Physical Science

These pages are designed to help students prepare for the tests, quizzes, and other assignments throughout the duration of the course.

Parents

Parents, be sure to check PowerSchool on a regular basis so that you can keep up to date on your child's performance in the class. If you have any questions, feel free to email me.

Practice Problems

Formulas to Names This page is designed to help practice the naming of simple compounds that we deal with in our physical science course. In this page, you will be given the formula. You are then responsible for trying to give that formula the correct name.

You will want to have a periodic table handy in order to do these well. If you do not have a periodic table, then you can use an online periodic table. To access an online periodic table, click here

Naming Ionic Compounds
Ionic compounds are usually formed when metal cations bond with nonmetal anions
Step One: Name the cation and anion
The cation is always the first thing you see in the name, and the anion is always the second thing. Some of the cations or anions will have more than one atom involved. These are referred to as polyatomic ions. You should use your list of these to help solve the problems.

Step two: Possibly change the ending
Look at the answer from the first step. If the anion is NOT a polyatomic ion, you will just change the ending of the second word to -ide. If the anion is a polyatomic ion, you do NOT change the ending at all.

Naming Covalent Compounds
Rule 1. You find the name of each atom.
Rule 2. You add the suffix -ide to the name of the second element.
Rule 3. Add prefixes. The second element always has a prefix. The first element will only have a prefix if there are more than one of the first element
Check your notes for the correct prefixes.

Operation:

1. Pressing "Display Spellings" will open a window containing the spellings used for the polyatomic ions on this page. The user should refer to periodic tables or other sources for spelling of elements.
2. Pressing "New Compound" causes a small window to appear with a formula, an empty cell and a "Check Answer" button.
3. Enter the name of the compound in the cell.
4. Press "Check Answer."
5. Detailed results and score appear in the table on the top page.
6. If you get all or part of the name incorrect, you may go back and correct your answer and resubmit it.

If you do not know the answer, the show answer button will give you the correct answer.