What's wrong with conq? (1 Viewer)

[ND]

In most of the threads with talk about text books, alot of people say that conquering chem is no good. This is the only book that i have looked at (apart from success1 and excel), so i am wondering, what is it about it that isn't good? I'm not trying to defend it or anything, i would just like to know. I used conq for the prelim as well, and i've used the hsc ver. up to Monitoring and Management, but i've just ordered chem contexts 2(it hasn't arrived yet), what is it that makes contexts better than conq?
Thanks.

 

[kini mini]

IMO Conquering tends to focus too much on description and learning the minutiae of an issue. You won't get a good understanding of reaction mechanics, for instance, from Conquering, though you can learn many examples of complex reactions. I favour Pathways because it seems to me to achieve the balance between actual chemistry (a small but non-zero part of the course) and the social "science" that is implied in the syllabus. However, I think you should always refer to at least two texts and Conquering is fine to keep on standby. I kept mine on standby so much it's in near perfect condition .

Contexts seemed alright to me, I used it for my option (chem of art). I've heard good reports of its core but never tried it.

 

[schwang_thang]

i actually preferred conq. chem to pathways...mayb cos im one of the dumber ones in chem but i felt that conq. chem was more straightforward, it went by the syllabus...n trutru, u don't understand the concepts as clearly or thoroughly but it gives u wat u need 2 cover the syllabus.
pathways was very thorough n detailed...which is a gud thing i guess, but at the same time there was alot of stuff (like background/history) which wasnt in the syllabus...it annoyed the crap outta me cos i had 2 distinguish between wat was in the syllabus n wat wasnt so i wud know exactly wat 2 study

but then again, i didnt really care abt understanding chem, i just wanted all the necessary info stuck in my head 4 the exam

 

[needtostudy]

conq chem covers the topics, but not in depth required to answer the syllabus dot points. It covers the dot points but its more of a summary, hence it is not a good book according to dot point depth. The questions are sometimes weird like they would jump to hard questions straight away out of the blue, but at least conq sticks to the syllabus. I recommend chemistry context book 2 atm as its information are in depth, and the questions are quite good, also its the most recent up to date textbook with the syllabus although it was released last year i thinks