General Chemistry has been quite the personal journey for me. I took the lowest introduction level twice and barely passed with a D+ the second time. The following summer I took Gen Chem I and II back to back and barely understood anything and scraped by with a C and C+. When it came time to study for the MCAT I was holding an empty hand with Gen Chem. On my first practice exam I missed almost every single Gen Chem question. Then I ordered these books:

The Berkeley Review is a small California company that makes an excellent pair of General Chemistry study books. I went from almost every question wrong to getting a perfect score on the Gen Chem section on the practice test I took two days before the MCAT. The books cover the concepts behind Gen Chem in an understandable and complete way. Instead of memorizing periodic table trends, the information of WHY the trends are makes it easy to predict any of them. I can say with confidence I have a solid understanding of Chemistry and can reason my way through because of the excellent information and questions in those books. If I have to recommend one study book on this website, I would recommend this one. With SRS this is even more helpful! They are probably useful for the course for anyone having trouble if the class is lacking something. Again, highly highly recommended.

Also, Chad’s General Chemistry Videos are good. I began watching them when reviewing for the DAT, and then just went back to using the Berkeley Review books after a few sections. If you’re yearning for more explanation and example problems then it is a strong second to the Berkeley Review books.

When taking the DAT I was able to revisit Gen Chem with SRS, which combined with going back through the Berekely Review books made things zip right by. Here are the models I use:

Basic Fact

There are more gen chem facts than might be apparant at first. Short, cloze deletion, and one fact per card. Standard stuff.

Front: Solids, liquids, and gases coexist at the […]

Back: Solids, liquids, and gases coexist at the triple point

 

Front: PV = […]

Back: PV = nRT

 

Front: […] = nRT

Back: PV = nRT

 

Front: […] law of thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created or destroyed

Back: First law of thermodynamics: Energy cannot be created or destroyed

 

Front: Quantum

         l = […]

Back: Quantum

         l = n-1

 

Example Problems

Note: For this it is important to use either LaTeX or ChemSketch to make the cards. I believe showing the problem in the same format as on the exam is essential. I started out using weird exponent and parenthesis to make molecules, and it looked awful and I spent too long decoding it. For information on using LaTeX for Gen Chem click here. To use ChemSketch just grab the free download here. The program is quite easy to use, especially for Gen Chem.

Doing problems is critical for working through general chemistry. The Berkeley Review book will have a lot, as well as the course textbook. If there is a particularly good problem feel free to pop it into the SRS. Note that the answer is at the bottom of the “Back.” This forces memorizing the steps instead of the answer.

Front: What is the pH of 10mL of 0.0003M HBr?

Back: (log)3×10^4

         4 – (1*0.48)

         3.52

Note I did leave some things out, like how I knew to subtract (1*0.48). The fact that log(3) = 0.48 can go in a separate card. This example was without LaTeX. Here is one using LaTeX:

Front: 50mL of .5M Ba(OH)2 is required to neutralize 5mL of citric acid. What is the molarity of the citric acid solution? note: citric acid has 3 H to deprotonate.

Back:

 

 

Using LaTeX makes much cleaner equations. Anki has LaTeX support built right in. Here is another example where it helps to use LaTeX.

Front:

Back:

This would have been a mess without LaTeX to the rescue! We can also use this to memorize the more complicated equations like .

Periodic Trends

MS-Paint. Ctrl+A to select your masterpiece, then copy and paste it right into the SRS.

Front: Increasing Atomic Radius trend

               […]

Back: Increasing Atomic Radius trend

      

The WHY is still important for why atomic radius increases this direction. This seems extraneous at first, though is required to reason through the really tough problems. All explained in Berkeley Review. Pop them into the SRS, easy easy.

LaTeX is an excellent package that allows clean creation of equations that look a mess using standard ^ – + = * etc. To get started download LaTeX for your operating system here. It is a fairly large one time install around 750MB.

I always used Anki with LaTeX. Other SRS may have LaTeX support, though everything written here is assuming the use of Anki.

Using LaTeX will be slow going at first. It’s okay. The benefits will work themselves out quickly. To get started with code I recommend going to this excellent online LaTeX editor. The top of the window has cool hot buttons to insert code to be filled with whatever numbers/letters you want. The bottom part is automatically updated. Play around with it. Really! This is a great way to learn what code performs what function. When the image at the bottom matches what you want, just copy and paste the code into Anki and surround it by [$][/$] or highlight and hit the LaTeX equation button.

Example of what LaTeX code looks like in the Anki window:

And when the card is viewed:

Note that I put the […] in myself using bolded blue text. I am still figuring out how to use cloze deletion with LaTeX properly. This is just a small extra thing to do. If someone knows how to do it please add in the comments.

Sometimes the equations can require two sets of LaTeX [$][/$], especially when handling molecules. Just play around with the online equation editor for awhile and it will work itself out. It took me around two weeks before I was putting code in myself comfortably. It’s alright.

Edit: Thank you to Jon for posting in the comments about how to make the equation look even better!

Just keep playing around and it will all come together. It is possible to drag and drop images from the online equation editor, though I recommend against it. It is important to learn how to use the code. This will become useful if it is necessary to edit or move things around in the equations – prevents retyping the whole thing. It is possible to use ChemSketch for this, though for the same reasons I recommend sticking to LaTeX code. I had to go back a lot and make little changes and move things around to make more sense.

This will make General Chemistry molecules/equations/etc. reasonable in SRS.