Homework Help: ACS gen chem exam question

There should be a lot of trick questions - that's why the average raw score is going to be well less than 50%. You should definitely know the Avogadros' number however most of the constants are going to be given as well as the equations with perhaps exception of few.

 

Moved to other sciences, homework. (I'm not really sure where else this fits!)

 

Either the academic guideline forum or the chemistry forum seems fine - not quite certain why you moved it here though.

 

I took this test last semester, and because of a book I had bought, nothing on the test took me by surprise.

Check at your school bookstore to see if you can pick it up. Shouldn't be more than $20. It contains all the topics on the test briefly summarized, some example problems step-by-step, and some test questions with the answers in the back.

 

What was your score in terms of the raw percentage? Honestly my first post was based on my experience with the quantitative analysis ACS test however I never really took the general chemistry test.

 

I don't think there was much of a curve on it; it was counted as our final. From what I remember (I could be VERY wrong about this), there was only a 5-10% curve. I got an 87% and I don't really consider myself to be very good at chemistry (and I'm no brainiac, I'm only at a small state college). The way my teacher did the curve was weird, though. It was designed to give more points to students who did very poorly, and not so many to those who already got A's.

Again, this was a semester ago... and I don't remember much at all from chemistry. I kind of tossed all that out of my brain when I was done. Mech Eng here. :D

I find it hard to believe that the overall

 

I took the ACS exam for inorganic 1 & 2. The questions can be very tricky. Don't get upset if your raw percent isn't very high. The national average is about 50%, but the exam is designed to be like that. Here is just one website with the stats for gen. chemistry http://www4.uwm.edu//chemexams/stats/norms/gc05.cfm (other schools may report different stats & I'm not sure how accurate that really is).

I'd buy the ACS review book, but if its near the end of the semester, it'd be almost pointless now. You should really review a little at a time & build up your knowledge by the end of the semester. You can also do online review questions. There are tons of ACS practice tests online... some of them are rubbish though. :)

 

I forgot to answer the question... lol. For the inorganic two test, you're given a whole slew of constants, a periodic table, & just a handful for equations. You get the Nernst equation, Grahams law, Arrhenius equation, & the integrated rate laws. Thats it. The rest is up to you to know. I forget what all was on the ACS 1 exam. ^_^

 

Aside from demonstrating your mastery of chemical concepts, I'm curious:

What's the point of the ACS gen chem exam? Do you need to take a series of their exams in order to become ACS certified, or something?

 

It's sometimes required at Universities that are ACS credited however the test usually only counts towards your in class grades - that is you don't report to the ACS rather the professor.

 

I don't think you become ACS certified. Rather they just test your overall knowledge of the subject. Perhaps kind of like SATs. My professor said its something you can show to the college you want to transfer too, because more than any letter grade, that is going to show you how much you learned about the subject & compare you to others in the field. For our college, its the final exam for all chemistry classes.

 

Yeah professors really take into account your score in the final grade for the class - in my Quantitative Analysis course the professor actually gave a student an A because he got a good score on the ACS exam despite his bad course grade. It is a good test to compare how versed you are in chemistry compared to the rest of the nation.

 

Perhaps I should pick up a study book anyways, then -- so far I haven't had to take one, but I do have to take a couple of competency exams, one for each of my teaching fields.

sorry for drawing a bit off topic. this seems better suited for "career advice" forum now.

 

Medline, I am going to take ACS final exam next week. We haven't learned Gas Law yet so all Gas Law's questions will be extra credits for those who answer them right. For the whole test you just took, which part would you recommend me study more to do this test well? I heard from the old students, ACS test is extremely hard so I am so nervous and I have no idea what to focus on now. Please give me some tips to do it well. I need 88 to keep up my A grade lol. Thanks in advance.

 

Lucky you! Gas laws were probably the easiest thing on there. :) PV=nRT. Plug in and you're done. If I remember, there was some questions such as "In a gas chamber the temperature is increasing. The volume of the container is staying the same, so what must be happening to the pressure?" And you'd just need to look at the equation and see that the pressure must be rising.

Good luck!

 

Thanks, how about the rest of the exam lol? Was there a lot of diagram also?

 

I don't really remember what all was on inorganic I, but speaking of diagrams, know your phase diagrams. I can almost guarantee there will be a question on those. Other basic things like stoichiometry & molarity are always there. Easy points that you don't want to miss. Other than that, it pretty much covers everything you learn.

 

Ah... phase diagrams! Yeah, there was 3-4 questions referring to one phase diagram. I got two parts of it wrong because for for some stupid reason I got the solid and gas portions of the diagram reversed; they're relatively simple questions, but just make sure you look over them quickly sometime before your test!

 

Are those diagrams about Pressure, temperature and volume or ionization energy?

Does anyone know any website to practice ACS test ?

 

The one I remember showed the pressure and temperature which a substance would change from solid to liquid to gas. Make sure you know the vocab associated with such a graph (I don't happen to remember any, sorry!).

 

I have an example but I dont know how to copy those diagrams in here. Please show me. Thanks