DESCRIPTION OF CONTENTS
The article is available in the bi-monthly magazine for teachers of chemistry “Chemistry in the School” (‘Chemia w Szkole’)
This is a magazine for chemistry teachers of all types of schools and teachers and students of chemistry. It contains materials on various topics to help teachers improve their teaching of chemistry. It has been available on the publishing market since 1954.
The journal publishes:
- Methodological and didactic solutions to facilitate the proper implementation of the new curriculum and prepare students for final examinations and tests in chemistry at the end of high school;
- practical tips for chemistry experiments and safety in the classroom chemistry;
- Information about the most important achievements of chemistry in the last century;
- tasks, tests, and quizzes with answer keys of Polish and international chemical Olympiads and chemical national competitions for students of junior secondary schools and upper secondary schools;
- Conference Reports written and published by educators of chemistry and teacher trainers, highlighting new educational initiatives;
- news publications: books, popular science books and publications appearing in international journals.
REVIEWER’S COMMENTS ON THE PUBLICATION
"Repetitive exercises for gymnasium chemistry exam" by Iwona Paleska, is a set of 26 exercises from chemistry area, which may be helpful for students who are learning for the nature part of gymnasium exam.
Exercises included in this article are very similar to the exam questions, which actually appear in the chemistry related part of the exam and cover both inorganic and organic chemistry.
Following topics can be found by students in described article: percentage concentration, valence, allotropy, chemical properties of inorganic and organic compounds, precipitation of sludge, esterification, stoichiometry, chemical bonds, types of chemical reactions, reaction yield, reaction equations of compounds receiving, neutralization reactions, the construction of hydrocarbon molecules, solubility, alcohols, hydrocarbons, carboxylic acids (including fatty acids), soaps, saccharides and proteins.
Various schemas of exercises are included in this publication. For instance there are calculation tasks, true-and-false questions, exercises concerning description of physical and chemical properties of chemical compounds, and some tasks related to experiments observation. Just like at the gymnasium exam, there are multiple choice questions, where student has to select one correct answer from among four listed suggestions. Questions don’t exceed gymnasium teaching program level and concern chemical issues which are essential for students. Tasks and exercises included in the publication may be useful for chemistry teachers while giving repetitive lessons or preparing mock exam before the actual gymnasium exam.
However, in my opinion, it’s useless for students who want to check their knowledge, because answers and exercise solutions haven’t been included in this publication. Even if student solves some exercises, he can’t be sure whether his solution is correct. Therefore students are not able to use this publication without teachers support. Student can’t draw conclusions from possible mistakes, because he is not able to detect his mistakes on his own.
In summary, the publication is dedicated only for teachers who teach chemistry in gymnasium, nevertheless I would rate this article as useful.
Reviewed by Monika Smaga
