Chemistry is one of the new IGCSE subjects that we are doing this year (by new I mean it is not a subject that my oldest did for her IGCSE’s so its a new one for us to do). And I must admit it is probably the subject that I am most concerned / nervous about. So I have started looking for resources, and this is one of the ones I have chosen – our Collins Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry Student Book.
My oldest used the Collins Edexcel International GCSE Physics Student book and she quite liked the format (the explanations and the questions) so I chose this Chemistry book based on our good experience with the series.
The Student book has been split into the same 4 sections as per the specification – Principles of Chemistry, Inorganic Chemistry, Physical Chemistry and Organic Chemistry. And each of these 4 sections is then split into topics. This means it lines up very nicely with the specification, which if you are anything like me and want to keep checking that you are covering everything, helps.
Okay format wise it looks exactly like our Physics book so the things that we liked in the Physics book are also in the Chemistry book. They have short questions scattered throughout the text – we liked these because we found that answering these questions as you worked through the book was a good way to check that you have understood what you are covering (and answers for these questions are at the back of the student book).
They also have the “Science in Context” pages and the worked examples through the chapters (both are features which we liked in our Physics book).
At the end of each topic they have included the End of Topic checklist – this is a great summary which we always used and the End of Topic questions. Again these questions are a great way to check that you are on the right track (we always did these end of topic questions in our Physics books). But I do need to point out that the End of Topic Questions and the Exam Style questions which came at the end of each section do NOT have their answers included in the book. Apparently these answers are all in the Teachers Guide. This is the one downside of this book. As home educators we have to buy all of our own resources and a lot of the time we can not afford to buy the expensive teacher’s guide for every subject (I hardly ever bought teachers guides because of the expense) so I do get irritated when they put answers in another book which you are expected to buy. With the Physics my oldest and I tried to check her answers ourself and that is what we will try to do with the Chemistry (not ideal but….)
So first impressions are, we like the format of the pages and how they have structured the book (splitting it into the 4 sections and then the topics). I know it covers everything that we need so it ticks all the boxes. I find the pages user friendly and the explanations easy to understand so and I think it will be a good starting point for our IGCSE Chemistry.
For those of you interested you can get this book directly from Collins – our Collins Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry Student Book or from Amazon – Edexcel International GCSE Chemistry
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