Basic Chemistry, 5th Edition

About the Book

Basic Chemistry offers the following features to facilitate learning:

A simple, cumulative approach to basic chemistry concepts

• Accessible language, visual aids, and a gentle pace help mixed-major students embrace and understand the key concepts and formulas of general chemistry.
• A focus on developing fundamental math skills assists students in approaching problems with ease.

Deeper integration with the MasteringChemistry eText presents opportunities for learning before, during, and after class

• Updated! Before: Key Math Skills introduced in the previous edition are now connected with a dynamic study module that teaches students to write numbers in scientific notation and discusses dimensional analysis.
  • NEW! Topics introduced in Key Math Skills include behavior of atoms in the formation of ionic and molecular compounds, stoichiometry, gas laws, calculating solutions or dilutions, PV=NRT-type problems, pH concentration and calculations, and equilibrium and K.
• NEW! During: Learning Catalytics questions have been increased to include 10 per chapter.
• NEW! After: Questions relate more closely to real life, engaging students deeper into the subject matter.
• NEW! Interactive Videos now correspond to a key concept/topic in most chapters, giving students an opportunity to reinforce what they just learned through visual learning.

A strong emphasis on problem solving

• Guides to Problem Solving (GPS) illustrate the steps needed to solve a problem and provide a visual guide for students to use in solving future problems.  Color-coded Guide to Problem Solvingare provided for each problem type in the text, directing students through the steps and strategy for each kind of problem they will encounter.
• NEW!  “Try It First” featureprecedes the Solution section of each Sample Problem, encouraging students to work on the problem before reading the given Solution and helping them learn to recall new ideas.
• Analyze the Problems convert a word problem into components for problem solving. NEW! Connect features specify information that relates the Given and Need sections in Analyze the Problems to help students identify and connect the components within a word problem and set up a solution strategy.
• Combining Ideas are sets of integrated problems placed after every two or four chapters to help students test their understanding of the concepts from previous chapters by integrating topics.
• Answers to study check and odd-numbered problems allow students to reference their work and monitor their understanding of chapter topics.
• Sample Problems illustrate worked-out solutions with explanations and required calculations to guide students through each type of problem. Study Checks associated with each Sample Problem allow students to check their problem-solving strategies with the Answer.
• Understanding the Concepts, at the end of each chapter, are questions with visual representations that build an understanding of newly learned chemical concepts.
• Challenge Questions at the end of each chapter provide complex questions that promote critical thinking, group work, and cooperative learning environments.
• Study Check questions within each sample problem help students review problem-solving strategy and their comprehension of the material.
• Paired Problem Sets encourage students to review the information in each chapter before moving on to new material.

Content and features engage students and actively connect crucial concepts to the real world

• NEW! Follow-Up Stories provide follow-up to the discussion in the chapter opener and include application questions. This narrative helps students stay engaged in the content and, utilizing the new chemistry content, connects the key concepts and problem solving to an overarching theme.

• By connecting chemistry to real-world and career applications, the Fifth Edition engages students throughout each chapter. Chapter Openers discuss careers that involve chemistry, connecting the chemistry in the chapter with the professionals who use chemistry every day. “Chemistry Links to Health” features apply chemical concepts to health and medicine such as weight loss and weight gain, alcohol abuse, blood buffers, and kidney dialysis, and provide students with connections that illustrate the importance of understanding chemistry in real-life situations.

• Chapter openers feature doctors, pharmacists, biochemists, and more to help students relate the subject to its many career paths.

• Special Interest Boxes relate key chemistry topics to real world health and environmental issues of interest.

Visually engaging pedagogy guides students through core concepts

• Learning Goals introduce each chapter, clearly identifying key concepts and providing a guideline for studying. Each learning goal is repeated in the chapter review, ensuring students identify what they have learned with the chapter’s most important topics.
• Looking Ahead Outlines clearly state the topics in each chapter, giving students a tangible guideline to what they will be learning.
• Concept Checks appear in each chapter to encourage students to revisit their understanding of key terms and ideas before moving forward.
• Chapter review, key terms, additional problems, and summary of reactions provide comprehensive end-of-chapter review that allow students to reinforce their retention of key topics.
• Micro-Macro-Symbolic Artwork offers students a visual reference to chemical phenomena on the atomic level. Accompanying questions help students focus on these illustrated concepts.

Also available as a Pearson eText or packaged with Mastering Chemistry

Pearson eText is a simple-to-use, mobile-optimized, personalized reading experience that can be adopted on its own as the main course material. It lets students highlight, take notes, and review key vocabulary all in one place, even when offline. Seamlessly integrated videos and other rich media engage students and give them access to the help they need, when they need it. Educators can easily share their own notes with students so they see the connection between their eText and what they learn in class — motivating them to keep reading, and keep learning.

MasteringChemistry is the leading online homework, tutorial, and assessment system, designed to improve results by engaging students before, during, and after class with powerful content. Instructors ensure students arrive ready to learn by assigning educationally effective content before class, and encourage critical thinking and retention with in-class resources such as Learning Catalytics^™. Students can further master concepts after class through traditional and adaptive homework assignments that provide hints and answer-specific feedback. The Mastering gradebook records scores for all automatically graded assignments in one place, while diagnostic tools give instructors access to rich data to assess student understanding and misconceptions.

Mastering brings learning full circle by continuously adapting to each student and making learning more personal than ever—before, during, and after class.

Before Class

• NEW! Chemistry Primer is a series of tutorials focused on remediating students taking their first college chemistry course. Topics include math in the context of chemistry, chemical skills and literacy, as well as some basics of balancing chemical equations, mole theory, and stoichiometry — all of which were chosen based on extensive surveys of chemistry professors across the country. The main body of each item in the primer offers diagnostic questions designed to help students recognize that they need help. If they struggle, the primer offers extensive formative help in the hint structure via wrong answer feedback, instructional videos, and step-wise worked examples that provide scaffolding to build up students’ understanding as needed. The primer is offered as a pre-built assignment that is automatically generated with every general chemistry and intro/prep chemistry course.
• NEW! 66 Dynamic Study Modules help students study effectively on their own by continuously assessing their activity and performance in real time. Here's how it works: students complete a set of questions with a unique answer format that also asks them to indicate their confidence level. Questions repeat until the student can answer them all correctly and confidently. Once completed, Dynamic Study Modules explain the concept using materials from the text. These are available as graded assignments prior to class, and accessible on smartphones, tablets, and computers.
• NEW! Pearson eText features include:
  • Available on smartphones and tablets
  • Seamlessly integrated videos and other rich media
  • Accessible (screen-reader ready)
  • Configurable reading settings, including resizable type and night reading mode
  • Instructor and student note taking, highlighting, bookmarking, and search
• Multiple-choice Reading Questions are provided for each chapter, making it easy to hold students accountable for completing assigned readings before lecture.

During Class

• NEW! Learning Catalytics^™ generates class discussion, guides your lecture, and promotes peer-to-peer learning with real-time analytics. MasteringChemistry with eText now provides Learning Catalytics—an interactive student response tool that uses students’ smartphones, tablets, or laptops to engage them in more sophisticated tasks and thinking. Instructors can:

• Pose a variety of open-ended questions that help your students develop critical thinking skills
• Monitor responses to find out where students are struggling
• Use real-time data to adjust your instructional strategy and try other ways of engaging your students  during class
• Manage student interactions by automatically grouping students for discussion, teamwork, and peer-to-peer learning

After Class

• NEW! Interactive Videos now correspond to a key concept/topic in most chapters, giving students an opportunity to reinforce what they just learned by showing how chemistry works in real life and introducing a bit of humor into chemical problem solving and demonstrations.

  Topics include Using Conversion Factors, Mass Calculations for Reactions, Concentration of Solutions, Balancing Nuclear Equations, and Chemical v. Physical Change. Sample Calculations walk students through the most challenging chemistry problems and provide a fresh perspective on how to approach individual problems and plan solutions. .

• Enhanced end-of-chapter questions with answer-specific feedback use data gathered from all of the students using the program, to offer wrong-answer feedback that is specific to each student. Rather than simply providing feedback of the "right/wrong/try again" variety, Mastering guides students towards the correct final answer without giving the answer away. 
  
• Key Math Skills and Core Chemistry Skills Tutorials provide assignable practice problems related to the in-text feature boxes, ensuring that students master the basic quantitative and science skills they need to succeed in the course.
• Concept Map Quizzes use interactive concept maps and related multiple-choice quiz questions to help students make connections between important concepts within each chapter.
• All tutorials, end-of-chapter questions, reading quizzes, and test bank questions have been tagged to learning outcomes.
• The majority of all end-of-chapter problems are now easily assignable within MasteringChemistry.
• Math Remediation links in selected tutorials launch algorithmically generated math exercises that give students unlimited practice on prerequisite skills, freeing up class and office-hour time to focus on the chemistry. Exercises include guided solutions, sample problems, and learning aids for extra help, and offer helpful feedback when students enter incorrect answers.

• Adaptive Follow-Up Assignments are based on each student's past performance on their course work to date, including homework, tests, and quizzes. These provide additional coaching and targeted practice as needed, so students can master the material.