Chemistry

OCR offers Chemistry A (H432), a conventional specification organised into six modules, and Chemistry B, Salters (H433), which teaches chemistry through storylines drawn from industry, medicine and the environment. Chemistry A is assessed by three papers — Periodic Table and Energy, Synthesis and Analytical Techniques, and Unified Chemistry.

The Unified Chemistry paper is OCR's distinguishing feature and it is genuinely synoptic: questions combine physical, inorganic and organic chemistry in a single extended problem, often around an unfamiliar compound. Students who have revised module by module without ever practising across modules find this paper considerably harder than the two that precede it, and it is where targeted preparation pays off most.