5 comments about McGraw-Hill's SAT Subject Test: Chemistry (McGraw-Hill Series in Chemistry).

1. 2005 Book of the Year: Sat II Chemistry by Thomas A. Evangelist!! Mr. Evangelist is my chemistry teacher, and ever since I bought his book, I found all the questions and answers on the tests!! My Grades has dramatically improved!from 80's to 100's! I am very grateful for this book, chemistry could not have been easier.



2. This was the best investment I ever made in buying a book to help me study for an important test such as the SAT II. This book goes step by step through the vast world of chemistry and condenses the material into simple concepts. Not only that but Thomas A. Evangelist makes several analogies to everyday life that allow for a more thorough understanding of chemistry on the whole. It also includes great pictures and actual SAT II exams for more practice. This is a great book for chemistry and a fantastic guide for preparing for the SAT II's



3. Like most McGraw test prep books, it is good quality and better than Princeton Review/Kaplan who I swear copy and paste those same "test taking" tricks from one book to another. Once you've read one, it's time to move on. But has anyone noticed that ALL of the other previous reviews are from NEW YORK. Moreover, most of them are only two sentences long, possibly indicating that someone decided to ensure this book had good reviews. If that's the case, that is really horrible because Amazon.com's reviews are generally pretty reliable unless they're reviews on a politically hot and polarized issue. Doing stuff like that is really demeaning to Amazon.com and its patrons.



4. This book is not so much a chemistry review book as a beguiling, deceitful encounter with incompetence. Having read only two-thirds of the so-called review section, I discovered numerous serious errors. Some of these errors include claims that mass is measured in g/mL (p. 45) and that CO2(g) has molecules that are arranged in a regular geometric pattern (p. 57). Additionally, there were misleading statements and diagrams regarding bonds between and within water molecules (p. 85-87), inconsistent values in equations (e.g., p. 108 and 118), and discrepencies between descriptions and diagrams (e.g. p. 124). These more serious errors are in addition to other trivial typos that I discovered. Of course, it is possible that other important errors have escaped my notice, or exist in the chapters that I did not see fit to read. The author and publishing house ought to be ashamed of themselves. Though I was fortunate enough to realize the terrible unsuitability of this rubbish, I tremble for those who were not, and are about to embark on the daunting journey through the SAT II. When one reads this book, one is tempted to convert potential energy into kinetic energy--that is, to throw the book down in disgust.



5. THis book really lays out the info in an easily understandable and organized way. It focuses on just the stuff you need to know and doesn't overwhelm you. The practice exams are great and really accurate. I read the book cover to cover like 3 times, did all the practice exams, and got a 780!!

5 comments about Chemistry.

1. I am very happy that the book came in fast and in good condition!
   Thanks!



2. I haven't received my book yet. So I can not rate it. Sorry!



3. I've had this book for over a year now and I think I won't sell it until I have no use for it anymore. Which will be a long time from now. This text is everything I need and want as a chemistry textbook.



4. I had no problem receiving this material in a timely manner. If I had to purchase this text book at the university's book store, it would have cost almost twice as much.



5. This seller was great. The item was shipped and received very quickly. The book was in the condition described and came with all the extra materials. Great work.

5 comments about Strategic Applications of Named Reactions in Organic Synthesis.

1. To put it shortly, if you're an organic chemistry graduate student the just go ahead and buy this book. It will be the most used book in your personal library. Also, if you are an undergraduate working in a research lab buy it as well. You'll have a huge jump on the other graduate students when you go to grad school having been familiar with this book.



2. In my opinion this is a very interesting book both for synthetic and methodologist chemist. Tipical conditions are given and the background as well as the mechanistic discussion are fulfilled. Not just one more named reactions book. It's worth it.



3. A very good compendium of organic reactions with nice color coded mechanisms. If you are in the organic chemistry field you should have this book.



4. Absolutely excellent book!!! but make sure you spend the extra money on the hard cover. I bought the paperback and used it for a grad level total synthesis class and after two weeks the book completely fell apart. I now have a very useful stack of papers instead of a very useful book. I even emailed the publisher about it and got no response. i would try and boycott the book but it's just too good to live without. I recommend the hard cover instead.



5. This book is nicely illustrated. The mechanisms of named reactions are depicted in colors for easy understanding by the user.This will be a very good book for the beginners in chemistry as well for the practising chemists.The industrial & academic examples choosen for the name reactions will give an indepth knowledge of the utility of the reactions. Overall I rate this book as a good companion for an organic chemist.

4 comments about Hands-On Chemistry Activities with Real-Life Applications: Easy-to-Use Labs and Demonstrations for Grades 8-12.

1. This book has tons of labs and demonstrations. Many of the labs and demonstrations can be found in other chemistry texts and on-line, this book brings them all together with good explainations and illustrations. Herr and Cunningham have included additional information for the teacher and there are thoughtful extension questions provided for the students. This is a good resource book. I allow my students to try the labs after school and when they come in on their free periods. My only gripe is that it sometimes takes careful reading to follow the procedures as they are written in paragraph form.



2. An innovative compilation of chemistry experiments.



3. I am using this book as a reference while homeschooling my middle-school son. It is far and away the best book of science experiments and demonstrations at this level that I have encountered. Every possible chemistry topic at the middle and high school level is covered with multiple examples, all well -indexed and clearly explained. Many can be done with simple materials around the house although some require more sophisticated glassware and a few involve chemicals and/or procedures that would require an institutional setting (for example, needing a fume hood). The latter are well indicated. Best of all, the activities are FUN--we did the Cartesian Diver today and it was a blast!
   
   My only very minor gripe is that a few activities are repeated several times in slightly different formats. More thorough editing and/or cross-referencing would be helpful.
   
   I would recommend the book for homeschoolers such as myself who want to give their students real lab experiences, and also probably for "regular" teachers in middle or high schools.



4. Very interesting and useful book for chemsitry teachers at high school and even at college. I recommend to put in practice all the strategies proposed by the authors. It really works !

5 comments about General Chemistry: Principles and Modern Applications (9th Edition).

1. My daughter needed this book for college. It arrived in decent condition and was very affordable.



2. This was a great deal! I purchased this book cheaper than anybody in my college chemistry class. It was in good condition and was delivered right away.



3. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK. DO NOT GET THE SOLUTIONS MANUAL. I REPEAT, DO NOT.
   
   The textbook is grueling and never gets to the point. Too wordy. You'll hate it. It'll lengthen every single unnecessary explanation but barely skim over important topics and details (NEVER WILL IT EXPLAIN ANYTHING IMPORTANT).
   
   The solutions manual has so many typos. Don't they proofread? If I'm going to pay any sort of money for my education, and if this ridiculous book is also going to overcharge me for it, then at least be less ignorant and more professional. Just proofread. I don't want to spend valuable time on correcting my work with wrong answers (FROM THE ANSWER BOOK). That's too much frustration that I don't have time for.
   
   
   This book is horrible.



4. The text assumes that the reader has a background of at least one year of high school chemistry. It would be best for students to have two years of high school chemistry before approaching the more complex concepts introduced in the textbook. However, there are some nice details about the scientists involved in the scientific discoveries introduced. Notes to students and instructors are useful and the example problems are excellent. The self-assessment exercises are an excellent tool for the student to evaluate their progress. The exercises at the end of each chapter dramatically increase in difficulty as one works through each section. Some of the most difficult problems require skills not introduced in the text. Compounding this issue is the fact that many problems worked out in the solutions manual employ shortcuts that confuse even very bright students, along with some typos.
   
   The Petrucci 9th Edition has undergone a significant number of changes from the 8th Edition. The 9th Edition suffers, to some extent, from some cumulative effects from numerous revisions. For instance there was a section added of Organic Chemistry early in the text, but it was too ambitious with too little background given to benefit the average student. In light of the recent revisions, it would be useful to reorganize the order of the chapters to facilitate learning. For instance, much of the information concerning the Periodic Table would be more useful earlier in the textbook.
   
   The text is designed for a one year Freshman Chemistry course, but an instructor should understand that all of the material will not fit easily into two semesters. The instructor then has the option to focus on areas of their personal interest in greater detail than typically available in the Freshman text and reduce some of the detail in other sections. Exposure to some of the more advanced material in the textbook should be interesting to motivated students. Overall, the Petrucci 9th Ed. is a good Freshman textbook for students with a strong science background.



5. Very fast delivery, I recieved the book within 4 days! It was in great condition. Well worth it. I had a question for the seller, and he responed to my e-mail very promptly. Very satisfied with my purchase

5 comments about The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms.

1. This book is excellent for reaction mechanism. This book is helpful for the undergraduate's organic chem 2 and the grad school's reaction mechanism class. I learned how to move the electron in reasonable way. So in one word, this book is awesome book that I ever read for practicing reaction mechanism.



2. For people who love organic chemistry, this book provides a basic guide for people to learn some basic but fundamental details of organic chem mechanism.The fourth chapter is expecially worthy reading. Moreover, Chapter 6 provides people with a rough idea of what's going on in organometallics filed.



3. This is a great book. It is a "must have" for any organic chemist.



4. I haven't finished reading this book yet but it seems very good. It is very easy to read and it is very informative. I would recommend this book to anyone who has taken organic chemistry, is going to study organic chemistry n graduate school, or as a supplement to any mechanism class.



5. Amazon.com is great because everytime I order anything from them directly, it comes on time and in very good shape.

5 comments about General Chemistry.

1. This is by far the best introductory book I have seen so far. It is very concise and thorough. There are no flashy pictures or cool sidenotes with the practical applications of the concepts. But the basic concepts are very well explained with lots of helpful diagrams. Also, the price of the book is very good. Hooray for Dover Publications for publishing this masterpiece as such reasonable price!



2. This is an interesting, if somewhat dated and eccentric textbook by the man who was probably the leading chemist of the twentieth century. It is full of interesting insight, and written with real flair, so much unlike the typical textbook today produced by the textbook publishing machines.
   
   Let me give a couple of examples, good and bad, of what makes this book interesting, but also exasperating.
   
   The book is the only freshman chemistry text I know of that has a derivation of the Boltzmann distribution P ~ e^(-E/kT), a very basic relation in the kinetic theory of gases and in fact in all of statistical physics. The derivation is simpler than most, which makes it a real jewel especially at this level, where most people would think it doesn't belong.
   
   On the other hand, the section on chemical bonding, which is actually where Pauling made his reputation, is very eccentric, like the author, so much so that it makes the book unsuitable as the sole text for a course. It is all based on sp3 hybrid orbitals. As far as I can tell, sp2 and sp hybrids are never mentioned. With the sp3 story, Pauling is able to account surprisingly well for some systematics of bond lengths. Whether this is fortuitous or not, I don't know, but it is interesting. On the other hand, without sp2 and sp hybrids, he is completely unable to give the standard, very simple, beautiful account of bond angles. A student learning introductory chemistry from this text who then went into organic chemistry would soon be at a disadvantage without knowing the theory of hybrid orbitals that everyone else would get from any of the standard contemporary texts.
   
   My recommendation: use this text as a very insightful, quirky supplement. The price is certainly right.
   
   The text that comes closest, in my opinion, in seriousness, if not eccentricity, is the contemporary text by Oxtoby and coauthors. It is too highbrow though for most college introductory chemistry courses.



3. This book will never look old. It’s still much more clear than many (college) chemistry books. In my opinion this volume should be suggested as a reference for a general chemistry college course.



4. Nothing to say about this well known book as a hi level introduction to general chemistry.
   What it's amazing is to buy such new book at such price !



5. Rooted in both vigor and simplicity, this chemistry text will amaze you. Pauling is very mindful of how the student ought to recieve information and in that he carefully picks the order of topics. Too often people disreguard the importance of the presentation of information. It's a shame because they are being willfully ignorant to techniques that catalyze and promote learning. Our brains are more responsive to associative learning because biologically that's what goes on in neural circuitry. Anyways, it's best I don't spur off into a tangent. Buy this book. It taught me chemistry.

4 comments about Schaum's Outline Of General, Organic and Biological Chemistry.

1. I have found the Schaum's Review series very helpful both in review and in independent study, especially for Organic Chemistry. Many times, chemistry students fail to learn key concepts not because they are incomprehensible (thankfully) but rather because they were either explained badly or simply explained in a way that does not make sense to a student. This book explains all the key concepts and includes almost 2000 problems to make sure you understand O. Chem. clearly even if you're so sick of it you're comtemplating shoving an Erlenmyer full of benzene down your professor's Organic throat. Buy it, and save your sanity.



2. Recall that ordinary salt is a compound of sodium and chlorine. List several systems that can be defined in a shaker full of salt.



3. Recall that ordinary salt is a compound of sodium and chlorine. List several systems that can be defined in a shaker full of salt.



4. Ok, I will be clear that I am not reviewing this exact book, but the purely organic chemistry book that is a 1991 version that I got at the library. I have never actually taken organic chemistry. I was hoping to get a leg up, and this was the only book at the library on it, so I checked it out. And I am finding it terribly lacking in explanation. It is all problems and little explanation. It takes one paragraph and one example to explain something, which isnt enough to cover all aspects of the topic to where one can understand it, then it proceed to give you problems that you cant really work, but you follow through them and try to understand why they work, and most of the time there is a short explanation as to why the answer is the correct one. There are handy little charts here and there that make things a little easy, although it needs more. I have been able to grasp most of the information due to this book, but there are key topics that are recurring that I dont fully understand and it doesnt matter how much I read that one paragraph, I dont fully get it. Afterwards I went online to clear up the discrepencies, and I easily got it. From the review here, it sounds like this book is better than taking the class. I hope that is not the case. But I can tell you from the standpoint of someone that has never studied organic chemistry, but has taken general chemistry, this book is insufficient as a textbook.
   
   alright two years later and after taking organic chemistry, i am rereviewing my review. apparently nobody liked it. but i stand by it. i found organic chemistry to be extremely easy and interesting. unlike most people, i really enjoyed it. this book would perhaps work as a nice review for someone that already knew what they were doing, but it is confusing. if you want to learn organic chemistry go to class or use a proper textbook. my textbook, written by my professor, was excellent. Get Iverson's text. ISBN: 0534467733.

5 comments about Organic Chemistry.

1. Very well-written organic chemistry book. Without detailed explanation, the approach the authors use makes organic chemistry a little easier to learn, and the examples and explanations in this textbook are superb. I don't highly recommend organic chemistry, but if you want to learn it, I highly recommend this book.



2. This book is good. It explains the concepts clearly and wont ever leave you thinking "how the hell did it do that??"
   However, Organic Chemistry 6th edition by Francis A. Carey accompanied by the enormous solutions manual is the best Organic Chemistry book on earth, hands down. It presents the ideas in an order that is compounding, so that everything you do in earlier chapters is reinforced with the following chapters; and it presents the concepts as clear as day. Once you've learned to push electrons everything else is cake.
   Perform the problems in the back of each section and read the solutions manual after each problem and you wont get lower than a C on any test, guarenteed.



3. other books that follow mechanism (as opposed to functional group) approach to learning organic chem:
   
   Organic Chemistry by Marye Anne Fox, James K. Whitesell (ISBN 0763721972)
   
   "A Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry" and "A Primer to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry" both by Peter Sykes
   
   Organic Chemistry by Joseph M. Hornback (ISBN 0534389511)
   
   Look at my other reviews for other chemistry books.



4. This book provides with a complete review of all the major organic chemical groups and gives a detailed and thorough presentation of their chemical structure as well as their reactivity. It also deals with a series of organic reactions that are considered as the basic ones in organic chemistry with a good overview of their mechanistic pathways.
   Finally, the writers offer plenty of examples in which these reactions are used in the synthesis of pharmaceutical or other compounds.
   Without a doubt, one of the most useful, comprehensive and complete book in organic chemistry for both beginers and advanced organic chemistry students.



5. Excellent textbook. Covers very systematically, and with ample regard for modern methods (something most organic textbooks lack), everything from first semester orgo to the beginning grad level. Only major deficiency is the general uselessness of the index -- makes looking things up difficult. But overall, a great textbook.

4 comments about Molecular Driving Forces: Statistical Thermodynamics in CHemistry & Biology.

1. The topic of this book, the physical chemistry of molecules, especially those relevant to biology, is one of the most challenging courses to a college student in chemist. But these authors have tried to make it easy for you - and they succeed. They used figures, pictures and analogies to help you to understand some of the most sophisticated concepts in science. For example entropy. The authors are leading researchers in the field and they brought a unique perspective to the subject; the writing is very lucid.



2. I have this book assigned as a text book for one of my classes and it is superb. Very clear explaination from the very basics of statistics and how it builds up to thermodynamics and beyond. The book succintly explains all of the necessary math and has instructive examples to drive the point home. I really like this book!



3. I always consult this book when I need to brush up my stat. Mech. Highly recommended.



4. This book covers a broad field of topics not present in similar books more than usual ones. A great value for a teacher or for advanced undergraduate students!