Schaum's Outline of Physical Chemistry

Well, the fact that you're on this page is already telling: no one just stumbles across a physical chemistry study guide. As far as study guides go...there are only three that I know of. One is full of errors, so that's a no-go. The second one is the ACS and that just basically gives you a light rundown before assaulting you with questions. The third is this book. And I've got to say, it's a freaking awesome study guide (thank god, or I'd be seriously screwed; seriously, how can there only be three study guides out there?). This book is sectioned into parts...Thermodynamics, Statistical Mechanics...etc., etc. It combines both P.Chem I and P.Chem II (if your college has separated them into separate classes). I'll go into the pros/cons here, but know this prior: if your textbook is anywhere near as crappy as mine (i.e. explains all the theoretical crap, but doesn't bother to explain how to actually apply it), you want this book. Stat. Pros: (1) The glossary. Yeah, I know. "WTF, all books have a glossary!" True, yet not true. All books may have a glossary, but not a lot of study guides do. Continuing on, even if they somehow do have a glossary, it seems to be far lacking. This book has an extensive glossary, making it really easy to find what you're studying in class/the textbook spur of the moment. (2) Tons of problems sectioned out by category IN the category. Ok, so what do I mean. I mean, take for example the subject Thermodynamics. Inside thermo, there's a bunch of other sub-topics. This book takes example problems and sections them out into their sub-categories. Then, it gives you way more sample problems with answers (also sectioned out by category). Although these aren't worked, they're still really useful for practice. (3) Really easy to understand. And by that, I mean REALLY easy to understand. I've never had problems understanding anything until I reached this class. The problem for me, in this class, was the notation. Anyways, this book actually explains everything fairly well (basically, the fundamentals of p.chem). For more extensive knowledge then, it's easy to go back to the text book. As I said earlier, the textbook does all of the theoretical crap but doesn't explain the fundamentals. This explains the fundamentals which then makes understanding the theoretical crap so much easier. Cons: (1) In example problems, sometimes the book lists steps without actually saying what they did to get there. I.e., it does something from one step to the next, and doesn't say what was actually done. It's not a terrible problem, it just makes it a little more time consuming trying to figure out what they did. (2) Tends to use a lot of abbreviations to save space. It'll tell you to use equation 2.3 and 2.5 to solve and get 'this'. It's irritating to go back and get those equations to solve the problem. But it's a relatively small irritation. All in all, rating this book a 9/10~ It's a fairly excellent book, and you should give it a try if you're in need of a study guide.

This book comes from a tried and true series. I have my PhD in chemistry, but I lost many of my chemistry books in various moves. This is more up-to-date than my older books and even gives access to videos. It's a great reference and useful tool for solving problems. Because everything is in one place, it is much more useful than internet searching, where money diverts the search to the wrong place no matter how accurately you pose the question.

All aspects of order fulfilled & item was about in exactly the shape stated by seller. There is a treasure trove of information in this book. I did not have a chance to do a full blown study of the book so this review is not in depth. My 5 star is based upon being able to pick out a bunch of info that is good but, as I have seen, this book does not usually get 5 star reviews which is probably true for college class work where I am only doing it to learn the topic. These Schaum books are best when tackled in YOUR FREE TIME as going to school & trying to study them at the same time can be quite a challenge & can even mess oneself up as Scaum's, many times, uses different notations that profs at school thus my recommendations with Schaums is: 1) In school "pick out info" that you need help in, unless of course you are some sort of world class genius that can studdy both at same time, 2) Outside of school intensely study the book doing all the problems (if possible) as many of the Schaums books "build on principles in other chapters" making it difficult to go forward UNLESS you have tackled previous problems. I think buying this book is a good one to do as I have noted many things that were very helpful to understand this topic.

This book saved my grade! Whether you are seeking to excel (who isn't?) or just save your grade and get the semester over with, HIGHLY RECOMMEND! This book translated the material into plain english and helped tremendously with homework assignments and exam prep.

Good Book.