Schaum's Outline of College Chemistry

I used this book as a complement for the general chemistry course I took many years ago. It` s excellent as it has a lot of interesting problems To study theory you will have the text that your professor will recommend you. It s not expensive so my piece of advice is that you should buy it

A few years out of high school, I was working construction and decided that it was time to go to college. After doing an agonizing reappraisal of my finances, I realized that I could not afford to either take the time off work or pay a great deal for tuition. I had recently read a brief article in an issue of Reader's Digest that described the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) tests. Realizing that this would be an option for college credit and then discovering that there was a CLEP test for chemistry, I purchased this book and began studying. It was very hard at first, balancing the chemical equations was a form of algebra problem far beyond those I was familiar with. Nevertheless, I persevered in two ways. I managed to work my way through the book doing nearly all of the problems and I also passed the CLEP chemistry test with flying colors. I then went on to get a chemistry major and only once did I slip below an A. While I don't belittle the amount of time and effort I put forth, it was the quality of this book that got me through. While the problems were hard, they were still doable and once done, you have learned the material. No higher praise can be given.

Over the passed few months, I have been buying a lot of chemistry help books to help me survive college chemistry. I have bought the more popular ones like Chemistry for Dummies and the Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry. Both of these books are ok, but the part that they really lack is that they didn't adequately help me in the math of chemistry. In fact, it's actually kind of misleading to read these books, and then take a chemistry class. Because these books brush over the math of chemistry so much that I was led to believe that chemistry didn't have that much math in it. But nothing could be further from the truth! When I took my first chemistry class, I felt like I had more math than I did in my actual math class. And, unfortunately, both Chemistry for Dummies and the Complete Idiot's Guide to Chemistry didn't help out too much in this area (and to make matters worse, the FEW examples of math based chemistry problems they had were ridiculously easy.) I was fed up. I had spent money on two chemistry books that were near worthless as far as helping me out with the math. And when it came to chemistry 102, Chemistry for Dummies might as well have been cast into a fire.. as it doesn't seem to cover much of anything passed chemistry 101 (just look up "enthalpy" in the index... it doesn't even merit a mention in Chemistry for Dummies!). After I told my professor about my problem, he showed me Schaum's Outlines for College Chemistry. I thought, "Oh great, another worthless chemistry book." But then when I flipped through it, it was like a dream come true. Not only does it cover just about every single topic from chemistry 101 AND 102, it also has page after page after page of examples of math based chemistry problems, and it breaks the problems down so that I could teach myself how to work the math problems. And incase anyone is wondering, yes it does explain the main topics in chemistry. So it's not just a straight math book. The explanations are a little dry compared to Chemistry for Dummies and the Idiot's Guide to Chemistry, but this book is so infinitely awesome in every other way, that this is easily forgivable (besides, the Dummies and Idiot's book may be more fun to read, but they do so at the sacrifice of information, and are often overly simplistic). As far as I'm concerned this is a TRUE chemistry help book. It is by far the most complete chemistry help book I have ever seen. Remember this: chemistry is not a spectator sport. It is a lot of math, and math must be practiced over and over until it is mastered. Chemistry is not a subject like biology where all you have to do is "read it and memorize it". If you're looking for a good chemistry help book, then I don't think you have to look any further than Schaum's College Chemistry.

This book is concise and complete. The reviews are great, and the problems aren't just busywork--they actually will help you understand the material. For the higher level International Baccalaureate chemistry exam, I have had to review 2 years worth of general chemistry, and this book has helped me immensely.

I am a chemistry major and found a lot of informative material included. The book explained the ideas thoroughly and the problems at the end of each section were a good source of review and practice. Everything was straight forward and easy to comprehend.