Chemistry: Concepts and Problems, A Self-Teaching Guide, 3rd Edition (Wiley Self-Teaching Guides)

A must have

I bought this book for my 8th grade daughter to introduce her to basic chemistry concepts and read this book entirely with her last year. This book is very well written, and lots of self-explanatory examples have been provided under each section. Self-tests, which are given at the end of each chapter, are also very useful to test the reader's understanding. The only drawback I found is that there are a couple of printing mistakes here and there, which I corrected while reading. Hopefully the author will correct these little errors in upcoming editions. Also, the organic chemistry portion is very short, and I expected more details there. Apart from that, this is a complete introductory chemistry book and, in my opinion, if someone read it apart from their middle school curriculum, they will definitely be benefited when they start their chemistry course in high school.

This book was amazing for chemistry! I went from not knowing chemistry to at least making a B on a test.

It’s a prep book that teaches! The whole book is about practice problems. The answer is right below the question, so you might need to hide it below a piece of paper when you’re practicing. It’s a great choice if you want to just understand the concept of basic chemistry or need a quick recap. I would not recommend this if you need harder questions to practice for a hard test.

I haven’t taken Chemistry since I was 12 in another country. I hated it. I’m 43 and wanted to study it independently from home during Covid. I bought a college chemistry book and this one. Whenever something doesn’t make sense or is too complicated in the college Chem book, I go to this book for a slow explanation. It works. Just what I was hoping for

This book is for the confident learner. I was surprised by the poor quality of editing, which in my experience is unusual for a Wiley imprint. The many editing errors seriously detracted from my overall chemistry learning experience. For example, in the first self-test, questions #4 and #5, are as follows: 4) How many electrons, protons, and neutrons does a neutral Mg atom have?; and 5) What is the electron configuration of the element in question 4? The answer key gives the following incorrect answers: 4) 6,6,6; and 5) 1s2 2s2 2p2. I'm no expert in chemistry (which is why I bought this book) but I'm pretty sure that the answers are for Carbon and not Magnesium. Such errors in the textbook can cause a learner to lose confidence in their abilities to understand chemistry.

Delivered Text in good working condition. Concept was well explained.

It’s by no means perfect. There are a few mistakes (I read it cover to cover preparing for the PRAXIS) but it’s a great resource. The most important part is that it breaks things down very well. I found it very helpful. It’ll live on my shelf forever.