You’re passing gen chem. You do the homework, you show up, and your grades hover in the B range. But you want the A, maybe for a GPA that pre-med or nursing programs will look at, maybe just because you know you can do better. The gap between a B and an A is rarely talent. Learning how to get an A in chemistry is mostly a matter of habits. Which habits separate A students from everyone else?
Students who get an A in chemistry practice problems without notes, learn the vocabulary cold, explain concepts out loud, review every exam to find patterns in their mistakes, and practice under time pressure. B students often understand the material when they see it worked out. A students can produce it on a blank page, fast, under exam conditions. That difference comes from how you practice, not how long you study. These habits take the same hours most B students already spend, just used differently. Start with one or two and add the rest as they stick.
Why Do Good Students Get Stuck at a B?
Most B students are stuck because their studying feels productive but doesn’t test them. They reread notes, watch the lecture again, and follow along with worked examples. Everything makes sense. Then the exam shows up and the same problem, written a little differently, won’t start.
That’s the illusion of knowing. Recognizing a solution is much easier than producing one. An A requires the second skill.
Research backs this up. A review of study techniques by Dunlosky and colleagues, summarized by the Association for Psychological Science, rated practice testing and spaced-out practice as the most useful strategies. Rereading and highlighting landed near the bottom. If your study routine is mostly the low-rated stuff, the fix is clear.
Habit 1: Work Problems Without Your Notes
Close the notes before you start a problem. Every time. If you get stuck, wait at least two minutes before you look anything up. Then, when you do look, find only the one step you were missing, close the notes again, and finish.
Mark any problem you needed help on. Come back to it two days later and do it cold. If you can do it then, it’s yours. If not, it goes back on the list.
This feels slower and more frustrating than following an example. That frustration is the point. The struggle to recall is what builds the memory you’ll use on the exam.
Habit 2: Learn the Vocabulary Like It’s a Language
A students know exactly what words like “molarity,” “limiting reactant,” “electronegativity” and “enthalpy” mean, and they can use them correctly in a sentence. That sounds basic. It isn’t.
A lot of missed exam questions come from misreading a term. Mixing up “molar mass” and “molarity,” or “endothermic” and “exothermic,” will cost you points even when your math is perfect. Our article on why chemistry is a language explains why this trips up so many students.
Make a running vocabulary list for each unit. Write the term on one side of a card and a definition plus one example on the other. Quiz yourself for five minutes a day. Short and often beats long and rare.
Habit 3: Explain Concepts Out Loud
If you can explain it simply, you understand it. If you can’t, you’ve found a gap. Do this test on every major idea.
Pick a concept, like why atomic radius gets smaller across a period. Explain it out loud as if you’re teaching a friend who missed class. No notes. A solid answer sounds something like this: moving left to right, protons are added to the nucleus, but the new electrons go into the same energy level, so they don’t shield each other much. The stronger effective nuclear charge pulls the electrons closer, and the atom shrinks.
If you stumble halfway through, go back to your notes for that piece only, then try again. Talking to a roommate, a study partner, or even your phone’s voice recorder works. Hearing yourself get stuck is weirdly effective.
Habit 4: Use an Exam Wrapper After Every Test
An exam wrapper is a short reflection you do after you get a test back. It turns one grade into a plan for the next test. A students do this every time, even after a good grade.
Go through each missed question and label the cause:
| Cause | What it looks like | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Concept gap | You didn’t know how to start | Relearn it, then do 5 problems cold |
| Careless error | Sign flip, wrong unit, misread question | Slow down and check units on every answer |
| Time pressure | You knew it but ran out of time or rushed | More timed practice before the next exam |
| Vocabulary | You misunderstood a term in the question | Add the term to your flashcards |
After two or three exams, a pattern usually jumps out. Maybe most of your lost points are careless errors. That’s great news, because careless errors are the easiest points to win back.
Habit 5: Practice Under Time Pressure
Knowing the material isn’t enough if you can’t do it at exam speed. A students rehearse the exam before it happens.
About a week before each test, set a timer and do a full set of problems in the time you’ll actually have. No phone, no notes, only the calculator you’ll use on test day. Afterward, see where you slowed down. That’s the skill to drill.
This matters even more if your final is a standardized ACS exam, since the format and pacing often differ from your professor’s tests. To practice in that style, set a timer and take our Gen Chem 1 practice exam in one sitting. Each question comes with a video explanation, which makes it easy to fill out an exam wrapper afterward. (ChemExams isn’t affiliated with the American Chemical Society, and the questions are our own.)
Habit 6: Ask “Why” Questions in Office Hours
B students tend to go to office hours when they’re stuck on a homework problem. A students go to ask why something works.
Questions like these get you more than a single answer:
- “Why does a catalyst speed up a reaction but not change the equilibrium constant?”
- “Why is the ideal gas law less accurate at high pressure?”
- “Why do we use Kelvin instead of Celsius in gas problems?”
Answers to “why” questions connect ideas, and connected ideas are much easier to remember. You’ll also find out what your professor thinks is important, which is a pretty good preview of the exam.
Can’t make your professor’s hours? TAs and campus tutoring centers count too. Bring the same kind of question. Write it down before you go, along with your best attempt at an answer, so you’re comparing your thinking with theirs instead of just collecting an explanation. Then, that night, try to explain the answer out loud in your own words. That turns one good conversation into something you’ll still remember on exam day.
Habit 7: Mix Up Your Problem Types
Don’t do 20 problems of the same type in a row. Shuffle them. A students practice choosing the method, not just running it.
Here’s why this matters. When you do a homework set on Boyle’s law, you know every problem is Boyle’s law before you read it. On the exam, nobody tells you. A gas problem could need Boyle’s law, Charles’s law, the combined gas law or PV = nRT. Picking the right tool is half the problem, and blocked practice never trains that skill.
Try this. Before each weekly review, pull problems from three different sections and shuffle them. For each one, write the method you’ll use at the top before you solve anything. “Constant temperature and moles, so P1V1 = P2V2.” “Moles are given, need volume, so PV = nRT.” If you can’t name the method in a few seconds, that’s the weak spot to work on.
It feels messier than doing one type at a time, and your practice scores may dip at first. Stick with it. The skill you’re building is exactly the one the exam tests.
How Much Do You Need to Study to Get an A in Chemistry?
There’s no magic number, but steady daily work beats marathon sessions. A good starting point is about an hour of active practice on most days, plus a longer session before each exam. Your course load and how fast the material clicks will change that.
More important than the hours is what fills them. An hour of problems from memory is worth far more than three hours of rereading. If you’re already spending the time and still landing at a B, change the method before adding more hours.
A simple rule: if you can see the answer in your notes while you’re working, you’re reviewing, not practicing.
How to Get an A in Chemistry: The Habits That Close the Gap
The recipe is simple to say and harder to do: make your studying harder in the right way. Work problems without notes, own the vocabulary, explain ideas out loud, run an exam wrapper after every test, practice on the clock, mix up your problem types, and use office hours to ask why.
Don’t try to change everything at once. This week, pick two habits. Closed-notes problems and the exam wrapper are a strong pair to start with. Stick with them until they feel normal, then add another.
You’re already putting in the hours. Spend them on these habits, and the A stops being a long shot.