Customer Reviews

Problems & Solutions to Accompany McQuarrie - Simon Physical Chemistry: A Molecular Approach

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Heather Cox is the wo-man. All of the problems are worked out in the goriest of detail, leaving nothing to the imagination. Not only are the problems fully worked, but additional justification and reasoning is given, making this a great supplement to the main text, especially in courses where the professor assigns a significant amount of book problems.

I'm not much a a pchem student.. passed by the skin of my teeth.. I frankly don't know how I would possibly have solved any of the homework problems without this book to get me start and help me through the tough spots. This book was a lifesaver.

However, I encourage you to use it as an aid... I fell into the trap on the first test of relying to heavily on it and paid for it test time...

If you use the text, you'd better buy this unless your a genius...

There are a few errors here and there accounting for the 4. These can cause you lots of wasted head scratching when your trying to figure out why you can reproduce the answers. Thankfully these are few and far between.

If you're using the McQuarrie textbook, let me first say I'm very sorry to hear that. However, one thing you can do to make your life a little better is to get a hold of this solutions manual. I would say having this manual is a MUST if you want to do anywhere near decent in a p-chem class using the McQuarrie book.
The solutions manual has worked solutions to all problems - not just even or just odd problems. Another nice feature is that it also restates the problem in the solutions manual. This may not sound like big deal, but when you see the the size of the McQuarrie textbook (thicker than a phone book!) you get tired of lugging the book and solutions manual around. So if you have a quick homework assignment to turn in and want to take the easy way out ;) you can just use the solutions manual only and not even bring the textbook to wherever you're going.

Sometimes the solutions are incorrect, or numbers are different in the problems in the textbook compared to the solutions in this solutions manual. Sometimes when showing a solution, big math jumps are taken, and it's difficult to see how to get there in one step. This solutions manual is supposed to be a tool to help understand the difficult subject of physical chemistry, but it sometimes makes everything harder.

As a medical microbiologist/sterilization microbiologist, it has proven necessary over the many years to stay current in many of the contributing sciences to my speciality. I do so on a semester basis. It was time again to go back to my Physical Chemistry and I was looking for a current title with a different approach to the course. While using the Mcguire & Simon (an excellent text for any class and especially for selft studying), it is necessary (as ever before with P. Chem) to do the problems. The normal difficulty is doing enough to set the concepts in the brain. Add to that finding the correct answer and you have a daunting problem in and of itself. The Problems & Solutions guide turns that problem into a very neat and usable solution. There are several minor errors, but they present themselves so as not to confuse the student. The presentation is a bit spartan, but still very usable and direct. If you are going to purchase McGuire & Simon (and I can't see why anybody wouldn't that's serious about the subject), you really should purchase the Problems & Solutions guide in order to get the most out of the subject. Finally, someone wrote a problem & solutions guide to a chemistry text that is worth owning and is very reasonably priced.

This book is not worth buying unless your professor takes examples directly from the McQuarrie textbook. The solutions are not as detailed as they could be and there is no table of contents or index information. If you're looking for worked examples to study from you're better off just searching online. This book is a waste of money.

I usually buy solutions manuals for my text books, but in this case it is absolutely necessary. This material is highly technical and requires a mastery of mathematics that I lack. This manual allowed me to pass the class.

I purchased this to help me understand the approaches that should be taken when solving my P. Chem homework. The guide can be very helpful, but still leaves a lot to be desired on some problems. There are often many steps skipped that the author assumes you can figure out yourself and on a few problems, the solutions are flat out wrong. I have been stuck for an hour or two trying to figure out how they get their answers, when they are completely wrong, so if you find yourself in a similar situation, it might be best to seek help elsewhere. Overall, I found this book to be very helpful and just wish that it had been better edited.

Well, to be honest, Physical Chemistry isn't really my interest, but even I could see how the solutions in this book were sometimes flawed or presumptuous. It was a useful tool, but sometimes I didn't understand what in the world the manual was doing. It didn't really improve my understanding of the subject material, it just provided a way to get through the problem.

Honestly I am not a stupid person, but without this manual I probably would have not understood how to do hardly any of the problems in the back of the chapters. I studied by looking at how you were supposed to do the problem and then trying to do it myself. This is the only solutions manual I have ever used, and if nothing else it will help. If you are taking P Chem and using the connecting book, do yourself a favor and get the solutions manual. You won't regret the money that you spend on it unless you fail the class...