GRE Chemistry Subject Test – Syllabus
What do you have to study before appearing in the chemistry subject test?
As you might already know, there are four major topics that make up the entire subject GRE chemistry paper. Each of these topics has sub topics. Below, we have broken up each topic.
Analytical Chemistry
- Data Acquisition and Use of Statistics: further differentiated into errors and statistical considerations
- Solutions and Standardization: concentration terms and primary standards.
- Homogenous equilibria: acid base, oxidation-reduction and complexometry
- Heterogeneous Equilibria: gravimetric analysis, solubility, precipitation titration and chemical separation
- Instrumental Methods: electrochemical methods, spectroscopic methods, chromatographic methods, thermal methods and calibration of instruments
- Environmental Application
- Radiochemical methods: detectors, applications
Inorganic Chemistry
- General Chemistry: Periodic trends, oxidation states and nuclear chemistry
- Ionic B. Ionic Substances: Lattice geometries, lattice energies, ionic radii and radius/ratio effects
- Covalent Molecular Substances: Lewis diagrams, molecular point groups, VSEPR concept, valence bond description and hybridization, molecular orbital description, bond energies, covalent and van der Waals radii of the elements and intermolecular forces
- Metals and Semiconductors: Structure, band theory, physical and chemical consequences of band theory
- Concepts of Acids and Bases: Brønsted-Lowry approaches, Lewis theory, solvent system approaches
- Chemistry of the Main Group Elements: Electronic structures, occurrences and recovery, physical and chemical properties of the elements and their compounds
- Chemistry of the Transition Elements: Electronic structures, occurrences and recovery, physical and chemical properties of the elements and their compounds, coordination chemistry
- Special Topics: Organometallic chemistry, catalysis, bioinorganic chemistry, applied solid-state chemistry, environmental chemistry
Organic Chemistry
- Structure, Bonding, and Nomenclature: Lewis structures, orbital hybridization, configuration and stereochemical notation, conformational analysis, systematic IUPAC nomenclature and spectroscopy (IR and 1H and 13C NMR)
- Functional Groups: Preparation, reactions, and interconversions of alkanes, alkenes, alkynes, dienes, alkyl halides, alcohols, ethers, epoxides, sulfides, thiols, aromatic compounds, aldehydes, ketones, carboxylic acids and their derivatives and amines
- Reaction Mechanisms: Nucleophilic displacements and addition, nucleophilic aromatic substitution, electrophilic additions, electrophilic aromatic substitutions, eliminations, Diels-Alder and other cycloadditions
- Reactive Intermediates: Chemistry and nature of carbocations, carbanions, free radicals, carbenes, benzynes and enols
- Organometallics: Preparation and reactions of Grignard and organolithium reagents, lithium organocuprates and other modern main group and transition metal reagents and catalysts
- Special Topics: Resonance, molecular orbital theory, catalysis, acid-base theory, carbon acidity, aromaticity, anti-aromaticity, macromolecules, lipids, amino acids, peptides, carbohydrates, nucleic acids, terpenes, asymmetric synthesis, orbital symmetry and polymers
Physical chemistry
- Thermodynamics: First, second, and third laws, thermochemistry, ideal and real gases and solutions, Gibbs and Helmholtz energy, chemical potential, chemical equilibria, phase equilibria, colligative properties and statistical thermodynamics
- Quantum Chemistry and Applications to Spectroscopy - Classical experiments, principles of quantum mechanics, atomic and molecular structure and molecular spectroscopy
- Dynamics - Experimental and theoretical chemical kinetics, solution and liquid dynamics and photochemistry