About
College chemistry for UTSA science and engineering majors and preclinical students (e.g. pre-medical/pre-dental/pre-pharmacy/pre-veterinarian) begins with General Chemistry 1 (CHE 1103), which is a slightly deeper presentation of what is usually covered in a two-semester high school chemistry sequence. We encourage you strive to begin your university studies with this course. But some students arrive with a limited chemistry foundation. “To help such students, we offer Basic Chemistry (CHE 1073) to strengthen preparation for General Chemistry. And because your chemistry proficiency may have dimmed with time, we developed these online materials to refresh your chemistry knowledge. We recommend that you begin to prepare as thoroughly as possible before beginning your UTSA chemistry course.
UTSA Chemistry Online Review Exercises:
We know that you may choose to put in a few hours—particularly if you only need a quick chemistry refresher—or you might be inclined to focus many hours of attention on your review. These materials are meant for both possibilities. For quick refresher, go directly to the Online Quizzes. These quizzes are based on material from a solid preparation in high school and mostly review the topics covered in Basic Chemistry. You are ready to take General Chemistry 1 if you do not have serious difficulty with these problems. If you cannot do some problems, we strongly recommend that you review these topics using materials provided in the Review Links.
- Review Links: we have collected online materials for your Chemistry preparation and they are presented in the order of the topics covered in Basic Chemistry. The review materials are primarily youtube videos, however additional apps and tools are available. If one source is not helpful, please use other resources! You can review these before tackling the Online quizzes, but this is not required.
- Online quizzes: Each quiz consists of 10 questions that you should be able to answer in 20-25 min. The questions are related to topics reviewed in Basic Chemistry including matter, measurement, conversions, calculations, atoms, molecules, chemical reactions, and chemical equations. You will need a calculator and a Periodic Table of the Elements. Once you submit your answers, you will receive the graded quiz.
- IMPORTANT: we do not collect data on your individual quiz performance—they are meant for self-evaluation only. But we will collect aggregate data for all quiz-takers quizzes to identify the problems that many students do not understand. Also, many of the questions require mathematics that you learned in high school including algebra and exponential notation. Do review the mathematics if you have trouble with this aspect of the problems.”
General Chemistry & Basic Chemistry
As mentioned above, we offer Basic Chemistry (CHE 1073) for students who wish to strengthen their chemistry backgrounds before beginning General Chemistry 1. Basic Chemistry does NOT fulfill the requirements of any science degrees but can help you boost your background and confidence before taking General Chemistry 1. Be advised that you will need to take a summer course to complete a chemistry or biochemistry degree in four years if you begin at Basic Chemistry. But the most important consideration is that you are well-prepared for success each level of chemistry that you take.
Mathematics Placement Exam
Those wishing to begin at General Chemistry 1 must have scored a 4 on the Chemistry Advanced Placement Test or have perform well on the Mathematics Placement Exam. Students not taking the Mathematics Placement Exam will be enrolled in Basic Chemistry.
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