Chemical Principles: The Quest for Insight

Chemical Principles: The Quest for Insight

more in depth chemistry text book

I bought this book for my son because his college used it as Freshman chemistry text book. We already have two text books. On is General Chemistry by James Brady. It is a very nice book. We bought it in the library used book sell. It is clear and simple. It is enough for high school chemistry class and AP chemistry test. I looked at the problem sets in the MIT chemistry class. I know it is more difficult than my son's high school chemistry class especially in atomic structure. So I brought the book for him to take a look. I read the book and saw that the book is much more comprehensive. But the explaination is clear and a lot of insight. This is a wonderful college book for people who has good background in high school chemistry and want to persuade a career in Science and engineering in college. But is not a good choice for high school students or the first chemistry book.

fantastic.

Admittedly an intro book, but it still does a nearly consistent job of proving the things it says. That said, if you just want to say get a 5 on AP Chem, this book will be frustratingly thorough and in depth. I loved it. Clear and detailed, highly recommend.

Mediocre, at best

So what if UCLA uses this as their primary freshman text? UCSD (where I go), MIT, and other schools use it too, and every student I've met agrees that this book is sub-par. It isn't as clear as it can be, is bereft of example problems that apply to the homework, has at least a few mistakes per chapter in the solutions manual, spends way too much time deriving some (useless) things more applicable to physical chemisty, etc.

Great!

I got the order sooner than i expected and it was in exactly the condition they said it was in. I am very pleased with my order.

Confusion

Book layout is overly confusing. Text is sometimes not as clear as can be and needs more practice examples (most apparent in sections like isomers and titrations). Yes like one person said before, UCLA does use this text to teach Life science majors, but there are better choices. There are numerous mistakes in the solution guides still, and Zumdahl's "Chemical Principles" is a much better read in my opinion. I actually used it to clear up points this text was muddy on. Your mileage may vary.

Keyword : chemical