These are the pages you keep open during a problem set, not pages you read once.
Everything else on this site is written to be understood — a concept page wants you to follow an argument, an investigation wants you to make a decision. These five want nothing. They are lookup sheets. You will use them dozens of times this semester and you are not expected to work through them from top to bottom even once.
| Page | Open it when |
|---|---|
| Polyatomic Ions | you are writing a formula and need a charge |
| Solubility Rules | you need to know whether a product falls out as a solid |
| The Activity Series | you need to know whether a single displacement happens at all |
| Significant Figures and Units | you have an answer and are deciding how to write it |
| Naming Rules at a Glance | you have a formula and need its name, or the reverse |
Two of them you should eventually stop needing
Polyatomic Ions and Naming Rules at a Glance are the ones to work towards not opening. About twenty ions and one set of naming rules carry almost every question you will be asked, and every quantitative page from The Mole onwards assumes you can write a correct formula without stopping to think. Reaching for the sheet three times in a calculation does not just cost time — it breaks the thread of the problem you were actually solving. Use Naming Practice until the sheet is a check rather than a source.
Solubility Rules and The Activity Series are different. Those are measured data, not rules you could have derived, and practising chemists look them up too. There is no virtue in memorising a solubility table, and a fair assessment will give it to you.
Check against the booklet you will be given
Data tables differ slightly between sources — the boundary between “slightly soluble” and “insoluble”, the exact order of two adjacent metals, whether STP means 100 kPa or 101.325 kPa. None of these pages can be authoritative over the data booklet you are handed for an assessment. Compare them early in the semester so that no difference is a surprise later, and if you find one, bring it up — spotting it is a good sign rather than a nuisance.