All About Exam

So..... alright... Chemistry wasn't really THAT hard compared with other papers but it was still quite tough. But despite the tricky questions, i still love Unit 4 and Unit 5 papers. They really made me realize a lot of stuff and magnify the small little holes in my understanding which i normally underlook....


....like the source of H for reduction of Lithium Tetrahydridoaluminate (III) is from a dilute acid.

I had this misconception that a hydride (H-) anion from LiAlH4 will attack the nucleophilic (positive or slightly positive charged) centre. After the Unit 4 paper, now i come to understand that normally after the reaction, aqueous Hydrochloric acid (HCl) will be added to destroy any remaining trace of LiAlH4 (LiAlH4 is such a powerful reducing agent that it actually reduce H2O to H2 and O2 !! Wow !) and also provide hydrogen source for the reduction process. Neat yo !!..


... and also the Kolbe Schmidt Reaction (reacting phenol with aqueous NaOH with CO2 under extremely high pressure followed by sulphuric acid to form Salicylic Acid). Salicylic acid is a precursor to Aspirin.

Kolbe-Schmidt Reaction

and the end product.......

Salicylic Acid

What a beautiful molecule and Kolbe Schmidt reaction is really such a nice piece of Chemistry and excited me so much to the extent of me blogging about it !

Aspirin is used as an anti-inflammatory agent and also as pain and fever reducer. Research has shown that taking small dosage of aspirin can help to minimize the risk of heart attack ! It's described as one of the 'miracle' drugs of the century.

So... what makes this beautiful molecule the almost miraculous therapeutic effect ? (Nah... not going to talk about it here... that's another story of COX, cyclooxygenase and prostagladins. Again, it's a simply remarkable mode of action that i am really amazed by it !)

Arachidonic Acid
(one of the most frigging important molecule in our biological system)

Ah.... *stares at the molecule* isn't it just pretty ?

You know, i guess, that's what examination should really make us feel like. Examination for the purpose of well...examine how much you know, understand and how much you can play, twist and turn the knowledge and apply into common day problems (note to self: you're still lacking in that).

In the end, it's not about how good you scored so that you can gloat for a day about it and get egoistic about it; neither is it about trying to make you feel bad and sad over the things that you don't know and make you want to knock yourself on the head.

In the end, it's just about trying to teach you more about identifying your strengths and weaknesses and gauge your understanding so that you can evaluate yourself on what you still lack and strive to improve the areas left wanting so that we can better prepare ourselves.

In the end, examination is all about self-evaluating and self-learning. That's all =)