Here are 7 tips to help students ace their IGCSE Chemistry and obtain useful IGCSE Chemistry notes to help with their upcoming exams. Let’s dive into some of the places to get IGCSE Chemistry Notes.
Where to Get IGCSE Chemistry Notes?
1 – Recycled notes from seniors
Using passed-down IGCSE Chemistry notes is one great way to acing your IGCSE Chemistry. It is also ideal for students to get tips and tricks from their seniors on what to look out for since they have sat through the papers.
2 – Tutopiya
Tutopiya has a Resource Centre that is free for all students to explore and use. We provide not only IGCSE Chemistry notes but also Physics and other subjects as well. Feel free to check out our resource center here.
Read also: ‘O’ Level Chemistry: Mid-Year Exam Revision Notes
3 – IGCSE Cambridge Board Website
The IGCSE Cambridge Board release and publish all previous years’ examination papers for students to practice and use. They also consistently update any syllabus changes on their website. Of course, they have other subjects’ past year papers available for download too. The downside is that no model answers are given, only question papers.
IGCSE Chemistry Notes and Tips
1 – Understand before memorizing
Building a strong and conceptual foundation for Chemistry is essential to success in the subject. Chemistry uses language that is not commonly used every day. Their vocabulary has specific meanings and it can be difficult for students to ace the subject well if they are not familiar with the Chemistry vocabulary. Hence, it is important that students aim for a sturdy foundation at the beginning to ensure future success.
2 – Study smart
As mentioned, the chemistry vocabulary is huge and the need to be familiar with them is a big part of chemistry. Therefore, students need to be smart with the way they study and reinforce their knowledge. Instead of rereading the textbook numerous times, try using Active Recall and other scientific study methods to enhance the effectiveness of your learning.
Active recall requires students to retrieve information from their brains. Active recall trains students to retrieve the right information when seeing keywords. With plenty of practice, information retrieval will become easier, and naturally, Chemistry will become less daunting to learn.
3 – Keep practicing to reinforce concepts
Point three goes hand in hand with point two. When you practice smart study techniques, you will find yourself diving deeper into doing practice papers and testing yourselves whenever possible rather than the mundane highlighting, writing, and reading your notes.
Practicing on past year’s papers helps with familiarizing myself with the concepts and exam format. The trick to making full use of this past year’s papers is to put away all your notes and train yourself to retrieve as much information as you can from reading the questions.
Only by doing practice, you are able to reinforce your knowledge and concepts. Over time, you will find yourself getting better and enjoying the process.
(Source: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/forgetting-curve.htm)
4 – Incorporate spaced repetition into studying
Due to the heavy vocabulary that Chemistry uses, it is smart to space out revision time. According to Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve, we know that we need to space out optimally our revision time to prevent too much information loss.
Our memories weaken over time and to really retain the information we have learned, we need to revisit them consistently.
Though our memory fades quickly with time, one review session can significantly help you to retain the information better. Although each time we review the information, forgetting starts again, the forgetting process will become slower than before. Hence, after subsequent and several consistent spaced learning sessions, you will find yourself remembering more information than before and it will take you longer to forget them.
5 – Getting tuition and extra help
Tuition used to be given to those who are lagging behind in their studies. Now, tuition reaps more than ever for all students. It helps students to get extra resources that could be useful for their national exams, and an experienced tutor’s help in their studies. Students can easily get a hold of IGCSE Chemistry notes from their tutors with tuition. Having a tutor also means having someone knowledgeable to help you with IGCSE Chemistry notes.
6 – Clear doubts as soon as possible
Especially for Chemistry, it is paramount that students clear their doubts as soon as possible. Chemistry, like maths, builds on previously learned concepts, a single doubt can cause students to be lost for the following chapters. Therefore, should you have any doubts, you should clear them as soon as possible and prevent snowballing to happen.
7 – Understand the marking rubrics
At the end of the day, we are all working towards the national examinations. We need to be aware of what the examiners are looking out for when they mark our papers. The marking rubrics and assessments are published on the IGCSE website for students to look at. It is important to keep the assessment criterion in your mind when doing practice papers and remind yourself to give the examiners what they are looking for.
