Terms Vs. Concepts
TERMS
Chemistry is a bit like a foreign language and in many ways should be studied as such. In order to understand what takes place in a Spanish class you need to develop a "reasonable" Spanish vocabulary. Discussions in the Spanish classroom begin to make sense only if you know the meanings of several commonly used words. Chemistry is no different. To understand it you need to know the meaning of several words (terms). These words may have different meanings that they have in your general vocabulary. Thus a list of terms and their meanings are provided in this on-line study guide. You will also have to learn the meaning of several symbols. In chapter 1 there are element symbols. In later chapters the element symbols will be combined to give the symbols for compounds, both as chemical formulas and as structural formulas.
CONCEPTS
Concepts are items that you should be able to "explain". Sometimes a concept and a term will be the same word. As a "term" you only need to know its meaning. As a concept you should be able to explain the concept and know how it relates to other concepts in the same chapters. Some concepts will be questions to answer or activites to perform (name compounds, do numerical calculations, etc.). Generally speaking, a concept involves knowing more about an item than its simple definition.
CHAPTER QUESTIONS
A series of questions will be assigned from the end of each chapter in your textbook. These questions usually:
a. cover topics that are not covered in the concepts,
b. cover items that need additional reinforcement,
c. are questions that are assigned because they resemble questions that may appear on hour exams.
I have tried to pick questions that do not provide "too much" overlap with the terms and concepts given in this study guide. Generally the questions will provide good practice for answering exam questions, even if the actual exam questions are not the same as the questions at the end of the chapters.