A Level Chemistry Tuition | By experienced SAJC MOE lecturer

Students who attained success under Mr Peh

What you can expect from Mr Peh’s Chemistry lessons

Are you wondering how to achieve those results for A Level Chemistry as seen above?

A Level Chemistry is one of the most content intensive subjects. This is because you have to remember things down to the nitty gritty details. This includes the reagents and conditions for each chemical reaction, drawing reaction mechanisms in Organic Chemistry.

What is the best way to internalise the sheer amount of A level Chemistry content? Students often make the mistake of reading school’s lecture notes again and again. However, this is inefficient and you may not internalise your learning. Instead, it is through learning by doing i.e. working on questions which require you to recall these details., and active recall.

Hence, MCQ and structured questions are carefully crafted and arranged according to the concepts in each topic, to help you apply the knowledge. When you are attempting questions, you will defintiely hit roadblocks. However, these roadblocks will help you realise the content you have forgotten. Then you will make greater efforts to remember them.

To consolidate your learning, quizzes are also specially prepared for you to attempt 1 to 2 weeks after a particular topic to test how much of the key content you can recall.

You would also receive concise summary notes and mindmaps for easy reference and quickly catch up on your core content.

How to ace Organic Chemistry?

A Level Organic Chemistry is an area where many students struggle in because of the sheer amount of content that you have to remember. There are a total of 12 subtopics: Introduction to Organic Chemistry, Isomers, Alkanes, Alkenes, Arenes, Halogenoalkanes, Alcohol, Carbonyl compounds, Carboxyl compounds, Acyl chloride and esters, amines, amides and amino acids.

The secret to mastering Organic Chemistry is to categorise and remember the reactions based on their various types e.g. reduction, oxidation, hydrolysis and condensation etc.
You also need to be familiar with the interconnections across the various subtopics:

How to tackle difficult Organic Chemistry

To save students’ hassle from flipping your school lecture notes left, right, up, down to find these interconnections, Mr Peh has prepared a 10 page document on this exclusively for his students only.

Other Important Tips for A Level Chemistry

There are many commonly tested chemical reactions which are unfortunately often not explained explicitly in the school’s lecture notes with great detail. Hence, reading the school’s lecture notes is certainly not sufficient in the preparation of A level Chemistry examinations. Some of these chemical reactions include the use of sodium thiosulfate as a reducing agent for iodine, autocatalysis reaction, Grignard’s reagent, anhydrides etc. Preparation of organic compounds with the use of techniques like separating funnel, simple distillation and fractional distillation are also not included in school’s lecture notes because A Level Chemistry lecturers expect you to magically recall them from your Secondary school days.

Hence, I have identified these particular gaps and have prepared notes for these neglected concepts with examples collated from the various past year prelim papers, so that you can be ahead of your peers.

There are also specific skills required to solving Chemistry application questions. However, school teachers may often focus on the content during lectures and tutorials such that this aspect is not emphasised and addressed adequately. For example, there are specific rules and steps that you need to keep in mind when drawing dot-cross diagrams, using the ICE BOX to find the equilibrium mole and concentration values. Without the right guidance, you will still struggle with A Level Chemistry even if you can recall most of the concepts from the lecture notes, because these questions would require you to apply your problem solving skills on the spot.

Again, MCQ and structured questions would greatly help to level up and bridge these gaps in your learning.

A Level Chemistry Practicals

For Chemistry Practical, a common feedback I receive from my students is that they feel the schools do not adequately prepare them for the A levels. This is understandable given the time constraint and the sheer amount of content that you need to know in this aspect.

Thus, I have prepared a comprehensive Practical Guide with examples from past year prelims covering the most commonly tested topics: Volumetric analysis (Titration), gravimetric analysis, thermometric analysis, inorganic qualitative analysis, organic qualitative analysis, preparation of organic compounds and Reaction Kinetics. This will ensure that you will not go underprepared for the A Level Chemistry Practical examination.

A Level Solutions

I have written answer keys for some of the recent A Level Chemistry Papers. This is because I not only want my students to know the answers to the questions, but also the thinking process behind them, pitfalls and common misconceptions to avoid. The exact same question is unlikely to be repeated in the A Level exams but you will likely require the same thinking processes to tackle questions from the same topic.

I would also want to identify the difficult questions for my students, so that you can place these aside first, focus on those manageable questions but yet you are having difficulties. After that, then you go back to these difficult questions and try them again. Remember that it is important to be exam smart, you do not need 100% to get your ‘A’ grade. However, you must be able to do the questions that an average student should be able to do, and maximise your marks there.

You can click on the respective links below to view and download the detailed solutions in pdf format. More solutions are in the pipeline, do check back this page for updates.