Students drawing and writing on desk

This is the fourth in the Subject Guides series, which gives detailed advice on how to study and score well for specific subjects. It contains edited excerpts from Chapter 4 of the book “How I Study”.

General Paper (GP) Subject Guide
Mathematics Subject Guide
Biology Subject Guide
Chemistry Subject Guide
China Studies in Chinese (CSC) Subject Guide
Economics Subject Guide
Third Language Subject Guide
University Admissions Tests Preparation Guide

How to Do Well in Chemistry: Understanding and Practice

Chemistry hinges a lot on understanding. If you understand it, it feels like you have superpowers—it feels amazing. If even a few concepts remain murky in your mind, however, you feel like you’re trying to navigate your way out of the Forbidden Forest in the dead of night.

I often think of Chemistry as an intermediate between Biology and Physics (in terms of how we study these subjects). While Chemistry demands less bulk memorisation than Biology, there are certain things you do have to commit to memory. And being able to apply the concepts is an indispensable skill.

The next step, therefore, is to practise extensively—just as with Mathematics and the other Sciences. This will ensure familiarity with diverse question types across different topics.

Memorise What You Have to Memorise in Chemistry

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are some examples of what you should be memorising in Chemistry:

  • Terms and definitions
  • Key points for certain explanations
  • Shapes of molecules and polyatomic ions
  • Reactions in Organic Chemistry (including the reagents, conditions and observations)
  • Reaction mechanisms in Organic Chemistry (including how to draw them)
  • Distinguishing tests in Organic Chemistry

Notice that Organic Chemistry does require quite a bit of memorisation. The thing is, I struggled with Organic Chemistry until I made myself memorise all the reactions, reagents, conditions and observations for the different functional groups in the A-Level syllabus. It was a miracle and suddenly everything made sense.

It was the same with other topics, like Chemical Bonding and Qualitative Analysis (in secondary school), just to name a few. Without the foundational knowledge firmly in my memory, there was no way I could begin to attempt the more advanced questions.

Make Summary Notes for Aspects Across Topics in Chemistry

I find summary notes especially useful for Organic Chemistry.

Topics in Organic Chemistry typically go by the different functional groups. We learn them one by one: alkanes, alkenes, halogen derivatives, and so on.

Each chapter comes with its own set of properties, reactions, tests and observations that we have to remember. What I found extremely helpful was to compile all the reactions, reaction mechanisms and distinguishing tests across the topics.

P.S. I observed many schoolmates with a copy of Organic & Inorganic Chemistry: A Comprehensive Summary. The summaries look not bad from what I could see. So if you’d like to get any additional book for Chemistry at all I would probably suggest that one.

For me, however, I simply did the summaries on my own. Three upsides to this: it allowed me to organise the reactions in my own way; writing it out helped me to remember; and I wrote it in rows such that I could cover one side and test myself (active recall).

A-Level H2 Chemistry Notes

Have a question? Leave a comment below or drop me a message anytime. Don’t forget to check out the other articles in the Subject Guides series too.