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A2 Chemistry Problem

My weakness in chemistry is drawing structural/displayed formula especially in the skeletal way. Does anyone have any resources in which I can use to improve so I can actually answer the questions? The textbooks don't really help and I am kind of lost here.

Many thanks :biggrin:
Original post by DedicatedWizard
My weakness in chemistry is drawing structural/displayed formula especially in the skeletal way. Does anyone have any resources in which I can use to improve so I can actually answer the questions? The textbooks don't really help and I am kind of lost here.

Many thanks :biggrin:


Which exam board are you doing? :biggrin:
Original post by Hayley Williams
Which exam board are you doing? :biggrin:


OCR :smile:
Original post by DedicatedWizard
OCR :smile:


I did OCR last year and i thought the textbook was practically amazing for explaining things, and i was totally going to recommend the OCR textbook if you were with a different board :s-smilie: What don't you get? Maybe i could explain it, it is overall very simple, and most websites overcomplicate it anyway.

Practise is key, sorry that i'm really unhelpful, my advice was going to be to check the OCR textbook out, i've just started doing chem at uni, so i always think it's pretty straight forward. :biggrin: Get onto the past papers and just practice answering the structure questions, really it does help.
Original post by Hayley Williams
I did OCR last year and i thought the textbook was practically amazing for explaining things, and i was totally going to recommend the OCR textbook if you were with a different board :s-smilie: What don't you get? Maybe i could explain it, it is overall very simple, and most websites overcomplicate it anyway.

Practise is key, sorry that i'm really unhelpful, my advice was going to be to check the OCR textbook out, i've just started doing chem at uni, so i always think it's pretty straight forward. :biggrin: Get onto the past papers and just practice answering the structure questions, really it does help.


It's just the way they word it and they sometimes give these super complex skeletal structures and asks to name them or vice versa. And I am not good with skeletal so I had to draw it out in displayed and it takes so long for only 1/2 marks. I don't know what I am doing. Is there some sort of quick method I can use? Sorry for the rant :sad:
Original post by DedicatedWizard
It's just the way they word it and they sometimes give these super complex skeletal structures and asks to name them or vice versa. And I am not good with skeletal so I had to draw it out in displayed and it takes so long for only 1/2 marks. I don't know what I am doing. Is there some sort of quick method I can use? Sorry for the rant :sad:


I usually count the longest carbon chain first to get the basis of the structure (e.g pentane) and then name the structure around that.
- look for methyl, ethyl groups
-look for carboxylic acid groups
Then i put the name of the structure together :biggrin: You just need to think logically and also there is the fact that you only know very few functional groups (alkene, alkane, aldehyde, ketone, ester, carboxylic acid) that you learn at a level, so the structure is actually never too complicated.
I just want to stress that you practise and google skeletal formula practise questions on google. You'll never get better unless you practise and maybe get quite a few questions wrong but eventually you'll get them all right. :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:
Original post by Hayley Williams
I usually count the longest carbon chain first to get the basis of the structure (e.g pentane) and then name the structure around that.
- look for methyl, ethyl groups
-look for carboxylic acid groups
Then i put the name of the structure together :biggrin: You just need to think logically and also there is the fact that you only know very few functional groups (alkene, alkane, aldehyde, ketone, ester, carboxylic acid) that you learn at a level, so the structure is actually never too complicated.
I just want to stress that you practise and google skeletal formula practise questions on google. You'll never get better unless you practise and maybe get quite a few questions wrong but eventually you'll get them all right. :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:


Thank you, I will try :smile:

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