36-Week WAEC Revision Programme — Chemistry
September to the May WAEC sitting. SS3 is not a year of new material so much as a year of pressure on material already met, so this is not a course to work through from the beginning — it is a testing programme. Each week you answer cold, work the ones you got wrong, and have the AI explain why you got them wrong. Anything you turn out never to have been taught, you learn there and then, and meet again three weeks later.
A week is one block of the syllabus and the prompts that cover it. You are not meant to do all of them: answer the questions first, and let what you get wrong decide which of the rest you need. Fifteen or twenty minutes a subject is a real week's work — nine subjects do not fit any other way.
Every week, in this order
Start with the questions, not the explanation. The first two steps are in every week; a purpose-written mistake or pitfalls prompt appears in about half of them, and where it does not, your own wrong answers are the material for step three.
- 1. Retrieve — Answer cold, with nothing in front of you. Wrong answers are the point — they show you where the week's work is.
- 2. Drill — Work the ones you missed properly, showing every step, so you and the AI can both see where it went wrong.
- 3. Explain my error — Ask why your answer was wrong, not just what the right one is. Where the week offers a Spot My Mistake or WAEC Pitfalls prompt, use it.
- 4. Teach me — Only if the error turns out to be something you were never taught. Then come back and retrieve it again.
Fundamentals
↑ Jump to week- Week 1
- Quiz me: Converting between mass, moles, volume and particles
- Quiz me: The trends across a period
- Practice set: Percentage yield and percentage purity
- Exam practice: Empirical and molecular formula from composition
- Calculation practice: Multi-step stoichiometry problems
- Practice set: The characteristic chemistry of Groups 1, 2, 7 and 0
- Exam practice: The transition elements and their distinguishing features
- Calculation practice: Predicting formulae and properties from position in the table
- Explain back: Limiting reagent problems, and how to spot the limit
- Spot my mistake: Forgetting to balance the equation before using mole ratios
- Spot my mistake: Predicting a trend in the wrong direction
- Real-life Nigeria: Stoichiometry in a Nigerian industrial context
- Explain back: The trends down a group
- Real-life Nigeria: Using the table to answer an unseen question
- Teach me: The mole as the bridge between mass and particles
- Teach me: The structure of the periodic table and its blocks
- Week 2
- Quiz me: Atomic number, mass number and isotopes
- Practice set: Writing s, p and d electron configurations
- Exam practice: The configuration of an ion compared with that of its atom
- Calculation practice: Calculating relative atomic mass from isotopic data
- Spot my mistake: Filling the 3d sublevel before the 4s
- Explain back: The filling of energy levels and sublevels
- Real-life Nigeria: Configuration and an element's position in the table
- Project task: Building a configuration chart for the first thirty elements
- Chemistry at work: How spectra reveal electronic structure
- Teach me: The subatomic particles and the structure of the atom
- Week 3
- Quiz me: The trend in atomic and in ionic radius
- Practice set: The trend in electronegativity
- Exam practice: The trend in metallic character and in oxide acidity
- Calculation practice: Comparing two elements using their trend data
- Spot my mistake: Explaining a group trend by nuclear charge alone
- Explain back: The trend in ionisation energy
- Real-life Nigeria: Predicting the chemistry of an unfamiliar element
- Project task: Plotting a periodic property against atomic number
- Chemistry at work: Periodicity in the design of new materials
- Teach me: What periodicity means
- Week 4
- Quiz me: Ionic bonding and the compounds it produces
- Practice set: Dative covalent bonding and where it occurs
- Exam practice: Metallic bonding and hydrogen bonding
- Calculation practice: Predicting bond type from electronegativity difference
- Spot my mistake: Describing a polar covalent bond as ionic
- Explain back: Covalent bonding, polar and non-polar
- Real-life Nigeria: Bond type and the physical properties that follow from it
- Project task: Classifying ten given substances by bond type
- Chemistry at work: Bonding and the strength of engineering materials
- Teach me: Why a bond forms, and what holds it together
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 5
- Quiz me: Molar mass and how it is obtained
- Practice set: Converting between mass, moles and particles
- Exam practice: Concentration expressed in moles per cubic decimetre
- Calculation practice: Multi-step mole conversions
- Spot my mistake: Using molar volume for a substance that is not a gas
- Explain back: The molar volume of a gas at s.t.p.
- Real-life Nigeria: The mole in laboratory and industrial measurement
- Project task: Measuring out one mole of three different substances
- Chemistry at work: Why the mole underpins all quantitative chemistry
- Teach me: The mole and the Avogadro constant
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 6
- Quiz me: Balancing equations of increasing difficulty
- Practice set: Mass-to-mass calculations
- Exam practice: Mass-to-volume and volume-to-volume calculations
- Calculation practice: Limiting reagent and percentage yield calculations
- Spot my mistake: Reading a mole ratio off an unbalanced equation
- Explain back: The mole ratio and how it is read
- Real-life Nigeria: Stoichiometry in scaling up a reaction
- Project task: Verifying a stoichiometric ratio by experiment
- Chemistry at work: Stoichiometry in Nigerian chemical manufacturing
- Teach me: What a balanced equation tells you quantitatively
Revisit from three weeks ago
Physical Chemistry
↑ Jump to week- Week 7
- Quiz me: The standard electrode potential and what it measures
- Quiz me: The rate equation and the order of a reaction
- Practice set: Predicting from electrode potentials whether a reaction occurs
- Exam practice: Calculating the e.m.f. of a cell
- Calculation practice: Applying Faraday's laws to an electrolysis calculation
- Practice set: The rate constant and its units
- Exam practice: The effect of temperature and the Arrhenius relationship
- Calculation practice: Calculating the rate constant from given data
- Spot my mistake: Reversing the sign of a half-cell potential wrongly
- Spot my mistake: Assuming the order matches the stoichiometric coefficient
- Explain back: The electrochemical series and the uses made of it
- Real-life Nigeria: The Daniell cell and the dry cell
- Chemistry at work: Electrolysis in Nigerian aluminium and chlorine production
- Explain back: Determining the order from experimental data
- Real-life Nigeria: Reaction mechanisms and the rate-determining step
- Teach me: The electrochemical cell, and how it differs from an electrolytic one
- Teach me: Rate of reaction defined and measured
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 8
- Quiz me: Kc and Kp, and the difference between them
- Quiz me: Enthalpies of formation, combustion and neutralisation
- Practice set: Calculating Kc from equilibrium concentrations
- Exam practice: Applying Le Chatelier's principle to industrial processes
- Calculation practice: Finding an equilibrium concentration from K
- Practice set: Hess's law and the energy cycle
- Exam practice: Lattice energy and the Born-Haber cycle
- Calculation practice: Calculating enthalpy change from enthalpies of formation
- Spot my mistake: Including a pure solid in an equilibrium expression
- Spot my mistake: Using bond enthalpies for a reaction involving liquids
- Explain back: What the magnitude of K tells you
- Real-life Nigeria: Equilibrium in the manufacture of ammonia and sulphuric acid
- Explain back: Bond enthalpy and its use in estimating heat of reaction
- Real-life Nigeria: Entropy and the feasibility of a reaction
- Chemistry at work: Thermochemistry in fuel selection for Nigerian industry
- Teach me: The equilibrium constant and how it is written
- Teach me: Standard conditions and standard enthalpy changes
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 9
- Quiz me: Rapid recall across kinetics, equilibrium and energetics
- Quiz me: Boyle's law, Charles's law and the pressure law
- Practice set: A mixed set on the gas laws and the mole concept
- Exam practice: Past-question physical chemistry problems
- Calculation practice: The physical chemistry calculations that carry the most marks
- Practice set: Dalton's law of partial pressures
- Exam practice: Graham's law of diffusion
- Calculation practice: Solving an ideal gas equation problem
- Spot my mistake: The physical chemistry errors examiners see most often
- Spot my mistake: Using pressure in millimetres of mercury with R in SI units
- Explain back: Structuring an answer on rates and equilibrium
- Real-life Nigeria: Interpreting a graph in a physical chemistry question
- Chemistry at work: The physical chemistry formulae worth memorising
- Explain back: The combined gas equation and the ideal gas equation
- Real-life Nigeria: The assumptions of the kinetic theory of gases
- Project task: Measuring the molar volume of a gas experimentally
- Chemistry at work: Gas law calculations in Nigerian industry
- Teach me: The physical chemistry topics WAEC examines most
- Teach me: The variables that define the state of a gas
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 10
- Quiz me: The factors that affect the solubility of a solute
- Practice set: Reading values and crystallisation from a curve
- Exam practice: Solubility expressed in different units
- Calculation practice: Calculating the mass crystallising out on cooling
- Spot my mistake: Reading a solubility curve without checking the units
- Explain back: The solubility curve and what it shows
- Real-life Nigeria: Fractional crystallisation and purification
- Project task: Plotting a solubility curve from my own measurements
- Chemistry at work: Solution chemistry in Nigerian pharmacy
- Teach me: Solutions, suspensions and colloids distinguished
Revisit from three weeks ago
Acids, Bases, Salts & Analysis
↑ Jump to week- Week 11
- Quiz me: The preliminary tests carried out on an unknown salt
- Quiz me: Testing for carbonate and for hydrogencarbonate
- Practice set: Identifying cations with sodium hydroxide solution
- Exam practice: Identifying cations with aqueous ammonia
- Calculation practice: Interpreting an observation table to name a cation
- Practice set: Testing for chloride, bromide and iodide
- Exam practice: Testing for nitrate and for nitrite
- Calculation practice: Deducing an anion from a set of given observations
- Spot my mistake: Adding excess reagent too early and losing a precipitate
- Spot my mistake: Reporting a sulphate result without acidifying first
- Explain back: The flame test and the colours it gives
- Real-life Nigeria: The confirmatory tests for the common cations
- Chemistry at work: Recording observations and inferences in the WAEC format
- Explain back: Testing for sulphate and for sulphite
- Real-life Nigeria: Identifying a salt from combined cation and anion tests
- Teach me: What qualitative analysis sets out to find
- Teach me: The anions the syllabus expects you to identify
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 12
- Quiz me: The correct use of the pipette and the burette
- Quiz me: Potassium permanganate as a self-indicating titrant
- Practice set: The titration curve and the equivalence point
- Exam practice: Recording and averaging concordant titres
- Calculation practice: Finding molarity from titre, volume and mole ratio
- Practice set: Iodine and thiosulphate titrations
- Exam practice: The conditions a redox titration requires
- Calculation practice: Calculating concentration from a redox titration
- Spot my mistake: Including a rough titre in the average
- Spot my mistake: Using hydrochloric acid to acidify a permanganate titration
- Explain back: Choosing the indicator for a strong-weak titration
- Real-life Nigeria: The sources of error in an acid-base titration
- Explain back: The half-equations in a permanganate titration
- Real-life Nigeria: Determining the purity of a sample by redox titration
- Chemistry at work: Redox titration in Nigerian industrial testing
- Teach me: The standard solution and the primary standard
- Teach me: What makes a titration a redox titration
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 13
- Quiz me: Strong and weak acids and bases
- Practice set: Indicators and their working ranges
- Exam practice: The titration curve for each acid-base combination
- Calculation practice: Calculating the pH of a strong acid or a strong base
- Spot my mistake: Assuming pH 7 is neutral at every temperature
- Explain back: The ionic product of water and the pH scale
- Real-life Nigeria: Buffer solutions and how they resist a change in pH
- Project task: Measuring the pH of household substances
- Chemistry at work: PH control in Nigerian food and water industries
- Teach me: The Arrhenius and the Bronsted-Lowry definitions
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 14
- Quiz me: The solubility rules for the common salts
- Practice set: Preparing a soluble salt by titration
- Exam practice: Preparing an insoluble salt by precipitation
- Calculation practice: Calculating the mass of salt obtainable
- Spot my mistake: Choosing a titration route for an insoluble salt
- Explain back: Preparing a soluble salt from an acid and a metal
- Real-life Nigeria: The salts used in Nigerian agriculture and food
- Project task: Preparing and crystallising a named salt
- Chemistry at work: Salt manufacture as an industry
- Teach me: What a salt is, and the classes salts fall into
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 15
- Quiz me: Predicting whether a salt solution is acidic or basic
- Practice set: The hydrolysis of a salt of a strong acid and a weak base
- Exam practice: The salts that do not hydrolyse, and why
- Calculation practice: Estimating the pH of a hydrolysing salt solution
- Spot my mistake: Assuming every salt solution is neutral
- Explain back: The hydrolysis of a salt of a weak acid and a strong base
- Real-life Nigeria: Hydrolysis and soil pH in Nigerian farming
- Project task: Testing the pH of several salt solutions
- Chemistry at work: Hydrolysis and the choice of fertiliser
- Teach me: What salt hydrolysis means
Revisit from three weeks ago
Organic Chemistry
↑ Jump to week- Week 16
- Quiz me: Identifying the functional group in a given structure
- Quiz me: The refinery fractions and their boiling ranges
- Practice set: The alkanoic acids and the alkanoates
- Exam practice: The amines, and why they behave as weak bases
- Calculation practice: Deducing a structure from percentage composition
- Practice set: Reforming, isomerisation and octane number
- Exam practice: The products of complete and of incomplete combustion
- Calculation practice: Calculating the heat of combustion of a fuel
- Spot my mistake: Naming a compound from the wrong functional group priority
- Spot my mistake: Assuming every fuel burns to carbon dioxide and water alone
- Explain back: The alkanols, alkanals and alkanones distinguished
- Real-life Nigeria: The tests that distinguish the functional groups
- Chemistry at work: Functional groups in Nigerian pharmaceuticals
- Explain back: Thermal and catalytic cracking compared
- Real-life Nigeria: Petrol quality and adulteration in Nigeria
- Teach me: The functional group, and why it governs behaviour
- Teach me: The composition of crude oil and of natural gas
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 17
- Quiz me: Rapid recall across the groups of the periodic table
- Quiz me: Rapid recall across the homologous series
- Practice set: A mixed set on metals, non-metals and their compounds
- Exam practice: Past-question inorganic chemistry problems
- Calculation practice: Calculations on extraction yield and composition
- Practice set: A mixed set on naming, structure and isomerism
- Exam practice: Past-question organic chemistry problems
- Calculation practice: Calculations on empirical and molecular formulae
- Spot my mistake: The inorganic chemistry errors examiners see most often
- Spot my mistake: The organic chemistry errors examiners see most often
- Explain back: Structuring an answer on extraction and manufacture
- Real-life Nigeria: The tests and observations WAEC asks you to recall
- Explain back: Structuring an answer on reaction pathways
- Real-life Nigeria: Drawing and labelling organic structures correctly
- Teach me: The inorganic topics WAEC examines most
- Teach me: The organic topics WAEC examines most
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 18
- Quiz me: Naming straight-chain and branched alkanes
- Practice set: Isomerism among the alkanes
- Exam practice: Substitution with halogens, and the mechanism in outline
- Calculation practice: Calculating the products of complete and incomplete combustion
- Spot my mistake: Writing an isomer that is really the same molecule
- Explain back: The physical properties of the alkanes and their trends
- Real-life Nigeria: The alkanes in Nigerian fuels and cooking gas
- Project task: Building models of the branched butanes and pentanes
- Chemistry at work: Alkanes as feedstock for the petrochemical industry
- Teach me: The alkanes and their general formula
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 19
- Quiz me: Naming alkenes and alkynes with position numbers
- Practice set: The addition reactions of the alkenes
- Exam practice: The test that distinguishes saturated from unsaturated
- Calculation practice: Calculating the mass of product in an addition reaction
- Spot my mistake: Predicting a substitution reaction for an alkene
- Explain back: The carbon-carbon double bond and triple bond
- Real-life Nigeria: Polymerisation of alkenes and the plastics it gives
- Project task: Building models of ethene and of ethyne
- Chemistry at work: Alkenes in the Nigerian plastics industry
- Teach me: The alkenes and alkynes and their general formulae
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 20
- Quiz me: Primary, secondary and tertiary alkanols distinguished
- Practice set: The alkanoic acids and their naming
- Exam practice: Esterification and the alkanoates
- Calculation practice: Calculating the yield of an ester
- Spot my mistake: Oxidising a tertiary alkanol in an answer
- Explain back: The oxidation of the alkanols and the products it gives
- Real-life Nigeria: Ethanol production by fermentation in Nigeria
- Project task: Preparing an ester and recording its smell
- Chemistry at work: Alcohols and acids in Nigerian food and drink industries
- Teach me: The alkanols and their naming
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 21
- Quiz me: Addition polymers and the monomers they come from
- Quiz me: Naming the simple amines
- Practice set: Naming a polymer from its monomer, and the reverse
- Exam practice: Thermoplastics and thermosetting plastics compared
- Calculation practice: Calculating the number of repeating units from molar mass
- Practice set: Proteins, their structure and the tests for them
- Exam practice: Carbohydrates and their classification
- Calculation practice: Calculating the molar mass of a simple peptide
- Spot my mistake: Describing nylon as an addition polymer
- Spot my mistake: Describing starch and cellulose as the same polymer
- Explain back: Condensation polymers and the small molecule lost
- Real-life Nigeria: The uses and properties of the common plastics
- Project task: Surveying the plastics used in my own home
- Chemistry at work: Plastic waste and the disposal problem in Nigerian cities
- Explain back: Amino acids and the peptide link
- Real-life Nigeria: The tests for protein, starch and reducing sugar
- Project task: Testing Nigerian foods for starch and for protein
- Chemistry at work: Biochemistry and food science as careers
- Teach me: Monomers, polymers and the process of polymerisation
- Teach me: The amines and their basic character
Revisit from three weeks ago
Inorganic Chemistry
↑ Jump to week- Week 22
- Quiz me: The raw materials used in soap making
- Quiz me: Natural dyes and synthetic dyes compared
- Practice set: Soapless detergents and how they differ from soap
- Exam practice: The action of soap in hard water
- Calculation practice: Calculating the yield of soap from a given mass of oil
- Practice set: The classes of dye and how each is applied
- Exam practice: Mordants and the fixing of a dye
- Calculation practice: Calculating the quantity of dye needed for a given fabric
- Spot my mistake: Expecting a detergent to fail in hard water as soap does
- Spot my mistake: Assuming every coloured substance is a dye
- Explain back: How a soap molecule lifts away dirt
- Real-life Nigeria: Local soap production in Nigeria
- Explain back: The chromophore, and why a dye is coloured
- Real-life Nigeria: Adire and indigo dyeing in Nigeria
- Teach me: The chemistry of saponification
- Teach me: The difference between a dye and a pigment
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 23
- Quiz me: The electrochemical explanation of rusting
- Quiz me: The sources of each major pollutant in Nigeria
- Practice set: The methods of preventing rust
- Exam practice: Galvanising, sacrificial protection and cathodic protection
- Calculation practice: Calculating the mass of iron lost to corrosion
- Practice set: The greenhouse gases and the warming they cause
- Exam practice: Heavy metal pollution and its effects on health
- Calculation practice: Interpreting pollutant concentration data
- Spot my mistake: Describing painting as a chemical method of rust prevention
- Spot my mistake: Treating carbon dioxide as a toxic pollutant
- Explain back: The factors that speed up rusting
- Real-life Nigeria: Corrosion of pipelines and bridges in Nigeria
- Explain back: Acid rain, its chemistry and its effects
- Real-life Nigeria: Oil spillage and remediation in the Niger Delta
- Teach me: What corrosion is, and what rusting requires
- Teach me: The pollutants that damage air, water and soil
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 24
- Quiz me: Coagulation, sedimentation and filtration
- Quiz me: Concentrating an ore before extraction
- Practice set: Ion exchange and the softening of water
- Exam practice: Distillation, reverse osmosis and desalination
- Calculation practice: Calculating the dose of a treatment chemical
- Practice set: Extraction by electrolysis, and when it is necessary
- Exam practice: The link between the reactivity series and the method used
- Calculation practice: Calculating the percentage of metal in an ore
- Spot my mistake: Assuming boiling removes every impurity from water
- Spot my mistake: Proposing carbon reduction for aluminium
- Explain back: Chlorination and the alternatives to it
- Real-life Nigeria: Sachet and bottled water quality in Nigeria
- Explain back: Reduction with carbon, and when it works
- Real-life Nigeria: Refining and purifying an extracted metal
- Project task: Mapping Nigeria's metal ore deposits
- Chemistry at work: Mining and metallurgy as careers in Nigeria
- Teach me: The stages of large-scale water treatment
- Teach me: Ores, gangue and the stages of extraction
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 25
- Quiz me: The charge fed into the blast furnace
- Practice set: The removal of impurities as slag
- Exam practice: Converting pig iron into steel
- Calculation practice: Calculating the mass of iron from a mass of haematite
- Spot my mistake: Naming coke as the substance that removes the impurities
- Explain back: The reactions at each level of the blast furnace
- Real-life Nigeria: The types of steel and the uses of each
- Project task: Researching the Ajaokuta and Delta steel plants
- Chemistry at work: The Nigerian iron and steel industry
- Teach me: The ores of iron and their composition
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 26
- Quiz me: Purifying bauxite before electrolysis
- Practice set: The properties of aluminium
- Exam practice: The amphoteric nature of aluminium oxide and hydroxide
- Calculation practice: Calculating the electricity needed to extract aluminium
- Spot my mistake: Describing aluminium oxide as purely basic
- Explain back: The electrolytic extraction of aluminium
- Real-life Nigeria: The uses of aluminium and of its alloys
- Project task: Identifying aluminium articles in daily Nigerian use
- Chemistry at work: Aluminium smelting and the power it demands
- Teach me: The occurrence of aluminium and the ore bauxite
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 27
- Quiz me: The trends in physical properties down the group
- Quiz me: The preparation and properties of sulphur dioxide
- Practice set: The displacement reactions of the halogens
- Exam practice: The laboratory preparation and the tests for chlorine
- Calculation practice: Calculating the volume of chlorine produced
- Practice set: The properties and reactions of sulphuric acid
- Exam practice: Sulphuric acid as an acid, a dehydrating agent and an oxidiser
- Calculation practice: Calculating the yield of sulphuric acid from sulphur
- Spot my mistake: Predicting that iodine displaces chlorine
- Spot my mistake: Adding water to concentrated sulphuric acid
- Explain back: The trend in reactivity and in oxidising power
- Real-life Nigeria: The halogens and their compounds in daily use
- Project task: Researching chlorine's part in Nigerian water treatment
- Chemistry at work: The hazards of the halogens and their safe handling
- Explain back: Sulphur trioxide and the contact process
- Real-life Nigeria: The uses of sulphuric acid in industry
- Project task: Tracing the sulphur products used in my own home
- Chemistry at work: Sulphur dioxide and acid rain in Nigeria
- Teach me: The halogens as Group 7, and their common features
- Teach me: The allotropes and properties of sulphur
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 28
- Quiz me: The laboratory and industrial preparation of nitrogen
- Practice set: The Haber process and the conditions it uses
- Exam practice: Nitric acid, its manufacture and its reactions
- Calculation practice: Calculating the mass of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen
- Spot my mistake: Treating dilute and concentrated nitric acid alike
- Explain back: Ammonia, its preparation and its properties
- Real-life Nigeria: The nitrogen cycle and nitrogen fixation
- Project task: Examining the nitrogen content stated on a fertiliser bag
- Chemistry at work: Nitrogenous fertilisers in Nigerian farming
- Teach me: Nitrogen, its occurrence and its inertness
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 29
- Quiz me: The uses that follow from each carbon structure
- Quiz me: The characteristic properties of the transition metals
- Practice set: The preparation and properties of carbon monoxide
- Exam practice: The tests that distinguish the two oxides of carbon
- Calculation practice: Calculating the carbon dioxide released by a mass of limestone
- Practice set: The coloured ions of the transition metals
- Exam practice: Transition metals and their compounds as catalysts
- Calculation practice: Working out the oxidation state in a complex ion
- Spot my mistake: Describing carbon monoxide as an acidic oxide
- Spot my mistake: Calling zinc a typical transition metal
- Explain back: The preparation and properties of carbon dioxide
- Real-life Nigeria: Carbonates, hydrogencarbonates and their reactions
- Project task: Demonstrating the carbon dioxide test with limewater
- Chemistry at work: Carbon dioxide in the Nigerian bottling and fire-safety trades
- Explain back: Variable oxidation state, and why it arises
- Real-life Nigeria: Complex ion formation and the ligands involved
- Project task: Observing colour changes in transition metal solutions
- Chemistry at work: Transition metals in Nigerian industry
- Teach me: The allotropes of carbon and their structures
- Teach me: What makes an element a transition metal
Revisit from three weeks ago
Applied & Environmental Chemistry
↑ Jump to week- Week 30
- Quiz me: The reactions taking place in the cement kiln
- Quiz me: The three kinds of radiation and their properties
- Practice set: The raw materials and manufacture of glass
- Exam practice: The types of glass and the uses of each
- Calculation practice: Calculating the quantity of raw material for a cement batch
- Practice set: Half-life and the decay curve
- Exam practice: Nuclear fission and the chain reaction
- Calculation practice: Calculating the activity remaining after several half-lives
- Spot my mistake: Confusing cement with concrete
- Spot my mistake: Balancing a nuclear equation without conserving charge
- Explain back: The setting and hardening of cement
- Real-life Nigeria: The Nigerian cement industry and its growth
- Explain back: Writing and balancing nuclear equations
- Real-life Nigeria: Radioisotopes in medicine, industry and dating
- Chemistry at work: The hazards of radiation and the precautions taken
- Teach me: The raw materials for cement manufacture
- Teach me: Nuclear stability and the neutron-proton ratio
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 31
- Quiz me: The work of an analytical chemist
- Quiz me: Temporary hardness and the compounds responsible
- Practice set: Pharmacy, medicine and the laboratory sciences
- Exam practice: Chemistry in the oil, food and agriculture industries
- Calculation practice: The subject combinations needed for chemistry-based courses
- Practice set: Removing temporary hardness
- Exam practice: Removing permanent hardness by chemical and ion-exchange methods
- Calculation practice: Calculating the amount of softener required
- Spot my mistake: Assuming chemistry leads only to laboratory work
- Spot my mistake: Expecting boiling to remove permanent hardness
- Explain back: Chemical engineering and what it involves
- Real-life Nigeria: Further study in chemistry after secondary school
- Explain back: Permanent hardness and the compounds responsible
- Real-life Nigeria: The advantages and disadvantages of hard water
- Project task: Comparing the lather from water samples in my area
- Chemistry at work: Hardness and the Nigerian water supply industry
- Teach me: The careers a chemistry qualification opens in Nigeria
- Teach me: What hardness is, and what causes it
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 32
- Quiz me: Straight fertilisers and compound fertilisers
- Practice set: Phosphate and potash fertilisers
- Exam practice: The NPK rating and how to read it
- Calculation practice: Calculating the nitrogen content of a fertiliser
- Spot my mistake: Assuming more fertiliser always means a better yield
- Explain back: The manufacture of nitrogenous fertilisers
- Real-life Nigeria: The effect of fertiliser overuse on soil and water
- Project task: Comparing the fertiliser brands on sale locally
- Chemistry at work: Fertiliser production and distribution in Nigeria
- Teach me: The nutrients plants need, and the role of each
Revisit from three weeks ago
Practical & Exam Preparation
↑ Jump to week- Week 33
- Quiz me: Volumetric analysis for the practical paper reviewed
- Quiz me: Soaps, detergents, dyes and pigments reviewed
- Practice set: Kinetics and equilibrium reviewed
- Exam practice: Thermochemistry reviewed
- Calculation practice: A mixed set of first-term SS3 chemistry calculations
- Practice set: Water treatment and industrial chemistry reviewed
- Exam practice: Nuclear chemistry reviewed
- Calculation practice: A mixed set of second-term SS3 chemistry calculations
- Spot my mistake: The errors most often made in first-term SS3 Chemistry
- Spot my mistake: The errors most often made in second-term SS3 Chemistry
- Explain back: Electrochemistry reviewed
- Real-life Nigeria: A practical planning task across the first term's work
- Explain back: Corrosion and environmental chemistry reviewed
- Real-life Nigeria: A planning task across the second term's work
- Teach me: Qualitative analysis reviewed
- Teach me: Petroleum and fuel chemistry reviewed
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 34
- Quiz me: The order in which the tests should be carried out
- Quiz me: The apparatus and its correct handling
- Practice set: Working through a full cation identification
- Exam practice: Working through a full anion identification
- Calculation practice: Deducing the identity of a salt from a full test sequence
- Practice set: Carrying out a titration to concordant results
- Exam practice: Presenting titration results in the required table
- Calculation practice: The calculation steps the examiner expects to see
- Spot my mistake: Writing an inference where only an observation is asked for
- Spot my mistake: The presentation errors that lose practical marks
- Explain back: Writing an observation and an inference separately
- Real-life Nigeria: The reagents supplied in the practical, and what each is for
- Chemistry at work: Laboratory discipline and safety in the practical examination
- Explain back: Filling and reading a burette accurately
- Real-life Nigeria: Reporting an answer to the right number of figures
- Chemistry at work: Sources of error, and how candidates should discuss them
- Teach me: How the WAEC practical qualitative paper is set out
- Teach me: How the WAEC practical volumetric paper is set out
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 35
- Quiz me: Mole and mass conversions under time pressure
- Quiz me: A timed objective paper across the whole syllabus
- Practice set: Gas volume and stoichiometry calculations
- Exam practice: Concentration, dilution and titration calculations
- Calculation practice: Percentage purity, yield and composition calculations
- Practice set: A full theory paper under examination conditions
- Exam practice: A full objective paper under examination conditions
- Calculation practice: A full calculation section under timed conditions
- Spot my mistake: Losing marks by dropping units mid-calculation
- Spot my mistake: The time-management mistakes candidates make
- Explain back: Setting out a calculation so the examiner can follow it
- Real-life Nigeria: Checking an answer for physical sense
- Explain back: Planning a theory answer before writing it
- Real-life Nigeria: Marking my own script against the scheme
- Chemistry at work: Deciding which optional questions to attempt
- Teach me: The calculation types WAEC sets year after year
- Teach me: How the WAEC Chemistry papers are structured and marked
Revisit from three weeks ago - Week 36
- Quiz me: A rapid sweep across every examined chemistry topic
- Practice set: The past questions most worth working through
- Exam practice: A final mixed paper before the examination
- Calculation practice: The calculations I still need to practise
- Spot my mistake: The topics I keep getting wrong, and why
- Explain back: The topics that carry the most marks
- Real-life Nigeria: What to do in the last week before the examination
- Teach me: Building a revision timetable for the final run-in
Revisit from three weeks ago