Equilibria, Energetics and Elements (F325) - June 2011 Exam.

Here are some quotes from the chief examiner's report from January 2011 and June 2010:

The point of an exam paper is to test the knowledge and understanding of a student. The way OCR phrase and word their questions is like they want us to crack a complicated encryption before actually getting to the core purpose of the question.

Thats not testing our knowledge, thats testing our patience.

Okey so questions I remember:

?) Conjugate base - acid pairs (2)

I don't remember it asking for conjugate pairs, what was this in, like what where the other questions before and after it?

hurr durr im so dumb.
i cant do chemistry paper hurr
i have to learn the textbook by heart durr
if a question comes up that needs me to think im gonna sit on my fat ass and complain on tsr about it durr hurr
im fat hurrr durr
i am also dumb and will cry about failing an exam hurr durr


you guys must be actually retarded to think that paper was hard. it was straight forward. not even trolling. yeah ok the time sort of ran out towards the end, but you've gotta be writing too much crap not related to the answer if you actually ran out of time doing a chemistry paper.

hurr durr complain complain hurr durr

Dear all,

I am sorry to hear so many of you think the F325 examination today was unfair and that it tested beyond the realms of the syllabus. A number of my own students believed the paper to be very testing.

However, it should be noted that this final paper of the course is designed to be more than a rote learning/recall style paper. It tests the overall principles of the subject in entirely new situations and this is the style the paper has had in previous sittings and will continue to have. Questions such as the 'magic tang' one are designed to put the Chemistry in a real world context.

The bipy ligand question was a cross of polymerisation (synoptic from F324) and transition metal work from F325. This type of crossover work is what separates A*/A/B level students and is necessary.

I am aware that there were slight timing issues in finishing the paper, but this is going to be the case in a lot of the A2 science based papers now.

I am sure that the UMS grade boundaries will reflect the *difficulty* of this paper and I would expect something very similar to the January 2011 marks.

Regards and best of luck for the remaining exams you all have!

I smell a Troll. Welcome to TSR Sir.

For the percentage of cu I got 6.43 %

No it was 64.3% you have not multiplied number of moles of cu by 10 before multiplying by molar mass, as it was 250cm3 and 25cm3 titrated

Troll or not, all of what they say is accurate.

When you had to list the strengths from the pKa, below it there was a reaction between two of the acids on the list, I think the idea was to realise that the stronger acid was the acid and the weaker acid acted as a proton acceptor...

Dear all,

I am sorry to hear so many of you think the F325 examination today was unfair and that it tested beyond the realms of the syllabus. A number of my own students believed the paper to be very testing.

However, it should be noted that this final paper of the course is designed to be more than a rote learning/recall style paper. It tests the overall principles of the subject in entirely new situations and this is the style the paper has had in previous sittings and will continue to have. Questions such as the 'magic tang' one are designed to put the Chemistry in a real world context.

The bipy ligand question was a cross of polymerisation (synoptic from F324) and transition metal work from F325. This type of crossover work is what separates A*/A/B level students and is necessary.
'
I am aware that there were slight timing issues in finishing the paper, but this is going to be the case in a lot of the A2 science based papers now.

I am sure that the UMS grade boundaries will reflect the *difficulty* of this paper and I would expect something very similar to the January 2011 marks.

Regards and best of luck for the remaining exams you all have!

For the [Br2] question i tried getting a constant half life for the graph but it wasn't very constant... haha so instead i found the gradient at [0.006] and [0.003] to find the rates and said how the concentration affected rate i.e when [Br2] doubles rate doubles so it is 1st order

Can it even be done that way from a conc-time graph?
It was the only way i could think of tbh... :P

As with all exam papers you expect a degree of stretch and challenge in order to differentiate the higher grades. I agree that "how science works" is important aspect to the modern exam for the application of understanding; However, it seems to a common theme for OCR questions to be far too verbose and obscure as well as including a vast quantity of irrelevant background reading, which ultimately eats into completion time and has zero relevance in the completion of the question. This is apparent at both AS and A2 level and is unacceptable. There is also an increased frequency of questioning outside of the specification. What is the point of a specification? If they wanted to make their exam papers engaging, then why not put include great bits of chemistry such as d-d transitions which gives students the big picture not just snippets. For example, when studying F325, we focus on rates and equilibrium but the crux of the topic that is vital to linking the unit is omitted from the spec (Arrhenius equation). Why? I know for certain that my college has had enough of OCR and is changing exam boards next year to AQA. As AQA assessment is "purer" chemistry along with relevant HSW and student achievement WILL be higher. Rant Over.