Chemistry help! Anyone...

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How are you memorizing all the unit conversions? I know the basic ones , oz to lbs and so forth. Im not sure whether we have to actually memorize them or not, but if I get asked how many kilograms are in a milligram I might not remember........

anyway, I am nervous about having to do unit conversions I know I'll get some numbers mixed up.

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I made flash cards. They really helped me.

Sandy

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Specializes in ICU.

For my class, she would give us conversions from English to metric, etc. (except the basic ones like 12 inches in a foot and 2.5 cm in an inch, etc), but we had to KNOW the metric system. It's not that hard since it is based on 10. I would try to find a few sites (I will look through later and post)..and just keep practicing conversion problems over and over until it clicks. I thought I would never get it, but I did after practice. I got an A+ in Chem too...NO IDEA how!:roll

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I just did it over and over as well. Soon it was kinda like second nature (how sad is that:chuckle ) I got an A in the class and I was soooo scared of chem. It is completely doable!! Let us know if you need anymore help!

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This Conversion Chat really helped me out...

http://www.schwarzflex.com/metric.htm

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Here's any easy way to do the metric conversions:

1. List them all across the page from biggest to smallest. (You will have to memorize this.)

kilo, hecto, deka, base (meter, liter, gram), deci, centi, milli, x, x, micro

(the x's are place holders; there are no unit prefixes for those)

2. Point to the units you are starting with.

3. Count the number of moves it takes to get to the ending units.

4. Do the same thing to the decimal point. (so if you moved 3 steps left, move the decimal point three places left).

Example:

Convert 560.0 micrograms into grams.

Start on 'micro', then counts the number of steps it takes to go left to grams. (You should come up with 6; don't count the starting point!).

So the answer is 0.0005600 grams.

It gets a bit more complicated when using scientific notation.

Hope that helps!:)

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You guys are great with these tips! Anyone have any tips for memorizing polyatomic ions and their charges? I had to do it for intro to chem and just skimmed by with it, but its rearing its ugly head again in Inorganic Chemistry.

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i just took a couple hours every day and practiced sample problems until it was second nature...if you get a solid foundation with conversion factors it will make redox equations and balancing easier too

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King Henery Died While Drinking Chocolate Milk

kilo, hecto, deka, whole numbers, deci, centi, milli

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