Customer Reviews

Chemistry: The Central Science (11th Edition)

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Overall, this book provides an excellent introduction to chemistry.

Although the explanations are not perfect, the book does a superb job introducing the reader to chemistry. True, it is somewhat difficult to read at times, but it's also very interesting as the writers provide MANY MANY real world applications and interesting examples. I also really like how the book has a high emphasis on giving examples. Chemistry is not like subjects such as history or biology - chemistry involves PROBLEM-SOLVING, THINKING, AND APPLICATION. By going through many examples of problems, the book does an excellent job honing such valuable skills many students typically lack. While sometimes the explanations are a little dull / difficult to understand, this book from my experience is A LOT easier to read than other more advanced chemistry textbooks.

So, in essence, while this book is not quite as advanced or thorough as some of the more advanced intro chemistry books, this book provides a VERY strong overview of general chemistry for the student, and overall is pretty easy to understand. While this book is not perfect, I am certainly very content with it. It is no surprise to me that this book is so widely used and wildly popular among students and instructors.

Before you spend any more time reading the review below, do yourself a favor if you plan on taking organic chemistry. Well actually do yourself AND your classmates a favor. Get this book and study all the 3chapters it has on bonding (hybridisation,VESPR, etc). In that case, you wouldn't be asking crazy questions and slowing everyone when you start organic chemistry. Problem is, if you don't have an instructor who can explain it really, really well, you'll be lost. This book is better than an instructor. Most of my classmates are lost right now and one girl told me she'd rather have me teach because she understrands it better when i explain stuff. This book tackles that subject matter better than any other textbook or review aid i've come across. I mean better than all those ochem introductory review books. if that isn't enough reason to convince you to get this book and study it, then read whatever i wrote below.

Since most of the reviews here are based on how fast the item got shipped and what not, i thought i'd write a review based on the content of the book. i haven't gone through the whole book. I bought it for my chem 2 class this summer and i really didn't pay much attention to it because my teacher was a collosal joke. He did not teach a darn thing. First day, he gave a quiz based on chem 1 which i took long ago but i managed to ace it, 2nd day of class he was sick so we went home early, 3rd day, we had a substitute because poor ol' guy was in the hospital. 4th day, he talked about a take home final and we used lecture time for lab, 5th day, final based on stuff from chem 1(again, i had a 100% so i knew i had my A, i used to tutor chem 1 between 03 to 2005 except i switched majors and forgot everything). days 6-8, well, he told us we were done on day 5 so we didn't show up These were supposed to be 6hour lecture days on saturdays and 3.5hour lab days on sunday (don't even ask me what we did in lab). I didn't care because i was taking cell and molecular bio alongside this and i did well in the final so i told myself so long as i got an A in chem 2, i'm fine. Well, i did get an A but didn't know squat on chem 2.

Enough about my rant but considering i have to take the mcat along with orgo this fall, i figured i better hit the book. I actually thought this book was awful during class section because it integrates stuff from the previous chapter and if you don't remember, well, you're kinda screwed. Now that i've read through it, i think it's a good ting. If you should start from scratch, this is the best chem text available. So i went back and started from chapter 2 or 3, did a quick revision and then i started to progress with the other chapters. The author really explains the concepts well and after each new concept, he has those worked example afterward along with a do it yourself example that has the answer right there so you can compare it.
Honestly, you can study from the book so instead of me wasting over an hour driving to and fro, i coulda stayed home and read the book instead.
2. It has little bullet points of tackling some things that look complicated. i studied the vspr model and lewis dots from this book and now i'm a pro.
3.if you carefully read once and do all the examples in the book, you should be able to get ALL of the end of chapter questions right.
4.There were times i thought certain things could've been summarized by the author so i skimmed over it. well, i got to the next chapter and realized i had to come back to read what i skipped and when i did do that, stuff made sense.
5.One thing i love and hate at the same time: it builds on things earlier discussed in the book. i love it because once i started to self study, doing those intergrative excercises makes me know i understand the concepts. if you haven't taken chem in a long time and have forgotten everything, this book will make it easy. The bad thing about the intergrative excercises is that i've forgotten everything i learned about thermochemistry, it's been about 5years now and i kinda skipped that chapter hoping to come back to it once i do bonding so on intergrative excercises that uses thermochemistry, i skip.
6.It has lots of visual diagrams and pictures to help you understand stuff.
one of the reason why i gave 4 stars is that i'm not completely done with everything, also, for the part of the text where it talks about double bonds in hybridrization, it would have been nice if the author had visually illustrated that there is a unhybridized p orbital. I mean it has a bunch of pictures and diagram for double bond but let's just say i had to read that paragraph twice and then come to the next paragraph to get it. turns out the diagram was at the bottom of the page. Normally it's at the side when it talks about the concept.

Overall, this book is a great chem text. i used zhumdall's chemistry text back in 2003 and geez...don't let me go there. My plan was to sell this right after class ended because i never keep textbooks. Well, I plan on keeping this one at least till next year when i'm done with my exam prep. i think i'll refer to this booka i study for the mcat. I've never seen a text that explains things in such an easy to understand way. I didn't buy the study guide. if you read through it,you should understand it to get all the answers in the back right. This isn't the kind of textbook that tests you on stuff not explained.It has TONS of examples in the chapters. You don't need to buy any supplemental chem book to help you.
Nuff said.

This Chemistry book is great! It is surprisingly easy to read and understand. It is really helping me with my chem class. For some reason i enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy reading harry potter.

This is a well laid out book. It is clear to learn from and contains just enough information about topics.

This is the text book I needed for my College class but it was also extremely helpful in understanding more about the basics of Chemistry.

The text is easy to read for me, but the calculations in it aren't explained very well. I would definitely be lost if not for the student guide that goes with this.

The text can be confusing at times but is a great text for chemistry. The text goes into a great many details most wont need but still a good book.

Extremely happy with the condition of the book and the time it took to get to me! Thank you! Getting the books asap and getting what you expected is all anyone could ask for.

I received Chemistry, the Central Science much sooner than I had expected it to arrive! It came in on Christmas eve! I don't even LIKE Chem but when I opened the book, I was freaking out. The pages were in pristine condition and if there was any writing or underling it was neat and small. BEAUTIFUL CONDITION! I'm very impressed with the quality of this book. Currently in the process of doing my Chem homework...not nearly as exciting as looking at all the perfectly intact pages.

Really good service. Item arrived within a couple of days from ordering it. Conditions where as described. I'm very happy with my order.