Customer Reviews

Chemistry: The Central Science, 10th Edition

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I wrote the review below for the previous edition (9), and having seen the tenth edition, most of my subjects of complaints and praises pretty much remain the same.

First off, having maintained contact with my freshman year chem prof, I have to say that she still tells the students that they can easily get away with buying the previous edition. Interestingly enough, back when I was taking the course and the 10th wasn't even released yet, she told us we can get away with using the 8th. I have not seen the 8th though, so no comments on that. So it seems as if there are no major overhauls from the 8th-10th editions as far as my prof's concerned.

I say this is a solid text primarily because of the glut of problems for you to practice on, and the nice flow of information through the chapters. The text is written with clarity in mind, and with clarity it does convey its topics. With well-placed worked sample problems and excellent charts and diagrams, this is a great book to have in hand if you're taking a college-level chemistry course.

However, this book has its limitations in that there are several topics that are covered at the college level that are not really expounded on by the book. For example, the text gives a half-page introduction on semiconductors and how electron excitation works in semiconductors ; we did one full lecture on it. Furthermore, some of the problems that hit you in the form of the professor's custom-made, self-written problem sets occasionally involve problem solving methods that are not even covered in the book. I experienced a fair share of this when I saw application questions that involved a lot more variables than any of the book's questions involved.

This brings me to talk about my last perceived limitation of the textbook: its lack of good application / integrative exercises. I like the book's armada of additional exercises at the end of the chapter, but I think a better textbook should include more application problems - sort of like 'problem-based learning', if that's a better way to put it. A good example would be the types of questions you can expect to see on a final exam - questions that implicitly expect you to apply all sorts of concepts obtained from the whole chapter, and possibly even concepts from previous chapters - to solve a real world problem.

To conclude, the pros of this book include its clarity in explaining concepts, the decent flow from topic to topic, and its solid arsenal of practice problems and worked sample problems. The cons include its lack of application problems (problem-based learning), need for more in-depth discussions of some topics, and need for more problem solving strategies. Overall a great text, but a better text can bring my B up to an A in this class.

I teach general chemistry as both a private tutor and as a free tutor at Purdue University. In my time, I've seen every general chemistry book known to man come across the table. Without fail, though, BLB is my reference text. Like many gen chem books it has excellent diagrams, but in addition the text is lucid, organized, well written and makes no pedagogical leaps that the reader must figure out on their own. It is easy to read and easy to understand and the material is presented in a fairly logical order (I have minor quibbles with some of it). I forsee this book becoming a classic in the future.

My AP chemistry class used this book as well as my college General Chemistry class. Ive compared it with other popular chemistry books and none of them explain as thoroughly and cover as wide a breadth of topics as this book does. If your having problems with your current General Chemistry textbook you should definitely buy this one as an adjunct to it.

While most of the one year chemistry texts cover more or less the same principles, the order varies, the illustrations are similar, but they vary most in the way they explain the material. It is in the vocabulary they use and develop that helps the student develop the intuitions, understanding, and skills the authors are after. This is a very well written text that is useful for non-chemistry majors as well as science students needing an introductory course in chemistry.

I am reading and working through this text with my 13 year old son. Yes, he is bright and interested in science, but the text is clear enough for both of us to be able to grasp and understand the principles each section of each chapter is presenting to us. Not only does this text focus on teaching the basic principles of chemistry, it also includes historical notes in the margins, and the text focuses on the practical uses of chemistry to illustrate its principles through practical applications. While other texts also have these features, I believe this text to be quite accessible to even those without a strong previous grounding in science.

Each chapter begins with a series of bullet points introducing what is going to be discussed along with a short essay. I like the marginal notes and illustrations as well as the "Give it some thought" feature that asks the student a question or two in order to clarify understanding and ensure a grasp of the principles introduced in that section. Like most modern textbooks, there is also a liberal use of color to aid in presentation and guide the eye. The authors also provide occasional "Strategies In Chemistry" boxes that encourage the student to develop a certain kind of thought process and ways in looking at the principles of chemistry.

At the end of each chapter is a section called Summary and Key Terms that hits the highlights of each section in a paragraph or two with the key terms in boldface. Then there is a section called Visualizing Concepts that have basic problems with illustrations in order to get the student to work mentally on the material learned. The section of problems has a series of questions for each section with the red numbered questions having the answers in the back of the book.

There are also a series of handy tables provided as appendices and standard charts on the inside of the front and back covers including the periodic table. Again, many of these features are included in other texts because there has been quite a bit of convergence on what is to be taught in a one year introduction to chemistry course. The differences are in the way things are said more than what is covered.

I think this is an excellent and very useful text for learning the basics of chemistry and why it matters in our world.

I am using editions 8 and 9 of this title to teach chemistry to some very bright homeschoolers. It seems to be a great book for the advanced student. I find it well organized, methodical, and clearly written. I would not recommend it for the student who is weak in science/math, as it covers a lot of ground. Still, if your student is homeschooling because school is too slow, go for it. If you buy used, be very sure you are getting the disk, it's an essential element of the curriculum.

I took a year of general chemistry 25+ years ago but never needed to use it much since I pursued a career in engineering.

Recently I did an early retirement and one thing I wanted to pursue for my own interest was to learn about energy, and I decided it was not enough to just read a bunch of recent articles, I decided I needed to strenthen my background in two subjects, thermodynamics and chemistry.

Based on its reviews here on Amazon, I concluded that this particular text was likely to be the best choice of an up to date Chemistry textbook.

I have been very pleased with it. I don't have the perspective of the Chemistry tutor who is familiar with other texts and finds this one the best, but just judging it on its own merits I find it excellent.

Only very elementary math is needed but that appears to be quite sufficient to get a good grounding in Chemistry. To study Chemistry on a higher level mathematically I suspect would require a far greater investment of time that would probably only be justified if one intends to pursue Chemistry as a career, in advanced research or some such thing.

I am about through page 700 so far, but I think after getting through about 200 pages or so one has enough feel for the book to be able to make an informed assessment of the book as a whole.

I bought this book to help prepare for the fundamentals of engineering exam. I had sold my old College Chemistry back to the bookstore and was looking for something to replace it.

This book is easy to understand, and has good diagrams and illustrations making concepts easy to visualize (more than one color in a text book is always a good thing). However, it is primarily conceptual and is very light on the Mathematics, and the nitty gritty details of real application. Although it is a much easier read than my previous text book, I don't think it was technical enough.

I took AP Chemistry online, and this book was recommended as a companion to the online course. All I can say is...wow. This is by far the best college chemistry book on the market. Everything--and I mean everything!--is defined and explained in this book, with plenty of practice problems and answers. There's no filler as seen with regular high school textbooks; rather, the diagrams and pictures have significance. This book explained everything to me, leaving me with very, very few questions I actually had to ask the teacher. It even helped me score a 5 on the AP exam. Whether you're taking the AP class in high school, or the general chem class in college, no textbook is better than this.

This is the Chemistry AP textbook used at my school. It is complete but not overly complex. It has abundant practice problems, and the examples are in-depth and helpful. I firmly believe that reading this book will get you a 5 on the AP exam. This book has given me enough background to do well on the national chemistry olympiad, and I highly recommend it.

i purchased this so i wouldnt have to buy the 11th edition and it is exactly the same book but a couple of chapter or info might be on a different page