The Student Room Group

OCR A Physical Chemistry knowledge required (Paper 1)

What is necessary to commit to memory through rote learning? Ligand substitutions? Colours? And does anyone have a good resource of stuff that simply needs committing to memory?
(edited 5 years ago)
Colours yes 100% I think I'm going to make a song to try and remember them haha, same with the substitution colours but you can learn how to do ligand substitution and precipitation equations because:
-the amount of ligands that are substituted into the complex is the same as the charge on the ion
-for NH3 and OH-, OH- is substituted into the complex
-BUT in excess ammonia 6 NH3 are substituted in
-AND Cu(H2O)6 does partial substitution with XS NH3 so makes Cu(H2O)2(NH3)4 (I think it is the only one that does this)
-Cl- ions almost always make XCl4 complexes

Right I think those are the rules, if you learn those and do some practice questions you shouldn't need to learn all the reactions
Reply 2
Original post by lucyv1234
Colours yes 100% I think I'm going to make a song to try and remember them haha, same with the substitution colours but you can learn how to do ligand substitution and precipitation equations because:
-the amount of ligands that are substituted into the complex is the same as the charge on the ion
-for NH3 and OH-, OH- is substituted into the complex
-BUT in excess ammonia 6 NH3 are substituted in
-AND Cu(H2O)6 does partial substitution with XS NH3 so makes Cu(H2O)2(NH3)4 (I think it is the only one that does this)
-Cl- ions almost always make XCl4 complexes

Right I think those are the rules, if you learn those and do some practice questions you shouldn't need to learn all the reactions


Thanks so much! That's a good summary of the patterns to follow. If you come across, or create, any good resources, post them here.

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