Chemistry is examined as one subject and learned as three, and the averaged mark conceals which of the three is failing. Splitting the last two papers by strand takes about twenty minutes, usually produces a surprise, and converts a vague instruction to work harder into a specific plan that a tutor can act on.
| What you need | The last two marked chemistry papers |
|---|---|
| Time | About twenty minutes |
| What it produces | Marks gained against available, per strand |
| Why it matters | Each strand needs a different remedy |
How to do the split
Go through each paper question by question and assign every question to physical, organic or inorganic. Total the marks available and the marks gained in each category. Three percentages fall out, and they are almost never similar.
Do it for two papers rather than one — a single paper can be unrepresentative if it happened to weight one strand heavily. Two is enough to see the pattern.
It is worth doing this with the student rather than for them. Most students have never seen their chemistry performance broken down and find it genuinely clarifying, particularly if they have concluded they are simply bad at the subject.
What each result means
Physical weak
Almost always the mole concept or the arithmetic downstream of it. Check conversions first, before assuming the current chapter is the problem. Responds to supervised numerical practice with full working.
Organic weak
Usually because it was approached as memorisation. The remedy is mechanism taught as reasoning, plus the conversion map. Slower to fix than physical and more durable once fixed.
Inorganic weak
A study-method problem far more often than an ability one. It decays without spaced revisiting, and the fix is short daily blank-page recall rather than longer sessions.
The three remedies have almost nothing in common. That is why "work harder at chemistry" so rarely helps — it is three different instructions wearing one sentence, and the student defaults to working on whichever strand they already find most comfortable.
What to do with the result
Tell the tutor, specifically, and ask what they will do differently in the next month. A tutor given "organic is at forty per cent and physical is at eighty" can plan; a tutor given "he is weak in chemistry" will teach the syllabus and hope.
It also gives you a way to check progress: repeat the split after two months on the papers written in between, and see whether the weak strand has moved. That is a far better measure than the overall mark, which can stay flat while the weak strand improves and the strong one drifts.
When the answer is all three
It happens, usually where the mole concept was never settled and the student has been coping across the board. That is a foundation problem rather than three separate ones, and it is fixed by going back rather than by working on all three at once.
Questions parents ask
What if the school does not return marked papers?
Ask for them. It is a reasonable request and the papers are the most useful diagnostic document available.
Can the tutor do this instead?
A good tutor will do it in the first session. You can also do it yourself in twenty minutes, and it is worth knowing.
How often should we repeat it?
Every couple of months. It measures whether the plan is working better than the overall mark does.
My child says all three are hard.
Then check the mole concept first. A shaky foundation there produces exactly that experience.