Leaving Cert Chemistry, Higher level - recommended textbook

Artick89

Thanks to cianclarke and Naikon for helping me choose a textbook to assist me in giving grinds in Higher level Maths. I bought the OD Morris books and I may buy the 'Less Stress, More Success' books later.

I am also due to start giving grinds in Leaving Cert Chemistry, Higher level. And again, I am hoping that you can help me choose a textbook.

My student is using the textbook by Declan Kennedy. is this a good one? Does anyone have a preference for another textbook?

And assuming that there are 'Less Stress, More Success' books for Leaving Cert Chemistry, Higher level, would anyone recommend that I get them instead. Or in addition to a book like Kennedy's?

Thanks

jaydigity

Hello,
Chemistry Live by Declan Kenedy is a reasonable textboook. I've no experience of any other chemistry books. In my opinion, this textbook could be a lot better.
Aspects of the course need to be explained, the book on it's own wouldn't suffice. I suppose though, that as you're giving grinds it won't really be a problem
It has some good worked out examples, highlights important definations and it's work book has some good questions to challenge the student (here are the good
points!!)

oRlyYaRly

There's two that I know of, Understanding Chemistry and Chemistry Live and tbh they both suck.

XchampagneX

Chemistry Live is much better than Understanding Chemistry IMO! It explains the experiments and uses the language that you're supposed to use in the exam!

clickclick

XchampagneX wrote:

Chemistry Live is much better than Understanding Chemistry IMO! It explains the experiments and uses the language that you're supposed to use in the exam!

i find the opposite, when we do the experiments, we have to spend about ten minutes going through the experiments to clarify what exactly were supposed to do.

BogWog

Anyone know where you can download Chemistry Live by Declan Kennedy.

degausserxo

With the exception of one Less Stress book, they're crap. They condense the course but don't make it any easier to learn, and the chemistry one in particular jumps around the place a lot. Chemistry Live is really fluffy aswell, if you actually took out the stuff you need in it the book would only be about a quarter of the size, but it's good for experiments and the mathsy stuff none the less. Best bet is to go through Chemistry Live and make notes. It's what I've been doing the past year and a bit and it's gotten me straight A's in the subject.

Fad

Chemistry Live, is grand, get that.

As for a revision book, get Rapid Revision Chemistry if you need one, they're very good/

rainbowtrout

I teach and give grinds in Chemistry and have always used Chemistry Live, I've never had any problems with it, it has everything in it you need to know

cautioner

I find Chemistry Live confusing as hell. Experiments are laid out confusingly, with too many digressions. My own pet hate is the constant stream of sentences ending in a bracketed (X is not included in your course, and as such, shall not be discussed any further). Doesn't seem like anything but the sheer volume of those little clarifications actually piss me off.
I've had 2 chemistry teachers in the last year - the first one ignored the book completely and gace us the odd photocopy of her own notes. She was an effective enough teacher. We're a smart class and we had a nice friendly bit of competition to get the A's in class tests.
The second teacher reads the book briskly in class and all of us are equally lost. It's depressing. None of us know what context to put any information in. I know this can't be blamed solely on the book, more the teacher's over-reliance on it but still... such hatred for this once-enjoyed subject...

Piste

I really like those clarifications! I'll read and explanation an think "but..." and then bam, right there will be the answer to the question I was about to ask.

johnjames30

I use Chemistry Live and find it excellent. It is helpful if you also get the Rapid Revision book and Exam Edge which gives the answers to all the past papers under the headings of each chapter.

leg

My advice download the sylabus none of the books have everything you need to know for it in them.
After that Chemistry Live by declan Kennedy is the best with the rapid revision by him also.
And exam papers and marking schemes are the most importnat thing to learn