Naming compounds

Q: How do you know which naming system to use when you look at a compound?

A: When you are given two polyatomic ions that are to be combined into a compound, you take a look at their charges and apply the criss cross method to form a type 1 compound. When you see a compound that has on ion being multiplied by another number to cancel out the charge of its partner, you'll know that you have a type 2 compound that should be written as such: (element (#) element). And if you see a buncha elements lined up together just with a bunch of different exponents and stuff, you'll know to name those as type 3 compounds, which is where the number of each element is noted and "-ide" is added to the end of each one.

The test today

I felt totally great about the test today, I think everything that was covered was reviewed heavily in class and on the packet we got, and my score should be reflective of my understanding of that. The one thing that we probably should have covered at least once was how the density of an object affects whether or not it floats. I said it would sink, which made sense to me, but I'm sure that some other folks would have appreciated that and it probably could have helped them out a bit.

But yeah, thanks for not putting anything unexpected on the test Mr. Stitt. I've had some pretty ugly encounters with surprises on those before and it can get really frustrating. Your accountability was duly appreciated.

Indicators of a Chemical Change

A chemical change is a transformation a substance goes through that fundamentally alters its genetic makeup and creates a substance that cannot be remade into its original self. Three examples of a chemical change include a substance burning, rusting or foaming.

First post baby.

Hey Mr. Stitt, I thought it might be cool to kick this blog off talking about how I feel about the year overall so far.

I think that the most difficult thing for me so far has been getting the hang of the train track format, but I feel pretty comfortable with it after the last supermegaquiz we had about the value of all the gold in your body, in which I got 100%. It took me impossibly long while doing the Dimensional Olympics to get the jist of everything, and I still think I prefer laying out the numbers in my own scattered organization, because every now and then I'll put the wrong unit in the wrong track and it'll screw up the entire problem. However, after I beat it into my head for a while I felt totally cool with the format once I sat down to take that quiz and I did very well.

Pretty much all of the other stuff has been going pretty easily in here, I don't think anything besides the train tracks has been all too confusing and I think I know where to go.

Thanks for giving us the chance to work in a more open environment like this, it'll probably be a blast.