out 22/23 of them with about 15-20 minutes to go but most of the ones I didn't know I think I made educated guesses. That thermo-stable question for the exo/endothermic reaction (I knew it was exo but I didn't know if the reactants or the products were more stable). I think I ended up writing products, but no biggy.

Glad it's over though! Now I get 100% focus on Bus Man!

Edited November 14, 2010 by Albert

[SogladtobedonewithIB]

Hey I did analytical and biochem as well, found them quite easy thanks to all the past papers that i did. Yeah the AAS question really put me off too because it was so much bigger than the WHO's set maximum! Overall it was a good exam. And yeah the name of that structure in Paper 2 was really weird, altho I think that if there's 1, 2-bromo its meant to be dibromo? I dont know, just have to wait and find out

Paper 2 Q1 and parts of Q2 were tough. The bit in question 2 where it said draw the poly chain thing (my memory is quite bad now) for when n = 3 was odd, because it was quite long. The IUPAC name for one of the structures was also quite weird; something like 1,2-bromo,2-methylpropane or something like that...

Paper 3 was good . I did analytical and biochemistry and I know I got one mark wrong indefinitely because it said the role of carbs other that an energy source and I blanked. I was banking on saying *source of energy* and *can be stored as an energy source* if they asked for 2 advantages but that question flipped me off completely. I gave up and eventually said that they transport oxygen (considering glucose was C6H12O6) but now I know that's completely wrong...

Analytical was reeeeaaal goooood. I worked out the unknown structure (with M = 74) first and then worked backwards to find the answer! Propanoic acid! Yay! Also the question on AA spectroscopy was a bit odd; the WHO (World Health Organisation) only allowed the water with iron < .001% but the graph said the sample of water had .4% iron! I double checked and triple checked my working and I couldn't see anything odd (same with my class) so it was a bit confusing but hopefully it's still right!

Paper 1 I must admit was very difficult. Your right when you said the chemical properties for isotopes. That was definitely one of the harder questions though! Originally I probably worked out 22/23 of them with about 15-20 minutes to go but most of the ones I didn't know I think I made educated guesses. That thermo-stable question for the exo/endothermic reaction (I knew it was exo but I didn't know if the reactants or the products were more stable). I think I ended up writing products, but no biggy.

Glad it's over though! Now I get 100% focus on Bus Man!