Revision Strategy : Class 12 Chemistry

Greetings Readers

Time has been passing quickly and the year 2016 is going to end soon. Those of you in Class 12 or droppers must have wrapped up doing the syllabus and must be busy revising and improving upon your mistakes. Continuing with the series of posts on revision, today's post is about Class 12 Chemistry.

Having briefly described about the way each part of Chemistry viz. Physical,Organic and Inorganic is, I would directly come upon the particular topics with this post.

Physical Chemistry - 

Class 12th part has a lot of important chapters like Solutions,Electrochemistry ,Chemical Kinetics and even Solid state which give a lot of scope for good numerical questions,even the most calculative ones.

For these I would suggest you to be very thorough with the theory part,formulas and the typical questions that can be asked.Practice questions, see the time you are taking,improve upon your concepts. Electrochemistry has a lot of formulas, which are quite easy to forget and also to mix up or be confused in. So write them down before doing any question and proceed with the question keeping it in mind. Once you are thorough with them, you just have to do the solving part. Chemical Kinetics questions are derivation type so practice them first writing down the whole solution and once you feel comfortable, you can skip steps to increase your speed. Solid state has some typical examples to be learnt at, and also topics like telling the type of voids according to the radii ratios, so be careful with them.

Organic Chemistry - 

Class 12 is where the real organic chemistry steps in. GOC was just the ABCD(although very important) . Reaction Mechanism,Haloalkanes,Alcohols,Ethers,Aromatic Compounds,more reactions of Hydrocarbons, Aldehyde, Ketones and Carboxylic acids - Class 12 has everything to offer. Your basic focus should be on learning the mechanism, thinking and making the product yourself and matching with the answer. Avoid the mugging of A+B gives C approach as questions in NEET and AIIMS aren't that easy. You have to see through their tricks of putting the questions. Even I got deceived in two very tricky questions in NEET 2016. AIIMS Chemistry also had the best Organic Chem I had seen in two years of my preparation. So have a conceptual approach to this subject. Read your notes, practice questions from your coaching modules or books like MS Chauhan(AIPMT/AIIMS edition not the JEE one). Ask doubts, write down mistakes you can possibly do in your notes. Revise again and again so that you don't forget the reactions. The biggest problem I had was that I used to forget which reagent did what reaction. So I put special focus on that and began linking reagents with products. Similarly, you have to solve what bothers you the most. Biomolecules also has some important reactions, so do cover them and don't ignore Polymers and other parts of Chemistry in Everyday life. 2-3 very easy questions are sure to come and I don't want you to lose marks in them. Learn the important points from NCERT itself.

Inorganic Chemistry -

Now comes the 'rattu' or 'maggu' part. Coordination Chemistry and Surface Chemistry are the conceptual ones. Co-ordination Chemistry involves good questions and you need to have strong concepts regarding the nomenclature, type of hybridization and the isomerism questions especially. One the other hand, the chapters of p, d and f blocks (the PDF blocks!) are quite boring. For p-block, I can say that reactions and properties can only be learnt by writing them down once (in rough not fair) and practicing questions on the same from the modules. Do as much questions you can do, but limit yourself to the NCERT syllabus. Don't try to get too deep with these topics. For d and f block, in depth study is not required, but you must knot special points like atomic radius trend irregularity, special chemical properties, abnormal electronic configurations, comparison of elements in a single period. One trend I have been observing in the four papers of the past 2 years is that they pick some random element from f block and ask its electronic configuration. No one of us remembers and also can’t remember atomic numbers till the f-block, but there is a trick to solve these. Actually the main thing to note is that the sum of electrons is same in all the options they give so no need of atomic number at least. The difference comes in the distributions in the s-p-d-f orbitals. The options can be eliminated by simple application of Aufbau rule. Once you get the correct order of filling of electrons, the question is done. I myself didn’t know this before NEET. Observed and applied it in the paper itself! So although the pdf blocks are bulky to memorize, there are tips and tricks that can help you ace the questions. So keep looking for them.

I know this time is very crucial for those giving NEET 2017, but have patience, don't get depressed, your years of hardwork will pay if you believe in yourself. Don't get demotivated by test scores. Rather keep a watch on your mistakes and timing and battle out to imporve yourlself. Post on Biology and Physics Class 12 revision are also coming up. Boards are also coming up before NEET. So will be posting on how to maintain balance between board and NEET/AIIMS preparation too.

Till then

Bye!