leaving cert chemistry

Apple in disguise

I am currently in transition year and I want to choose chemistry as a subject but ive heard absolutely terrible comments about how difficult it is . I was just wondering if it is the kind of subject where you have to learn everything off by heart or is there some serious problem solving skills involved (( unfortunately I'm the kind of person that loves to be able to read and study a topic and answer straightforward but Im not good at problem solving or thinking outside of the box )) . Is it really difficult . Will I be able to achieve an a1 or a2 ?

dalta5billion

Apple in disguise wrote: »

I am currently in transition year and I want to choose chemistry as a subject but ive heard absolutely terrible comments about how difficult it is . I was just wondering if it is the kind of subject where you have to learn everything off by heart or is there some serious problem solving skills involved (( unfortunately I'm the kind of person that loves to be able to read and study a topic and answer straightforward but Im not good at problem solving or thinking outside of the box )) . Is it really difficult . Will I be able to achieve an a1 or a2 ?

I don't know if it's just the way it's taught in my school, but Chemistry was very overwhelming at the start for me. TBH even at this stage (6th year) I'm still hanging in there hoping that things will start making sense soon.

This said, a B1/A2 is definitely possible by perfect rote learning. However if you just rote learn there'll be usually 1 part per long question that you'll be completely unable to answer.

To give you an example of how difficult I find chemistry, I own three Chemistry books. (I find most textbooks are quite poorly written and do not provide for self-directed learning). I have watched some KhanAcademy videos up to 3 times. Getting help from the internet is often hindered by the fact that the LC chemistry course is different to the American high school courses.

Why am I persisting? Because I would like to be good at Chemistry and I want to truly understand it, and I hate learning stuff that I don't understand, because I will forget it if I don't understand it. Chemistry is the first subject that has made me feel dumb and I want to beat it.

This is just me. Please don't let me put you off the subject. Wait for some replies from other people.


Edit: here's some interesting threads with other people's opinions.

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2056575828/1/

http://touch.boards.ie/thread/2055821273/1

Corkgirl18

Apple in disguise wrote: »

I am currently in transition year and I want to choose chemistry as a subject but ive heard absolutely terrible comments about how difficult it is . I was just wondering if it is the kind of subject where you have to learn everything off by heart or is there some serious problem solving skills involved (( unfortunately I'm the kind of person that loves to be able to read and study a topic and answer straightforward but Im not good at problem solving or thinking outside of the box )) . Is it really difficult . Will I be able to achieve an a1 or a2 ?

Hi there, I'm in my final year of college and teaching 5th year chemistry at the moment. Its a challenging subject in general but its also very interesting. There is a lot of theory and learning in the subject e.g. learning about the history of the atom and the formation of the periodic table but there is also a lot of concepts that you need to understand. The calculations can be difficult but are manageable.
The main thing is that it is not a subject like Business for example that you learn off reams of information for. You NEED to be able to understand the concepts to do well in it. Parts of the course overlap with Physics.
If you work hard at it, you'll do fine.