My 2nd Chemistry Exam

Today, I will discuss the massive chemistry exam that I will take tomorrow morning.
The test that I will takes looks to be extremely difficult. It covers a vast number of challenging topics that are tough to master and comprehend. It covers the material that we covered from late September all the way up to today. My professor went all around the subject material in preparing us for this test. Instead of going from chapter two to chapter three in my chemistry text book, he focused on chapters 4 and 7 instead; I’m not sure why he did this but I guess professors have their reasons.
This exam will be the second one that I take for chemistry. I took the first one back in late September. That one, too, was difficult to prepare for. In fact, I stayed up all through the night in order to comprehend the material. Low and behold, I did quite well on that exam despite the fact that I was extremely nervous about it. One thing that I’d like to say regarding test taking is that whoever said that you should get a good night’s sleep and eat a good breakfast in order to do well on a test is full of shit. I did not get any rest whatsoever the night before the exam and ate breakfast after I took it and I still scored 92% on it. True, those methods may help you focus a little more but they don’t guarantee that you will know the material. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you study for the exam just as I am doing for the one tomorrow morning. I’ll study all night again if I have to; if it will help me understand the material better than I’ll do it. I don’t care how much sleep I will lose in preparation for this test but I will do whatever it takes to make a good grade on it.
The first part of this test focuses on the fourth chapter in my chemistry text book; that chapter focuses on chemical reactions as well as solutions. It focuses on the molarity and the titration of chemical solutions. It teaches us how much of one substance we must use to successfully react with a certain amount of another substance. We will also be tested on limiting reactants and theoretical yields. It shows which reactant will yield the lesser amount of product in the end; that is the limiting reactant and its product is the theoretical yield. We divide an actual yield given to us and divide that by the theoretical yield and we will multiply the resulting quotient by 100 to get the percent yield of the product. We also need to know the solubility rules to determine which reactants will remain aqueous and which elements will form an insoluble precipitate. We will also need to know how to perform oxidation-reduction (or redox) reactions. Oxidation and reduction have to do with the gain and loss of elections as well as the use of acids and bases and how they help balance certain reactions. There are approximately ten rules or so to find the Oxidation Number of an element, ion, and a molecule and it is all pretty confusing if you do not go over it frequently. All this and much more will in this chapter will be covered on this exam. There will be a lot of adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing as well as the use of many formulas to memorize in order to successfully take this exam. Unfortunately, this is only one of two parts of this test. After I am finished with this part of the test, there will be a second chapter of material that I will need to know.
The second part of the test will be covered on the seventh chapter of my chemistry text book; this chapter focuses on light and how it is studied and measured. It also focuses on energy levels and electron configurations of atoms. My professor gave us many equations and formulas that we must know for this exam, otherwise we would be lost and confused. Many of these formulas use incredibly large and incredible small; scientific notation is used quite frequently when we attempt to handle and comprehend them. We must learn things such as Plank’s Constant which is 6.626e-34 J. We must also know the speed of light which is 3.00e8. These equations are needed to find the frequency of light waves and photons. We must also know the levels and sublevels of energy in atoms such as the level “n” and its sublevels s,p,d, and f. Based on that, we must also know the electron configurations of the elements and the number of opposite spins there are in the energy levels. For instance, Fluorine has a configuration of 1s2,2s2,2p6 and that is just one of the configurations that we must memorize. We must also remember how some elements in the transition metal section have exceptions to some of the rules such as Cobalt and Nickel. All these formulas and configurations will be essential to completing this part of the exam with flying colors. One slip-up would mean imminent doom on this exam and that might mean failure, something I do not wish to experience.
This exam counts for approximately 15-20% of our grade in this chemistry course. If one were to ace this test, their overall grade would be substantially higher. If one were to bomb it, however, then it would mean a freefall for their average. I am hoping that the latter does not happen to me. I want to study hard and get as high a grade as possible. Even though, I do not wish to continue a study in chemistry after this semester, I still want to show others that I knew and understood this material well. That is what I am planning to do after I finish this English blog and submit it for the night. So if you will excuse me, I will now wrap this up and continue studying for this monster exam.