Persisting

//Do you sometimes say, "I just can't do this" or "This is too hard"? Do you give up when the answer is not immediately apparent? Persistence means staying the course, taking the time to work at something until you achieve excellence.//
 * Persisting**

When we first learned how to name ionic compounds in our "Bonding" unit, I had trouble grasping the concept. After doing many practice naming problems, I got better and better at it, but I still wasn't completely confident with the topic, and the first quiz that I took on naming ionic compounds confirmed this.



I named 19/22 of the ionic compounds correctly. The three that I missed were due to careless errors. I forgot that when naming Fe(NO3)2, I had to include the roman numeral "II" in parentheses after "Iron" to distinguish that the "Iron" part of the compound is Fe2. I accidentally made the same error when naming CuO, and when naming CuCl2. After realizing these mistakes, I did some more practice, and when given the chance to re-take the naming quiz the next class, I did much better.

Though naming ionic compounds isn't extremely difficult compared to other topics in chemistry, it does require one to be very careful. If you miss just one little detail when naming, the whole name is incorrect. Because I was persistent, and I took the time to review my mistakes and to learn from them, in the end I succeeded in learning how to name ionic compounds.

Home