[muslima92]

I have two teachers for chemistry.One of my teachers told us to memorise chemistry.Whereas, my other teacher told me to try to understand and do past papers.The problem is that the teacher who told us to memorise chem. makes us write questions and the answers.Appearantly is meant to help us memorise but the thing is dosent help me and i have told him that.he dosent listen and therefore have to spend hours making these question and answer notes.

i wanted to ask whether memorising or understanding and doing past papers is better?

thanks!!

[Malsy]

definitely the latter.

[TomLeigh]

I guess this is a personal thing. Memorising probably works for teacher #1 hence why he's making you do so, while a deeper understanding and logical approach works for teacher #2. Everyone has different ways of learning, it's up to you to find which way suits you best! ^_^

Hope I helped =)

[alexlemon2]

Understanding would definitely be more beneficial than simply memorising, and I'm pretty sure you won't be doing any harm if you give some past papers a try

[ilovebland]

I've found doing the past papers is a way of memorising.

I take it you're doing A Level chem? It's all independent learning, so just teach yourself and find your own method!

[Champagne Supernova]

Trying to understnad, in my opinion is better.
But, after all, it is your own personal preference. Find what works for you, and adopt that technique!

[imtired]

you have to do both. for example memorizing reagents/conditions and understanding the reactions as well so that if you get something you haven't seen before you can work it out from what you know.

[JAKstriked]

You will need both approaches to get good marks. Without understanding you will have no hope if something you haven't learned comes up, likewise, if you haven't learnt particular reagents and conditions etc.

I would make sure you know all these answers/questions, if you do, the teacher will most likely stop busting your balls.

[Witches_Rave]

I think even if you are just memorising you understand most of the material anyway.

[*Harps_T*]

Try understanding the work so you can apply knowledge when it comes to exams

[GΣΣЌ]

The understanding of knowledge and it's application is all that is needed to succeed.

[EierVonSatan]

You need to be able to do both, depending on the thing you're trying to learn it's sometimes just easier to memorise the answer.

[Xerophelistica]

Chemistry is all Understanding. As my teacher says, so much of Chemistry is just understanding how magnets work, and understading the full implication of what the periodic table says. In a way, he's right, a lot of it does come down to that.

[becky.fm]

For the Synoptic papers, understanding is crucial IMO.

[muslima92]

thanks!!