1. Always READ your exam paper, carefully.
2. Attempt all the questions, based on their weightage. Before answering, check whether you will score 1, 2, 3 or 5 marks, and answer accordingly. For instance, if it’s a one-mark question, don’t write an entire page!
Sometimes, a question can have sub-parts, too. So, be careful that you answer all the parts and not lose out on any mark.
3. Chemistry is incomplete without chemical reactions! So, while writing chemical reactions in your answers, check if they are balanced or not.
Remember: In chemical reactions we write the reactants on the left-hand side, products on the right-hand side and the physical states of the reactants and the products in brackets as (s) for solid, (l) for liquid, (aq )for aqueous and (g) for gaseous.
The reaction conditions such as temperature, pressure and catalysts etc are written above and/ or below the arrow in the equation.
4. Learn the chemical formulae and names of all the important chemicals from the syllabus.
Top exam mistakes in chemistry!
5. Practice IUPAC nomenclature (International Union For Pure and Applied Chemistry) of the organic compounds thoroughly, as you can become a master of writing IUPAC names only by practice.
Sometimes a question may arise in which the IUPAC name of an organic compound is given and you have to draw its structure. So, practice drawing the structures of organic compounds when their IUPAC name is given.
6. From the chapter 'Acids, bases and salts', learn all the reaction of how acids and bases react differently with different reagents.
Focus on how acids and bases are identified using different indicators such as methyl orange, phenolphthalein, onion and vanilla etc.
