The Missing Piece of AP Chemistry

Due to there not being any other AP courses available during 6th period, I took AP Chemistry my senior year of high school. In hindsight, this class was valuable for me as it gave me foundational skills in chemistry that I now use in college. I wasn’t the best at chemistry, but after taking AP Chemistry I understood fundamental pieces of all the units from Lewis Structures to acid and base reactions. Knowing the basics of chemistry was useful, but as I began in college I found myself missing a crucial piece of general chemistry that haunts me right now, inorganic nomenclature.

For my AP Chemistry students, inorganic nomenclature is the naming of formulas. For example, H2O is known as dihydrogen oxide, because of the two hydrogens and one oxygens. The hydrogens use “di” because there’s two of them. This is not the same for all possible molecules, as there's so many more rules. One of which is the polyatomic ions which all have specific names. CH3COOH, known as acetic acid, is an example of a polyatomic ion. Evidently, there is so much to know in nomenclature that the College Board just doesn't cover, leaving students as well versed when they come to college general chemistry.

I mean inorganic nomenclature isn’t that hard, it's just a lot of memorization that AP students should already be used to. And I suppose students could come to memorize a lot of it. The main thing is that the AP exam doesn’t require it in the slightest. Students are given all the names of chemical formulas in all problems, which is convenient for the AP exam. I suppose that the college board would rather students master the calculations and concepts instead of learning how to derive the name of the molecules which does make sense. However, if you have to retake chemistry when you do get to college, I wish you the best of luck.