How to prepare for 9701 Paper 5.

This is the website that would definitely help you a lot to prepare for experiments
that you are unfamiliar.

http://www.practicalchemistry.org/experiments/advanced/category.html

There are different types of experiments in this website with complete procedure to
carry them out. My advice is not to spend too much time studying paper 5. The
examiner is not confined to set question that you have carried out. In those novel
cases, sufficient information will be provided to help you to plan them. What the
examiner is expecting you to know is whether your chemistry knowledge is sound.

• If a planning exercise asks you to produce a plan with the minimum number of
steps – do as it says! Adding extra detail and including irrelevant extra steps
will lose marks.
• Many planning exercises require you to produce a logical sequence of steps –
the order of the steps will be important. To avoid too many corrections and
alterations you may find it helpful to try to get the order of steps worked out
very briefly in rough before writing your plan on your answer paper.

One of the experiment I could recall is to find the % of copper carbonate in

malachite. There are many ways to do this. By thermal decomposition or by
reacting with acid. You need to decide which physical quantity you want to
measure. In thermal decomposition, you may measure the amount of carbon
dioxide produced by mass difference, or collecting the volume of carbon dioxide
produced by water displacement. Many students planned the experiment by
measuring both the mass of the malachite decomposed and collecting the volume
of carbon dioxide. This is redundant. Give only one option.

For analysis and evaluation question, you must be able to handle data skillfully as a
chemist. You must extract information needed from the raw data. You must read
the question very carefully so that you do not miss out any important key
information that is derived from the raw data.

You have to understand the reaction that is taking place. For example, in May 2008
paper 5 question no. 2

CuCO3.Cu(OH)2.x H2O(s) 2CuO(s) + CO2(g) + (x+1)H2O(g)

The mass lost in the reaction is not merely water or carbon dioxide but both carbon dioxide and
water. Pay attention to the physical state of carbon dioxide and water. Both carbon dioxide and
water are gases in this reaction. The mass loss must therefore be carbon dioxide and water.
Another question in May 2009 No. 2, the question asked for determining the solubility of the
sodium iodide. The solubility S must be calculated from the relationship given in the question.

There must be a column S in your table. The graph is a plot of S against the
temperature of the saturated solution.

(Only 10 % of the students could plot the graph correctly during the examination.)

My advice is that you are alert when reading the question so that you do not missed
out important information.

This year Nov 2010 No. 2, the question asked for the determination of the partition
coefficient of 1,4-butanoic acid in water and in an organic solvent. Candidates are
not aware of the two carboxylic groups that are present in 1,4- butanoic acid.
Secondly, they are unable to relate the raw data given to derive the concentration
of butanoic in two immiscible solvents. Candidates need to analyse the raw data in
a logical manner to obtain the required unknown concentration of 1,4-butanoic acid
in the two layers. The importance of writing a balanced chemical equations and the
basic definition of the physical quantity such as mole and concentration cannot be
overemphasized.