Jan 15, 2024 | Acid-Base, AP, AP TOPIC 07, AP TOPIC 08, Equilibrium |
The annual student struggle with acid-base chemistry usually revolves around questions that deal with weak acids and bases. If you pause to think about that for a moment, the difficulties are actually centered around equilibrium rather than acid and base chemistry....
Jun 6, 2022 | Acid-Base, AP |
Routinely, buffers are cited by AP chemistry teachers as the topic that their students find the most challenging. Not necessarily equilibrium, but buffers. So, what about essentially largely avoiding the teaching of buffers completely, and approaching the problem from...
Mar 2, 2022 | Acid-Base, REDOX |
My short answer is, “yes”. Here’s more. This has been discussed a lot since 2019, and the general consensus seems to be that it is unlikely that a question would ask students to balance a REDOX equation in acid or base from scratch, but rather that they might only be...
Dec 31, 2021 | Acid-Base, AP, UNIT 08 |
I quite often hear people say words to the effect of, “A buffer is a solution which does not change its pH when a strong acid or base is added to it.” Of course, this is not true, and instead I use the phrase, “A buffer is a solution that resists...
Jan 11, 2017 | Acid-Base, Miscellaneous |
Ammonia is a pretty ubiquitous chemical substance when it comes to AP Chemistry. Not so much much in terms of actually encountering it in the lab, but rather as a molecule (NH3) that can be used to illustrate a ton of useful concepts that are required knowledge at...
Jun 15, 2016 | Acid-Base, AP, Big Idea 6, Equilibrium, Ksp, Le Châtelier |
All things bright & beautiful, all creatures great and small. Remember that hymn? We often talk about remembering the little things, well here’s a lesson in remembering the big things as well! This post started life with an entirely different title. It was...
