Chemistry Hint 4: Answers Are Not Convoluted
Remember, on the SAT II Chemistry test you're not allowed to use a calculator, and you're only given, on average, 42 seconds to answer each question. If you're working on a problem and you find yourself writing out lines and lines of conversions as you try to figure out the answer, you're probably not on the right track. These questions are designed in such a way that if you understand what you're being asked, you will need at most a couple of simple calculations to get the right answer.
Chemistry Hint 5: Eliminate Wrong Answers
In the general hints above, Know How to Guess, we explained the virtues of eliminating answers you know to be wrong and taking a guess. For most questions, there will be at least one or two answer choices you can eliminate. There are also certain styles of question that lend themselves to particular process-of-elimination methods.
Classification Questions
The weakness of classification questions is that the same five answer choices apply to several questions. Invariably, some of these answer choices will be tempting for some questions but not for others.
|
Questions 1–3 relate to the following molecules:
|
(A) |
Sugar |
|
(B) |
Ammonia |
|
(C) |
Hydrochloric acid |
|
(D) |
Carbon dioxide |
|
(E) |
Acetic acid |
|
|
| 1. |
An organic solid with a low melting point |
|
|
| 2. |
Acts as a weak base when bubbled into pure water |
|
|
| 3. |
Would be the best choice of the above to neutralize excess NaOH | |
For instance, if you're pretty sure that ammonia, hydrochloric acid, and acetic acid are not organic solids, just from your general knowledge of chemistry, then you can eliminate B, C, and E. This helps you narrow the answer choices down to two, and if you have to guess, you have a 50-50 chance of choosing the correct answer.
Another point that may help you guess in a is that you’ll rarely find the same answer choice being correct for two different questions. True, the directions for classification questions explicitly state that an answer choice “may be used once, more than once, or not at all,” but on the whole, the ETS people shy away from the “more than once” possibility. This is by no means a sure bet, but if you're trying to eliminate answers, you might want to eliminate those choices that you’ve already used on other questions in the same set.
If you’re wondering, the answers to the above questions are 1 A, 2 B, and 3 C.
“EXCEPT”-Type Questions
“EXCEPT” questions are five-choice multiple-choice questions that contain a bunch of right answers and one wrong answer. The questions always contain an all-caps EXCEPT, LEAST, or some other similar word. Even if you aren't sure of the answer, you should be able to identify one or two of the answer choices as being true statements and eliminate them.
