Chemguide: Support for CIE A level Chemistry

This statement allows the examiners to ask you about the shapes and bond angles of other molecules similar to the ones already mentioned previously in this section.

Before you go on, you should find and read the statement in your copy of the syllabus.

There is no short-cut to this! You need to understand how to work out shapes of molecules and their bond angles, using both inorganic and organic examples, as in learning outcomes 3(c) and 3(e).

There is no substitute for understanding this. If you try to learn examples parrot-fashion, you won't be able to cope with unfamiliar cases. And CIE like to use unfamiliar examples, because it is a good test of candidates' ability.

The best way of testing yourself is to look for examples from past question papers, and make sure that you can do them by looking at the mark schemes and examiner's reports.

However, don't then waste time trying to learn these extra examples because, next time, the CIE examiners will most probably have come up with something entirely different! As I said just now, there is no real alternative to understanding this.

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Go to Chemguide Main Menu . . .

This will take you to the main part of Chemguide.