***May 2015 - Chemistry***

SHOOT THE EQUATION WASN’T BALANCED?! There goes my score…

@alldaboston If catalysts had no effect on the reaction mechanism, they would be useless. The definition of a catalyst is:
for a given reaction, any substance that provides an alternate reaction pathway with a lower activation energy

Was that the one with 0.1 moles of something and 0.4 moles of something else? Or is that another question?

Same…looks like I’ll have to retake this one in June

I think it was that one^

@1golfer1 - Catalysts provide an alternate reaction pathway with a lower activation energy, but they don’t alter the reaction mechanism. I think you’re confusing the two – they’re not the same.

@1golfer1 reaction mechanisms have to match with the rate law. Catalysts can’t alter the mechanism bc then they’d be part of the rate law, but they’re not.

“In chemistry, a reaction mechanism is the step by step sequence of elementary reactions by which overall chemical change occurs.”
When determining the rate law for a reaction, the catalyst will always be substituted out.

I guess we are just going to have to wait until scores, there’s no point debating anymore lol

Even when scores come out you won’t know…

@baller55 Well… I know that catalysts change the mechanism, so if my score is not 800 it’s because of some other question(s) that I thought I answered correctly. Currently I know I answered two wrong, one a careless error and the other was a “strategic guess” (I knew fractional distillation was probably the answer to one of the questions, so I tried it twice).

Yea I think that one

@1golfer1 what do you think the curve is

I mean generally, @baller55 not on any one question

What?

@ baller55 Going off raw scores… (Remember, CB says that an 800 is only the 91st percentile)
80 - 85: 800
79: 790, Possibly 800
78: 790
77: 770

If that’s the curve I got >780!! Praying

How awful should I feel like I did on this to make cancelling my scores worth it? I also took the math 2 and there’s still a chance I got an 800 on it, but my chemistry score will most likely be horrendous…

@Kat2016 If you did very well on math, I’d just keep it. Very few colleges don’t allow score choice for subject tests.

I have a better question: if I have to submit all tests, would it look bad if my first attempt at chemistry is awful (I’m assuming mid 600s) but then I improve (hopefully to 770+) when I retake in fall?