General Chemistry

I am majoring in Biochemistry and we use this textbook for 1st year General Chemistry. I am not completely satisfied with it because I would have liked to see MORE examples of worked-out-problems in the text. It does have nice pictures showing what the text is teaching and it does have lots of problems at the end of each chapter for students to work on. However, I would have liked to see more examples of solved problems because there needs to be this to aid the student of Chemistry learn the subject better.

We use this text for our freshman chemistry course at Trent University, and have for a number of years (previous editions). It is equal or superior to virtually all other texts that I am aware of for a general course that includes both chemistry majors and others (biology, physics, etc.). Concepts are explained well, diagrams are easy to understand, and there is a profusion of examples in the text. It also includes a biochemistry chapter, which many other texts do not have. With the addition of bichem to many 1st year curricula, this is important.

If teaching a more rigorous/physical course directed solely to chem majors, this book may not be the best choice (perhaps Oxtoby and Nachtrieb would be a better choice).

This book is generally superior in quantity and quality of questions at the back of the chapter. All questions are paired with the odd numbered question having the answer in the back of the book. Students really like this feature.

As an instructor, there are a number of extras that are very helpful, including an alternate example manual (with examples to use in class that are complimentary to the text), a full set of figures on a CD-ROM which are easily transferred to Powerpoint for use in lectures, and a complete solutions manual.

There are a few small problems. The order in the text is not the order I teach in, but the chapters are pretty good at delineating the material so you can teach out of order. For example, Chapter 6 is thermochemistry, and Chapter 18 is the rest of thermodynamics - why 12 chapters between them? (To be fair, this system is used in a number of freshman texts.) Web resources for the student are lacking in that they cost extra (at least, in Canada), something many other publishers offer for free.

All in all, this is a very good text for a general course in freshman chemistry. It is well indexed, and should also be of use to anyone that needs a chemistry reference book.

As a student currently using this book I have to say I don't like it. My class has followed this book chapter by chapter so far and it makes absolutly no sense. I'm almost through with the semester and we are just getting into configurations! (Which would have been helpful knowing about three chapters!) The book has a lot of good information if you can understand it. Or if you are like me you have someone explain it to you.

I am a XIIth standard student, and learning concepts of the science. I was very scared of general chemistry before I read this book. Ten days ago, I bought this book and even in real shortage of time, I read this book thoroughly, and I liked it so much that I never liked any book before it. It has great information in very simple words that a rookie like me can also understand easily. It has been written very systematically and logically with probably great efforts. Now I am not a bit scared from general aspects of chemistry and can solve even some tough problems. This book is no doubt a very nice book.