If you would like to study Medicine and Surgery in Italy you will have to pass the IMAT test or humat test. In this next article, we will analyse how the third section of the IMAT test works and what you need to do to best prepare for the IMAT.
As of the date this article has been published the IMAT test 2021 was held on the 9th September 2021. If you sat the IMAT exam and did not pass to study medicine in Italy, IMAT Buddy is the best IMAT Preparation Course and has the help you need to ace the test medicina in inglese in 2022.
In addition, we also have an action-packed FREE full lesson and FREE quiz for the IMAT exam on Chemistry, to get you started in the right direction. The medicina in lingua inglese practise questions are based on the IMAT test 2020 and IMAT test 2021.
Let’s take a look at the IMAT chemistry section. The chemistry section, along with general knowledge, is the second most important section of the IMAT because it’s worth 12 questions, so 18 marks. Chemistry however, is easier to prepare for than general knowledge, so you should dedicate more time to chemistry.
What level of chemistry do you need to know? Well, basically, it’s just high school level and here you can see the list of topics that you could be assessed on.
Section 3: Chemistry
Topics covered:
The composition of matter
States of matter; heterogeneous and homogeneous systems; compounds and
elements. Ideal Gas Laws.
Atomic structure
Elementary particles; atomic number and mass number, isotopes, electronic
structure of atoms of different elements.
The periodic table of the elements
Groups and periods; transition elements. Periodic properties of elements: atomic radius,
ionization potential, electron affinity, metallic character. The relationships between
electronic structure, position in the periodic table, and element properties.
The chemical bond
Ionic, covalent and metallic bonds. Binding energy. Polarity of bonds.
Electronegativity. Intermolecular bonds.
Fundamentals of inorganic chemistry
Nomenclature and main properties of inorganic compounds: oxides, hydroxides,
acids, salts.
Chemical reactions and stoichiometry
Atomic and molecular mass, Avogadro’s number, mole concept and its application,
elementary stoichiometric calculations, balancing simple reactions, different types of
chemical reaction.
Solutions
Solvent properties of water, solubility, the main ways of expressing the concentration of
solutions. Equilibria in aqueous solution. Chemical kinetics and catalysis.
Oxidation and reduction
Oxidation number, concept of oxidizing and reducing. Balancing of simple reactions.
Acids and bases
The concept of acid and base. Acidity, neutrality and basicity of aqueous solutions. The
pH scale. Hydrolysis. Buffer solutions.
Fundamentals of organic chemistry
Bonds between carbon atoms, and crude formulas of structure, the concept of
isomerism. Aliphatic, alicyclic and aromatic hydrocarbons. Functional groups:
alcohols, ethers, amines, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids, esters, amides.
Chemical nomenclature.
This is quite a lot to study, and due to the nature of chemistry, you will need to dedicate a lot of time because chemistry is one of those subjects that really involves a lot of different skills. You need to be able to recall a lot of theory. You need to be able to solve calculation type questions and then you need certain skills which are just unique to chemistry. However, as far as the actual level of knowledge goes, you don’t need anything beyond the high school level. Nevertheless, even if you were good at chemistry in high school, don’t underestimate this section because this section will work very differently from how you’re probably used to. For one, you don’t have a periodic table. That means you need to memorize a lot of the periodic table.
On top of that chemistry involves some calculations and you don’t have a calculator, so you need to get good at basic mental maths. Now, they don’t really assess you on maths itself in the chemistry section, so the maths is going to be quite basic. But nevertheless, you do need to get used to working with numbers.
How do you actually best go about studying for IMAT test chemistry section?
First of all, there is a lot of content to learn and a lot of skills you need to develop. We will cover pretty much all the topics in chemistry that you need, so looking at the videos and practice questions on IMAT Buddy will be a great asset. Of course, you should also use textbooks, that’s always helpful and any online resources to clear up topics that you don’t fully understand.
Now there isn’t as much content for chemistry as there is in biology. Nevertheless, it does take a lot of time. So you have to start early. It is not recommended that you first study biology and then study chemistry or the other way around, study them simultaneously because otherwise, you will forget what you have learned.
And of course, you have to check the syllabus whenever you’re studying chemistry, you don’t want to learn things that aren’t going to be assessed. And you have to use active recall, as mentioned, chemistry does involve a lot of theory and you can be asked a lot of theory questions. So use Anki or an alternative. However, for chemistry, it is extremely important that you do practice questions, more so than, for instance, biology, because chemistry is to a large degree skills-based.
On IMAT Buddy you will find plenty of questions that match the level of difficulty and the same style as actual IMAT questions. So that is a good place to start. You, of course, should do past IMAT papers as well. The nice thing about chemistry in the IMAT is it’s pretty much identical to chemistry in the BMAT. There might be some differences here and there, but really the style and difficulty of questions are pretty much the same. So definitely do the BMAT papers as well. And that’s pretty much all you need to know about the chemistry section.
Free IMAT Chemistry Lesson – 5.01 Stoichiometry Part 1
Take the IMAT Practice Quiz Now – Click Here
So now you have completed the free lesson and practice quiz, make sure you sign up to IMAT Buddy where we have created several hundreds of questions that match the style and difficulty level of the IMAT exam.
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