Chemistry SL Tips and Strategies 

Reconstruct your sentence into a shorter one

 

Making your answers shorter not only allows the examiner to mark more easily, it also allows you to memorize specific answers in a shorter time. As I observed others writing different forms of answers about the same topic, I noticed that high achievers usually use active voice.

 

Think about the purpose of learning science. We want to use direct and simple wordings to transfer knowledge to others. So why use passive voice when active voice does the same job?

 

For example, in describing the electronegativity of an atom,

 

Student A write:

“Outer electrons are attracted more strongly by the nucleus.”

 

Student B write:

“The nucleus attracts outer electrons more strongly.”

 

You may think it makes no difference in using the active or passive voice. However, when you need to memorize a hundred explanation terms, the short and straightforward sentence is going to make a huge impact on your study efficiency.