Name That Term

Ten definitions, four choices each, and the term itself blanked out. Every question is drawn from the 1,509 definitions in this dictionary, so you can narrow it to one branch of chemistry or take the whole subject at once.

How to play

Pick a topic, or leave it on every topic, and press start. You get ten definitions with the term blanked out, like this:

______ is the branch of physical chemistry that studies the link between electrical and chemical energy.

Four terms are offered and one of them is right. The three wrong options are pulled from the same branch of chemistry as the answer, which is deliberate. Picking the right answer out of three unrelated ones proves nothing; picking it out of three plausible neighbors is the actual skill.

You find out straight away whether you were right, and at the end you get your score plus a link to every term in the round. Following those links is worth more than the score.

Why definitions make better questions than word lists

Flashcards with a term on one side and a definition on the other quietly teach you the wrong thing. After enough repetitions you learn the shape of the card rather than the chemistry, and you can end up recognizing an answer without being able to produce it.

Working from the definition to the term is harder, and it is the direction that matches how the knowledge gets used. In a lab or an exam, nobody hands you a word and asks what it means. You are given a situation, a set of properties, or a result, and you have to name what is going on.

This is also why the wrong answers matter as much as the right one. If you can tell molarity from molality, or an electrophile from a nucleophile, you understand the pair. If you are guessing between them, you have found a gap worth closing.

Picking a topic

Leaving it on every topic gives you the broadest test and is the right choice if you are revising generally. Narrowing to one branch is better when you are working through a specific unit, because the four options get closer together and the questions get correspondingly harder.

Every topic is available: general, organic, inorganic, physical, analytical, and biochemistry. The pools are not the same size, so a round drawn from a smaller topic will repeat terms sooner across several games.

If a term comes up that you have never met, that is the game working. Follow its link at the end, read the full entry, and it will be there next time.

Frequently asked questions