She is using Chemistry: The Molecular Science 3rd edition by Moore, etc.http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/049510521X Unfortunately this book does not have a Chapter Overview, Chapter Goals section, or Basic Concepts Learned, or anything else that encapsulates what concepts will be/should have been covered in the chapter.. The review questions at the end of the chapter don't appear to be in any particular order, and jump around from Sec 1.5 to Section 1.2 then up to Section 1.7.

Tonight DD has enlisted the help of a TA to work with her on problem areas. DD knows her weaknesses at this point are scientific notation and dimensional analysis. I looked through a copy of her textbook (dd has two, one for home and one for school) and even though I am 50 years old and never made it beyond Algebra 1, I can see that these are fairly easy concepts to master and all they require is drill work. Boring, yes. Difficult, no. I think it boils down to maturity and being responsible for oneself. DD is fine in easy classes or those in which, although difficult, she can excel because of her talents and abilities. And although the concepts behind chemistry certainly interest dd, the grunt work does not. That is where maturity steps in. It's a learning curve, no doubt about it. Thank you all for your encouragement.

UPDATE: My daughter thought she was doing quite well and yesterday learned, when she received her homework back, that she is not doing well. She was covering only Chapter 1 (!) and got more than 50% of the homework questions wrong. And dd spent so much time reading the book and taking notes! I believe I know what is happening: for some reason she is not filtering out the "fluff" from the essential material. She doesn't seem to know what is necessary and what to leave behind. To her, everything is of equal importance. Therefore, in Section 1.5 a picture diagram of what is happening with a spectrometer means as much as a blurb about R. Buckminster Fuller, when the real intention of the author was to tackle scientific notation in Section 1.5! I believe this is because dd has never learned how to read a Science/Math textbook correctly (she had this same problem in Math class, too--she was constantly distracted by color photos and different fonts). This is why dd did so well in her previous Chem class, because the Prof taught the students only what they needed to know, and did not assign a textbook--his Power Point notes WERE the book. Whereas in this class, the instructor is not telling the students what they need to know, she is just assigning a Chapter per week and a list of homework problems, leaving it up to the students to determine what, exactly, they are learning, and how best to learn it. Sigh. I don't know how dd is going to continue.

I think she is accustomed to relying upon Power Point notes and lecture notes. In her previous college science classes NONE of the instructors required textbooks, having the students rely solely upon notes and PowerPoint. In other words, the instructors reduced the material to the basic concepts of each chapter and eliminated all the (seemingly superfluous) "fluff". So now DD is wondering if she is unnecessarily spending time reading the "fluff", which none of the other students appear to be doing. BTW, these students are not engineering majors or anything like that; they are all Liberal Arts majors who want to get chemistry under their belts. My daughter has 1 year of high school chemistry, 1 semester of community college Liberal Arts chemistry, and 1 semester of community college (science track) Intro to Chemistry, As in all classes. Surely her peers, LA majors, can't all be significantly more advanced than she.

Thank you both. My daughter is comparing herself to other students in her class, and she says most of them are not reading the text, but merely listening to the lecture, reviewing the professor's notes on Power Point, and then doing the homework. DD says that doesn't work because there are some small details in the text which cannot be overlooked, and the knowledge is critical to build upon. Thus, deep reading of the text is mandatory. Can successful chem students do well without reading the text, merely skimming here and there?

A queston for those of you who have/had a dc taking college level General Chem classes. Not the liberal-arts chemistry of Life type of class, nor the Intro to Chemistry with Lab class, but the science track advanced Chem class that just precedes Organic (otherwise known as "O-chem")? My dd is taking Gen Chem I, having completed Intro to Chem with Lab (science track with lab, 4 cr) this past June. DD is terrible at math but, we're discovered, does quite well with math when it is in an applied setting. With conceptual understanding she is exceptional, as she can visualize quite well. Anyway, she asked me if "chemistry is this hard for everyone". She is actually taking the time to read the textbook (1 chapter per week) and look at the graphs and illustrations, to take notes, and review the chapter again. Then she does the homework assignment--this week, 40 problems! She is getting them all correct (a good sign) but it is taking her hours to solve them all. I told her Chemistry is a difficult subject to being with; very complex and lots of info to remember. Her dad was a Chem major and he told her that he didn't have much time for anything else, other than the gym to blow off steam...no girlfriends, very little social life...His life was consumed by chemistry homework. I think dd is expecting chemistry to come as easily to her as history, which was merely memorization of facts; or writing, which she does effortlessly. Based upon what I have read online from instructors' syllabi, students are cautioned that Gen Chem can easily take 15 hours of work per week. Can anyone support this, or offer experience?

Thank you all. We have offered dd the opportunity to live at home and commute to school. just using her dorm room as a study place or "quiet" retreat during the day. We'll see what happens.... DD has made some friends, so to speak, who are not into drugs; she also told me that the campus is a very loving community with high student involvement. That said, she finds too many distractions going on around her. DD is the type--has always been the type--who likes to compartmentalize her life. She treats school as a job, and academics as a part of the job she enjoys very much. She prefers to go to class, pay 100% attention in the classroom (no socializing), leave the classroom and campus, and study on more neutral territory--a coffee shop, the beach, a park, her bedroom, by the pool, etc. She generally has friends who are outside of the classroom and involved in activities and sports like sailing, hiking, dance, etc. not found on campus. For her to be enmeshed in campus activities and have her life revolving around campus makes her feel very "stale" [her words]. As a homeschooled child she has dealt with so many people of different backgrounds and ages that now, being stuck in a group of peers who are all so similar, she feels suffocated.

DD is in her sophomore year at this school, having completed her freshman year at the local comm coll. She is going to stay the semester for sure, and maybe even through the school year. However, deep in the back of her mind are nagging doubts about the choice she made. She knows this school will not help her with her intended field of study, other than allowing her to knock the remaining few core courses off her list before she goes into junior status next year. CONS: --All students at this school are REQUIRED to live on campus until age 21. There are no "quiet dorms" nor quiet hours. Sje is housed in the upper-class apartment buildings, which are supposedly the quietest. --This school is well-known for the student body being very heavily into the use of hallucinogenic drugs, alcohol, cigarette smoking (appx 70% smoke), going barefoot, naked potluck suppers, gender studies [meaning, boys wear skirts, girls shave their heads. etc]. Although dd is very liberally-minded, she is conservative in substances and decorum. --The school has a very intense environment; work hard, party hard --The school offers 1 or 2 classes per semester in my daughter's major, and requires only 15 hours of electives in her area to be considered a "major". Other schools require 40+ core courses in her area of interest and 15 or more electives in her field. --No strong faculty to coordinate seminars, internships, etc--in other words, make connections for upper-level work --30% of the students transfer out by the end of the year PROS: --The college always ranks in the top 10 Of Kiplinger, Princeton Review, Forbes, etc. for academic achievement --It is a great undergrad school for Lit majors, Humanities majors, and International Studies majors (but my daughter is an Environmental Studies major) --The school is 17 miles (about 35 minute drive) from our home and DD is familiar with the area --There is a lot of freedom on campus, with no Greek system, no sports, no pressure to be anything but a very liberal thinker

That explains it--the steroids. She had SIX of them throughout the day and night. She woke me up at 2 am to tell me she was wired and sick of liquid/yogurt/ice cream. She's supposed to be on the steroids for a week (!) but I don't know if this wiredness will be worth it. This morning she was up at 7 and really cranky, she wants some real food; Which brings me to the next question: what kind of food can she eat next? how long does she have to stay on smoothies, ice cream, and yogurt? Thank you so much for your help!

DD has just finished her 3rd week at her "choice" school, a small, highly-selective liberal arts college in an artsy, waterfront community--and she's torn between continuing or transferring. She loves the academics (and the status), but the student body is way too liberal and too much into drugs and drinking. She had known prior to attending that the college is considered like a "mini Berkeley" but she didn't think the campus life would be so suffocating. The students are very much night owls (dd is not) and they have open-air parties all weekend with music until 2 am party, so dd has been coming home on weekends to get away from the noise and go back to her early-to-bed early-to-rise routine. Anyway, the biggest issues dd has with transferring are 1) any other school she moves on to will be a big step down in status and 2) she does not do well in large crowds and every other school has a far greater size in student body. DD's present school did have an okay program for her major, but some of the faculty has left and now the department is in a state of flux. So dd has to re-evaluate if she really wants the status of being where she is, or come down a few notches and attend a less rigorous school in a non-descript area, though the school itself has a great department in her major, one of the few in our region. Any advise on this?

It's Labor Day weekend and dd, 18, is home for the weekend. She had her 4 impacted (90 degrees, sideways) wisdom teeth out just 8 hours ago after being under general anesthesia 1.5 hours and she's already bouncing around, driving me crazy! I'm in bed right now and I can hear her running around the living room, chasing the cats and making meow meow calls. I've got a weeks' supply of Percocet painkillers for her, a weeks' supply or prednisone (steroid pills) to reduce swelling, antibiotics, and ice packs ready and waiting--and she's not having any of it. She says she's not feeling much pain at all, she's not tired, and she doesn't want ice on her face. She's been drinking down kefir smoothies and coconut water to the point of bursting, so I know she's hydrated and is full of electrolytes. Question: Is this normal? I keep telling her she needs to lie down and rest. Ice her cheeks. She just laughs at me and tells me not to worry. Is she going to be sorry in the morning? Will more swelling come later, or is this the worst of it?

Hi--Distancia here. If yo subscribe to MeritLine's email list you will receive notifications of "deals" several times a week, and the notifications have codes that allow you to buy gizmos for < $1.00, including shipping.

We dropped our DD of a college just 2 weeks ago. Though it is in the same community, just 18 miles away, it is an hours' drive due to traffic. The first week was terrible: I had lost dd's car keys and we spent almost a day waiting for locksmith to unlock her car so we could unpack it; her kitchen stove did not work one bit and there was no way to cook; her kitchen sink leaked so badly that it flooded the apartment below, her internet service did not work for the first ten days, and her computer access code wouldn't work, even at the library computer! No TV availability, either . DD called at least 10 times a day every day, checking the weather, asking me to look at her email, even coming home for a few meals here and there. Sometimes I would meet her halfway with a cooler of food. By the end of the week dd came home to chill out and recover. Evidently she has adapted (all her problems have since been resolved) to campus life because she has cancelled her earlier plans to come home this weekend because 'it's more fun at college...sorry, mom."

I've edited this post because we just discovered that parents are generally given all day and into the night (more or less) to assist with moving in. Based upon my dd's lack of interest in her new housing: "Shower curtain? [shrug] Whatever's on sale. Waste basket? Any color is okay" I can see this isn't going to take as long as I thought. The biggest issue is that we just returned from Africa where dd picked up a nasty skin infection (all over her face) and the dermatologist said it will take a serious course of medications and more than a few days to heal. The last thing dd wants to do is show up at college looking "like an alien" and I think this is putting a big damper on her enthusiasm.

Regentrude, our dd will have to be cooking almost all of her own meals from day 1. This means she needs to unpack her skillets, bowls, utensils (cheese grater, knives) etc. as well as the coffee maker, dish drainer, strainer, potholders, towels, dishwashing detergent....fill her refrigerator with food to cook with (and how is she supposed to go to the grocery store if her 4 day orientation schedule is full every day until well into the evening? The presumption is that she is a freshman moving into a small, shared dorm room and she is on a full meal plan, which she is not. I have been reading from the Belmont HS list suggested here on TWTM that cleaning supplies (Windex, Clorox spray, paper towels) and shelf lining paper be the first items unloaded from the car and brought into the apartment. This means that shelves have to be lined before the bowls, skillets, etc. are unpacked and put into place, so our DD can then prepare all her meals. And the utensil holder--yes, she can pre-fill that will utensils while here at home, so some of the work can be done. But trying to hang a shower curtain all by yourself when you're 5'2" and without a stepstool (ooops, better add that to the list) or a taller person around can be difficult. I'm not saying that we parents need to spend our day arranging our dd's panties and socks in the correct drawer or puttying photos of mom and dad to her wall. I AM saying that we will need to assist her in laying down the 7 x 10 rug pad, unroll her 7 x 10 rug (and help lift the furniture in a couple of places to make it lie flat) so she can proceed to set her additional furniture (bookshelves and night table WE supply from home, floor lamp, etc, underbed pull-out containers) on top of the rug. Hubby will have to set up the computer and printer. As a single young woman who moved many, many times in her life, first at age 17, I know that assembling an apartment by oneself is a slow and tedious and yes, satisfying (as well as frustrating) experience. There were a few occasions where I had a friend to help me schlep the boxes, unpack and organize in half or less than half the time it would have taken me by myself. Believe me when I say how grateful I was for that extra assistance. In speaking with other parents who have helped their college-aged children move into apartments (not a single dorm room) they have all said that family members/boyfriends/and roommates helped out, and a good portion of the day was spent (more or less) making trips to the Target/Walmart/grocery store. Many parents stayed overnight in hotels to pick up the loose ends when a child's schedule is jam-packed for orientation activities. In posting this question I was concerned that our 18 y/o will not have a boyfriend, sibling, or roommates available to help her the first 4 days, and she will have minimal prep time for anything other than attend meeting after meeting, with a schedule full from 8 30 am to 7 pm (or later) each night. I don't think it is necessary to dump our daughter off in an empty apartment with a bunch of boxes and heavy furniture, and wave sayonara just to prove a point that dd can tough it out. I haven't done that to grown, adult friends who I have helped move, why should I do it to my own daughter?

Edited, see below.

If you PM me your snail mail address I will USPS you a hard-copy of my DD's transcript. The physical copy looks very impressive, along with the 100% rag cotton paper and fancy font. Also I will send a copy of her fancy diploma that we purchased; cost us $60- but so worth it, my DD loves the little gold seal that says "Highest Honors". Appearance aside, my DD's transcript included all courses, broken down by school year, and grades for each course. Final and Cum GPAs were given each year. Also, I denoted whether a course was Honors (with a *) or Dual Enrollment by labeling it like DE Western Civ. Next to the the DE Western Civ I would put a #, or a &, or a %, or a @, all of which indicated through which college/university my daughter took the course (she took college courses for college credit at 4 different institutions) as well as CLEP exams. At the bottom of the one-page transcript I had a "key" which indicated what school # & % and @ stood for. I, also, listed my DD's SAT exam scores, as the public schools do the same. I did have to enlarge my printer margins, change some fonts, and really play around with tables, but I managed to get it all on one nice-looking page (the second page went into course material and school philosophy). My DD applied to four public schools and was accepted into all, with substantial scholarships, to boot. You can do it. Your child can do it. Just persevere. BTW, what we discovered had the most impact--in talking to college admissions during the application process and AFTER acceptance--were 3 things: 1) that our DD was homeschooled; she had previously attended public high school but due to illness had to take some time off and she CHOSE not to return to p/s when she realized how much more she could learn at home, and in a better environment 2) that our homeschooled DD had very high SAT scores, while her peers/friends who were getting all (inflated?) As in their public school Honors and AP classes at p/s were scoring in the 520-560 range on their SATs. Thus, my DDs SAT scores were proof that homeschooling actually worked. 3) that my DD had taken many college courses and done well in them: 2 Bs and 11 As. Now she will be entering "going away" college in two weeks she is well-prepared for intensive study and knows how to work independently. All in all, a testament to homeschooling.

I've thought some more about this. We don't have a problem "letting" our dd do things--heck, she even sleeps over her boyfriend's house sometimes, and all we ask is that she calls us/texts us, so we don't wake up in the middle of the night worrying that she's driven into a ditch or something. Common courtesy is the rule for all in our household What we do have is a problem leaving our house unattended or under-secured. This is a very large house and if someone were to break in on one end it could not be heard at the other end. We have antique silk tapestries worth thousands of dollars hung on the walls, as well as high-end art, jewelery, etc. I think it is a matter of becoming a prisoner of one's possessions. The other thing is, what bothers me about my friend is that she is going off with men for the weekend. I didn't want to get into it, but she was the one who wanted the divorce and while she was getting divorced she was starting to have affairs. I think it's very wrong to leave your minor child alone just to go shack up with a guy for a weekend fling. What kind of message is she sending her daughter, who is well aware of what is going on? And although she's been divorced for only 2 months she is now on her 3rd "man", and a married one at that. Yes, I am being judgmental. BTW, we've traveled all over the world to some pretty hardcore places--Managua, Nicaragua; Lima, Peru; Guatemala City; Johannesubrg--and the ONLY place we have EVER had troubles was in the USA.

Paris is remarkably safe, as is most of Europe. The USA, on the other hand... When my dd was younger we had babysitters come to the house. These girls were college-aged and yet, even they were scared at night. When we came home we would find the house ablaze with lights, every room had every light on, TVs going in multiple rooms. All that dark nothingness outside, inside the house it was like being in a fishbowl. Maybe it's bad memories of the past. When younger my husband, a city attorney as well as a bank president and the owner of a mortgage company, was very affluent and well-known in his community. He was held up at knifepoint in his own home, in the middle of the day while reading the Sunday paper. And then shortly thereafter he was robbed at gunpoint and beaten, thrown into a bedroom closet. So between us, yes, we are wary.

Yes, I am saying that. We live in a 4000+ sq foot house, filled with antiques and valuables. We have lots of glass (windows, doors, walls) and our home overlooks a lake, in a nature preserve. My husband is not comfortable leaving dd alone in this big house with 7 doors and multiple floor-to-ceiling windows . We are not comfortable leaving dd alone, period. If she had a sibling or trusted friend or cousin we would not worry. But being alone? I do know that even I, as an adult, feel a bit frightened at night, when it is totally dark outside, and I know an outsider can see me--though I can't see him. We have about 60' of exposed glass overlooking a small pond, and an outsider can see our every move in the house. When we were kids my parents left myself (18) and my sister (16.5) alone for a weekend. I was out at the grocery store, picking up supper, and my sister was home doing some homework. One of her "friends" came by to pick up a copy of the assignment, and he attacked my sister, had her pinned to the floor and tried to rape her. Had I not driven up to the house and made some noise, he would have succeeded with my sister. And then there was the time our family home was broken into while we were sitting around watching TV. Mom, dad, sister (17) and me, 19, as well as the family dog. Lots of activity, yet still the intruder slipped into the house, 10 feet away from us, and made his way into our bedrooms, pilfering, while we just talked and laughed and probably ate chips and enjoyed the show. Finally the dog caught on...chased the intruder from the house. Maybe I am conservative in this regard. But in other ways I am not. I allowed dd to ride the Paris metro at age 12, alone, while we were vacationing in Paris, because she had taught herself French and she is a mature young lady. Ditto for the London tube. And when she was younger I let her travel by train, going halfway across the country, making connections and transfers, because she has excellent travel skills and. It's not dd I don't trust--it's other people coming into our home.

I have a daughter, 18.5, and hubby and I have never left her home alone, overnight. We live in a very safe, gated community, we have houses on 15' either side of us, and we have alarms, but we still are not comfortable leaving dd alone. It's not that we don't trust HER, it's that we have a big house, lots of expensive stuff (artwork, electronics), and frankly, you never know who might show up. We just don't trust other people. OTOH, my closest friend, recently divorced, and a therapist with 2 masters degrees, has a dd, age 16.5, who she is willing to leave alone for an entire weekend so she (mom) can go on trips! My friend says it's okay because dd doesn't drive, she's in the house all by herself, she can call her dad (he lives about 20 minutes away) if she needs anything, and she's a mature, loner type (so says my friend) who won't let anyone into the house. [The truth is, the mom has not told her ex- about her trips and her dd hasn't told her dad, either] This really bothers me. I usually don't make any kind of judgments but this time I had to, I told my friend that I thought there was a law about leaving minor children alone. My friend checked online and found nothing; she even called her local police, who said there was no law and they would be comfortable leaving their own 16 year-old children alone for the weekend, so my friend considered that enough of a seal of approval. Maybe it wouldn't bother me as much if she were doing it for work reasons but she started doing this while she began her divorce a few months ago and now she is divorced she's going off on shopping trips with her girlfriends, or visiting old friends (both male and female) for boating excursions...everything is fun-based. My friend says her dd is happy to see her mom go and have fun, so there is no guilt. I just don't get it. Am I being too conservative?

That would make sense. My mom is buying herself an eReader for Mom's Day and she's debating on Nook vs. Kindle. She has a library with a tremendous number of free ebooks available to her so I think she's going with the Nook. I travel a lot to remote destinations and I try to carry as light a load as possible. Every ounce makes a difference, so I try to minimize what I bring with me. I always bring several books, and discard them (or trade them in at lending libraries) as I move along. I absolutely must have internet access. We have been in some sticky situations--borders closed, uprisings--and the internet has been our key to finding alternate means of transportation. So I guess that NO ereaders have great internet access? I mean, it seems silly, because they have built-in wi-fi, they should be able to get to Google. Maybe they have slow video cards or processors....

Thank you SO much. Just to clarify-- Basically, a netbook can do all of what an ereader can do, but an ereader cannot do all of what a netbook can do. I love my netbooks. I've owned them since they first hit the market--the little 7" Asus SSD units that ran on Linux only. I've "lugged" my current 2.8 pound 10" unit all over the world with me, and that includes the Andres mountains and the Amazon (I kept a few packs of dessicant in the case). I'm due for a netbook upgrade and I was thinking about an eReader. But now, no. And I don't want a tablet, because then you have to buy the case, and a keyboard, and a kickstand--and by that time, you've just put together a netbook! Thanks again.

Quick questions-- Can those eReaders with wifi actually access the internet and do more than just download a book. I mean, can you get onto Google and eBay and any other website, like WTM? Do they have actually keypads that you can type o? Can you send an email to someone? Are they basically like netbooks but without all the massive storage capabilities and other bells and whistles? Thanks!

Sent you a PM.