<p>Can you send me a link of where I can sign up???</p>
<p>Eff man. Chapter 1 of atkins gets so intense.</p>
<p>Which atkins do you use to study???</p>
<p>adkins is mit’s freshman 101 chem textbook, if it was easy, then mit is not worth much.</p>
<p>Try reading his physical chemistry textbook 
The concepts aren’t even that hard; they’re just not explained well.</p>
<p>@jelly765 Im using Chemical Principles by Atkins, and like huehue said, It doesn’t really matter that much guys… Just start studying</p>
<p>Btw, what are the major topics covered in the local exam section?</p>
<p>@ohmyblast
I’m pretty sure you’re talking about me, and btw it was my first time at camp. </p>
<p>PLEASE DON’T USE ATKINS.
PLEASE. if you have taken AP chem and did very well, skip the general chem. Nothing much on the USNCO exam isn’t covered in AP chem. If you come across something you don’t know though, just look it up. Don’t waste your time on reading a gen chem book. Just work exercises for gen chem. Orgo on the other hand, you need to read in order to learn, then work exercises to solidify knowledge.
ORGANIC CHEMISTRY: USE KLEIN. Even one of our mentors from camp said Klein was the best book for self study since it’s so easy to understand and interesting. She uses Klein in her own organic chemistry class.
Don’t use Carey. However, when you get into camp, they send you Carey and you have to read about 21 chapters of the book and work the assigned exercises in one month. It’s actually not bad if you do a chapter a day and if you already learned organic chemistry previously, it’s a breeze. If you haven’t, it’s just impossible to learn organic chem for the first time in ONE month.</p>
<p>Carey is terrible</p>
<p>To make top 50, do you really need to study orgo ?</p>
<p>for sure, they teach orgo even in little ap chem.</p>
<p>I’ve been studying for it a little over the summer, and the results weren’t bad at all. I suggest studying for AP chem first and then the chem olympiad. (Everything on chem ap is included in the olympiad, anyways. It won’t be a waste of time, I promise.)</p>
<p>I did fairly well on Part I and Part II, but Part III just boggles my mind.
How do I ever prepare for lab experiments?!?!??!! Any advices? PLEASE!!!</p>
<p>^internships at labs.</p>
<p>@Sophia7X So you don’t think I should ready Atkins at all? How much did you study to make the camp, and what do you think I should do to at least make top 50? Im studying IB chem right now in my senior year and I want to make top 50. :P</p>
<p>Do you need to read Klein for the national exam or the organic chemistry covered in zumdahl/Atkins Chemical Principles suffice? Also does anyone know what scores you need to make the top 150/50 cutoffs?</p>
<p>in-depth organic is only necessary if you wish to do well at camp. You do need to read some of the chapters in Carey or Klein - look at Q#8 on the free response to see what appears.</p>
<p>I actually recommend reading Atkins: Quest for Insight…even if it isn’t the best book. Just do all the released tests a couple times, review stuff you aren’t familiar with using wikipedia/google. and don’t stress on labs, they do not matter much at all…</p>
<p>@HarveyMuddLove , what chapters in CAREy do you reccomend reading, because thats the book that I have currently ?</p>
<p>@Phoenix
When I made camp, they sent us Carey 9th edition + a sheet of recommended chapters + exercises. It was basically every chapter except the biochemistry chapters plus some exercises. </p>
<p>Here’s what I did last year:</p>
<p>I studied up to spectroscopy in Klein’s organic chemistry then took the national exam. I was NOT expecting spectroscopy to be in the national exam as it never has been on one, but luckily for me, last year had Fluorine-19 NMR in the free response. (I don’t think the FRQ for 2013 is up on the ACS website, is it?). Anyway, I recommend getting as much orgo in as possible because it looks like they are increasing the orgo stuff. I recommend studying at least the following topics: Subsitution (SN1,SN2), elimination (E1,E2), acid base chemistry, stereoisomer ism, alkanes, addition reactions of alkenes, reactions of alkynes, IR Spec, Mass Spec, and 1H NMR.</p>
<p>If you have time, go beyond that. Those chapters can easily be located in any orgo text and usually are in the first half of the book. After you make camp, you will have need to learn all of orgo (ie complete an entire textbook + “advanced topics” specified by them, minus the biochemistry chapters</p>
<p>Alright, thx @ Sophia !!! </p>
<p>Im almost done with Atkins, and then Ill study those topics that you mentioned in orgo. After that, Ill just do a bunch of practice tests, and that should be enough to at least make top 50 right?</p>
<p>@Phoenix55555</p>
<p>How did you study atkins? I’m in a bit of a dilemma. I took AP Chem last year, and then didn’t touch my chem book over the summer (yeah, i know). This year, I picked up an atkins book, but i’m totally unsure of how to study it. I mean, I did most of this last year, so just reading it chapter to chapter seems very not needed and repetitive to me. But then when I go to do the practice problems, I don’t fully remember how to do everything in them. I’m sort of stuck in the middle. Advice?</p>
<p>Has anyone used Wade for learning organic chem? If so, what’s your opinion about it?</p>