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scandium21 wrote:Hey guys, I am trying to kickstart this forum, while also asking a question:
What kind of labs will we see in Chem Lab this year? Titrations?
Thanks,
Scandium

Titrations are the usual ones, but creation of buffer is also possible.

jaah5211 wrote:

scandium21 wrote:Hey guys, I am trying to kickstart this forum, while also asking a question:
What kind of labs will we see in Chem Lab this year? Titrations?
Thanks,
Scandium

Titrations are the usual ones, but creation of buffer is also possible.

So I just got told by my coach (who was told by the regionals ES) that the Chemistry Lab event will be purely paper and pencil. There will be no labs or activities. Is this normal, or does it seem like a last-resort decision?

Also, on a completely unrelated note, what kind of equations do you guys have for magnetism. I have lots of info, but no equations on my sheet.

scandium21 wrote:

jaah5211 wrote:

scandium21 wrote:Hey guys, I am trying to kickstart this forum, while also asking a question:
What kind of labs will we see in Chem Lab this year? Titrations?
Thanks,
Scandium

Titrations are the usual ones, but creation of buffer is also possible.

So I just got told by my coach (who was told by the regionals ES) that the Chemistry Lab event will be purely paper and pencil. There will be no labs or activities. Is this normal, or does it seem like a last-resort decision?

Also, on a completely unrelated note, what kind of equations do you guys have for magnetism. I have lots of info, but no equations on my sheet.

A chemistry lab event without labs is not normal. Seems like a last - resort decision.
I really don't have equations for magnetism...
In chemistry lab, the magnetism is more about diamagnetism, paramagnetism, ferra or ferri magentism.
I haven't seen a chem lab test that asks about physics perspective or questions that requires equations for magnetism...
It is moreabout the ones above and how it affects the physical properties of a substance.

jaah5211 wrote:

scandium21 wrote:

jaah5211 wrote:
Titrations are the usual ones, but creation of buffer is also possible.

So I just got told by my coach (who was told by the regionals ES) that the Chemistry Lab event will be purely paper and pencil. There will be no labs or activities. Is this normal, or does it seem like a last-resort decision?

Also, on a completely unrelated note, what kind of equations do you guys have for magnetism. I have lots of info, but no equations on my sheet.

A chemistry lab event without labs is not normal. Seems like a last - resort decision.
I really don't have equations for magnetism...
In chemistry lab, the magnetism is more about diamagnetism, paramagnetism, ferra or ferri magentism.
I haven't seen a chem lab test that asks about physics perspective or questions that requires equations for magnetism...
It is moreabout the ones above and how it affects the physical properties of a substance.

Correct. A typical question I've seen about magnatism for chemistry is how electrons can create paramagnatism (something is sorta magnetic) and they have to ask you why. Then you'd respond by drawing a molecular orbital diagram for like oxygen that shows unpaired electrons, so then they could ask you where the bonding and anti bonding orbitals swap and so on.

Basically, from what I've seen from last years' exams for physical properties for magnetism :
Know types of magnetism
Know cause for paramagnetism
Know temperatures that affect magnetism (pst! Curie temperature)

I heard the university where regionals is held has very limited lab space,(a hurricane destroyed one of the buildings) and they couldn't get a spot for it. Also, thanks for the magnetism help!

Is Chem lab notorious for scuffed events or something? I'm probably still tilted since I didn't place, but at regionals the only thing for the chem lab test was a gravimetric analysis of calcium carbonate lab. No separate questions and nothing over acid-base stuff nor really physical properties (this is more like stoich T_T). I know since we all had the same lab it's fair, but not getting a metal after studying for dozens of hours cause I dropped my piece of limestone after massing it makes me suicidal. At UT Invitational which was the only other event we went to, there was no lab and the test was only over acid-base stuff.

Am I just extremely unlucky or does this happen a ton? All the released tests I saw from this year and last year seemed pretty good. Sorry for the half rant lmao

Dinoswarleafs wrote:Is Chem lab notorious for scuffed events or something? I'm probably still tilted since I didn't place, but at regionals the only thing for the chem lab test was a gravimetric analysis of calcium carbonate lab. No separate questions and nothing over acid-base stuff nor really physical properties (this is more like stoich T_T). I know since we all had the same lab it's fair, but not getting a metal after studying for dozens of hours cause I dropped my piece of limestone after massing it makes me suicidal. At UT Invitational which was the only other event we went to, there was no lab and the test was only over acid-base stuff.

Am I just extremely unlucky or does this happen a ton? All the released tests I saw from this year and last year seemed pretty good. Sorry for the half rant lmao

I'm surprised that your regional competition didn't give a written test and I would say that's not very representative of most competitions. Similarly, I think the UT invitational not having a lab portion was a special circumstance. In general, Chem lab tends to have somewhat long, fast-paced tests and labs, so I would say practice tends to be important and at future competitions your studying will almost certainly be relevant. Of course I can't say for sure you won't experience anything like the events you mentioned, but generally you can expect it to be split between a written test and a lab portion and I don't think you should worry about these sort of bad events since there's not much you can do to prepare for them.

Dinoswarleafs wrote:Is Chem lab notorious for scuffed events or something? I'm probably still tilted since I didn't place, but at regionals the only thing for the chem lab test was a gravimetric analysis of calcium carbonate lab. No separate questions and nothing over acid-base stuff nor really physical properties (this is more like stoich T_T). I know since we all had the same lab it's fair, but not getting a metal after studying for dozens of hours cause I dropped my piece of limestone after massing it makes me suicidal. At UT Invitational which was the only other event we went to, there was no lab and the test was only over acid-base stuff.

Am I just extremely unlucky or does this happen a ton? All the released tests I saw from this year and last year seemed pretty good. Sorry for the half rant lmao

Lol, funny I had the same experience at regionals.
Here is the thing, don't expect too much from regionals (or not that established invys) . Usually the supervisors underestimate the rules and basically discard it or just make their own.
I had the same problem you did, the regionals test was just stoichiometry and easy vinegar and baking soda lab.
No acids and bases nor physical properties. Even worst, we were told to do titration in terms of GRAMS and do all calculations in GRAMS.
(and I told the supervisor that we will do in mL and she said okay, but they basically didn't grade my test correctly as they just followed the original key
which was based on grams)

I totally understand where you are coming from, at some invitationals, tests are just too easy OR not difficult enough to distinguish placements.

At UGA, the test was terrible and lab was quite easy and I still placed 17th...

I lowkey thought I did so well and I felt like killing myself after UGA.


However at MIT, I placed 8th...
Unlike at UGA, the test was HARD and actually difficult enough to properly distinguish teams. (And there was actually a good lab)

This showed, at lest to me, that you can't trust invitationals that aren't too reliable.

So, don't get discouraged!

State tournament will be better and SHOULD be better (unless you're in florida lol)

Your hard work will pay off in the end.

Hey, does anyone remember the station times for chem lab? Was it like 3 minutes or something

yo what did you guys get for the first lab on the nats test? (buffer, weak acid or DI water)