Taking up chemistry now to sit the exam in June

dinner's ready!

Hi,
to cut a long story short basically I messed up with my CAO choice, don't like my course and am dropping out.
Anyway, some of the other courses I am looking at have chemistry as a requirement, and I'm considering taking up the subject now and sitting the exam in June.
I'm just wondering as a student of chemistry do you reckon I will have enough time to cover the course by June? I would be aiming for a minimum HC3.
I know that chemistry is quite a heavy course, but I think I might possibly manage it with grinds and without the burden of 6 other subjects etc.
What do you think? All opinions appreciated, thanks!

bythewoods

Yeah, I think that's definitely possible if you're doing no other subjects. Few grinds and the likes, you should be able to fly it.

The only problem is the mandatory experiments- I have no idea how you'd manage them...
You could just learn them without doing them I guess.

Fringe

Definitely possible if you are only doing one subject. If I were you, I'd focus a lot on organic chemistry because 3 questions will definitely come up on it and it's really easy too. There's also a definite organic chemistry experiment question too.

dinner's ready!

Ok, cool. So what's the story with these mandatory experiments, is there many of them?

If you're devoting all your time to it then it's definitely possible. They're are 28 mandatory experiments, you don't actually need to do them, just learn them off.

Fad

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

They're are 28 mandatory experiments, you don't actually need to do them, just learn them off.

Dont you have to have a teacher sign off or something that you actually did them, kinda of the opinion that MANDATORY has some sort of meaning.

Fad

Fad wrote: »

Dont you have to have a teacher sign off or something that you actually did them, kinda of the opinion that MANDATORY has some sort of meaning.

Well I assume MANDATORY means that you have to study and know them, as they're on the syllabus. The teacher doesn't have to sign off on anything regarding the experiments. The only way someone could be caught with not having done the experiments is if an inspector goes to their school, and checks their lab copy (which should be left in school) to see they have nothing done. But the person who asked the question won't be studying it in school, thus, that won't happen.

Fad

-JammyDodger- wrote: »

Well I assume MANDATORY means that you have to study and know them, as they're on the syllabus. The teacher doesn't have to sign off on anything regarding the experiments. The only way someone could be caught with not having done the experiments is if an inspector goes to their school, and checks their lab copy (which should be left in school) to see they have nothing done. But the person who asked the question won't be studying it in school, thus, that won't happen.

Well theyd be sitting the exam as an external candidate so i'd imagine they'd have to show that they did the experiments.

Fad

Fad wrote: »

Well theyd be sitting the exam as an external candidate so i'd imagine they'd have to show that they did the experiments.

Yah maybe so. I honestly don't know, but afaik I don't believe that there is anything for the teacher to sign off on. The best thing for the poster to do would be to contact a school and enquire.

bythewoods

I remember hearing about a day in NUI Maynooth where all the LC Physics experiments were demonstrated for people.
Possibly, or maybe I'm just imagining this.

There might be a similar chemistry one or something.
Maybe.

We left out a few of the experiments last year.. meh.
We were inspected in 5th year or the start of 6th year or something and after that we all completely stopped writing them out.
Which is apparently BAD. I'm now writing them all up. Eugh.

rainbowtrout

bythewoods wrote: »

I remember hearing about a day in NUI Maynooth where all the LC Physics experiments were demonstrated for people.
Possibly, or maybe I'm just imagining this.

There might be a similar chemistry one or something.
Maybe.

We left out a few of the experiments last year.. meh.
We were inspected in 5th year or the start of 6th year or something and after that we all completely stopped writing them out.
Which is apparently BAD. I'm now writing them all up. Eugh.

There is a chemistry day in maynooth, it's on in january usually. AFAIK the places get booked up fairly quickly, i've had a few students go to it and they've said it was well worth it.

This was about last years practicals day:

http://communications.nuim.ie/260907.shtml

Piste

Can this chemistry day be used as a substitute for people doing the Chemiisry course with no practicals?

Fad

rainbowtrout wrote: »

There is a chemistry day in maynooth, it's on in january usually. AFAIK the places get booked up fairly quickly, i've had a few students go to it and they've said it was well worth it.

Any idea who to contact for this (and the Physics one) wouldnt mind getting to redo(/actually do the mechanics ones) my experiments.

rainbowtrout

Piste wrote: »

Can this chemistry day be used as a substitute for people doing the Chemiisry course with no practicals?

I don't see why not, i taught an external student outside school last year who went to that, granted practicals are meant to be written up, but again checks are few and far between.

Fad wrote: »

Any idea who to contact for this (and the Physics one) wouldnt mind getting to redo(/actually do the mechanics ones) my experiments.

i put the link in the previous post - there were a couple of numbers on the webpage.

Fad

rainbowtrout wrote: »

i put the link in the previous post - there were a couple of numbers on the webpage.

Thanks very much

cautioner

Hmph. Friend of mine is repeating 5th year this year because he decided he wanted to take up Chemistry and do Medicine. Teacher told him he simply couldn't take it on for 6th year because of the experiments. He wouldn't be best pleased to learn he could've just gone to a crash course in one day...

smndly

Theres 4 or 5 people employed by the department to check have students done their experiments and written them up. If they found that you havent you can still do the exam but they wont mark your paper.

dfx-

Not doing the routine lab work that the mandatory experiments require is detrimental to joining a course that has chemistry as a requirement, I would've thought.

I know you can get the points and the requirement, but I was supervising a first year college lab of HC chemistry students, some of whom, despite this, had never seen or done a titration.

andyman

You don't get any marks for the experiments like you did at Junior Science, the mandatory experiments are those that could potentially be asked in the exam I thought.