ocr chemistry a level tips

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firstly try and understand as much of the content as possible - there are good resources online (if you google "MaChemGuy" he teaches OCR A). i don't have better advice for this sorry! hopefully someone else can help.

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after that, or if you think you're already there: i found the ocr a a level to be virtually a pure memorisation game - evidenced by the ridiculous grade boundaries (80%+ for an A last year i think?). So this means knowing e.g. colours of TM complexes; chemical/analytical tests; synthetic pathways etc. inside out.

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I used flashcards A LOT to learn the TM colours and chemical tests! It would work too for the synthetic pathways.

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For the wordy questions, you just need to know what to write that will get marks. it's been a while now and i can still remember the mark scheme for explaining why phenol/phenylamine is more reactive than benzene off by heart:

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in phenol/ylamine a lone pair of electrons on O/N is (partially) delocalised into the pi (ring) system

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this increases the electron density in the pi system of phenol

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so phenol polarises electrophiles more greatly/is more susceptible to electrophilic attack

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(the most common way that you'd drop a mark here is missing the second point out - tbh it's ott but you have to say it for ocr to give you a mark)

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that one came up SO much (usually in the guise of another aromatic compound with O or N directly bonded to the ring) that i still remember it. But effectively i also memorised the ms for every other (wordy) question that they ask...

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...almost every question in the real thing will have been asked in a previous year... you just need to know what the mark scheme is looking for (e.g. the mark for protonating amines in acidic conditions and many others).