Home > Subjects > Chemistry > Level 1 > 1.4 Metals, acids, and bases > Key tips
- Subject: Chemistry
- AS: AS90640
- Level: 1
- Credits: 4
- External
Chemistry 1.4 Describe characteristic properties and reactions of metals, acids and bases
Key tips
- Show all working of your calculations.
- Use correct units in your answers with rounding to an appropriate number of significant figures.
- Create a summary sheet of all the reactions that are needed, for example, acid + base salt + water.
- Create a table showing the different metals’ reactivity to oxygen, water, or acid, including all observations that you would see.
- Pay attention in practical work! It is often easier to learn things when you have actually seen it happen, rather than just reading about it. However, if you have missed it, you can find many movies on the Internet of different reactions, although it can be time consuming looking for them.
- Create a table showing the different indicators and their colours in acid or base and how this relates to pH values.
- Find some interactive tutorials/games online to helping you to balance chemical equations.
- Only iron ‘rusts’. All other metals corrode or oxidise.
- Use chemical terminology at all times and avoid giving human emotions to inanimate objects.
- don’t say ‘Calcium wants to react more than aluminium’ – instead, say ‘Calcium metal is more reactive than aluminium metal’
- don’t say ‘LPG needs oxygen to breathe or feed’ – instead, say ‘LPG (a fuel) requires oxygen for combustion’.
