Why studying everything provided by the schools will barely give you a distinction?
Materials and teaching provided in school is not sufficient
Reading the school’s lecture notes is certainly not sufficient in the preparation of A level Chemistry examinations. There are many commonly tested chemical reactions which are often not explained in the school’s lecture notes with great detail.
Some of these chemical reactions include the use of sodium thiosulfate as a reducing agent for iodine, autocatalysis reaction, Grignard’s reagent, Zaitsev's Rule anhydrides, epoxide etc.
Preparation of organic compounds with the use of techniques like separating funnel, simple distillation and fractional distillation are also not included in school’s lecture notes because A Level Chemistry lecturers expect you to magically recall them from your Secondary school days.
Getting necessary and quality tuition will be recommended
Under Garfieldandy Education, Mr Cheng has identified these particular gaps and has prepared notes for these neglected concepts with examples collated from the various past year prelim papers, so that students can get ahead of other peers.
There are also specific skills required to solving Chemistry application questions. However, school teachers may often focus on the content during lectures and tutorials such that this aspect is not emphasised and addressed adequately.
For example, there are specific rules and steps that you need to keep in mind using the ICE BOX to find the equilibrium mole and concentration values, and using acid-base equilibrium constant to calculate salt equilibrium pH. Without the right guidance, you will still struggle with A Level Chemistry even if you can recall most of the concepts from the lecture notes, because these questions would require you to apply your problem solving skills on the spot. You will need to think outside the box.
With an experienced private tutor to monitor the effective learning process will definitely shorten the effort and time, students put in. This will be the key to Ace A-level Chemistry.