Dear Dizzyday,
I'd say most of the questions (more on this below) in the books
published by E.N. Ramsden, JGR Briggs, and Tan Yin Toon and his
co-authors are relevant to the Singapore A-Level syllabus.
My suggestion if you want to stick very closely to the syllabus
is to use the JC notes that you have to go through the tables of
contents and mark out those that are *not* in the syllabus.
However, if you do not mind learning stuff that it not in the
current syllabus (it really doesn't hurt, and there really isn't
that much that is out-of-the-Singapore-A-Level-Chemistry-syllabus
in Ramsden!), save yourself the trouble, and just plow through the
book in the table of contents order. I particularly like the
arrangement in Ramsden, Introduction > Physical > Inorganic
> Organic. By the way, I think NJC notes are based pretty
much on Ramsden. They even refer to their exercises section
as "Checkpoints", as does Ramsden.
Some questions (e.g., those on the Chernobyl reactor disaster --
Section 1.10 & Checkpoint 1F in Edition 3) are probably not
relevant for the Singapore A-Level H1 Chemistry syllabus, but hey,
look at it this way -- If you read up more on this topic, you will
gain more knowledge in this area (not many students today are
familiar with Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Bhopal), and this
will give you the edge in the sceince and society questions in
General Paper (if you're taking this subject). Nothing really
goes to waste, so to speak!
Yet other questions (Why did Chadwick look for the
neutron? Why was it hard to find? - Checkpoint 1B, Question
4) will help you in Physics. The best answer to this question
is not found in Ramsden, by the way, but in Cathcart's "The Fly in
the Cathedral". It is a fantastic read (almost like a novel),
and give you an insight into man's journey in his understanding of
the atom like no other book. I don't think such a question
will ever appear in the Chemistry paper (I doubt it will even
appear in the Physics paper), but then again, understanding the
history of the atomic structure is not "wasted" in any way!
Sincerely,
CKLee
http://ascklee.org/
