Edexcel C1 Revision Cards

Front 1

C1 Revision Cards

Back 1

If you can answer all of the questions on these cards then you know all you need to know for your exam!

Front 2

1. Explain why it is difficult to be precise about the evolution of the Earth's atmosphere?
2. State which gases the early atmosphere contained.
3. Describe how the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was reduced.
4. Describe how oceans were first formed.

Back 2

1. It is difficult to be precise because there are different sources of information about the development of the atmosphere.
2. a. little or no oxygen; b. a large amount of carbon dioxide; c. water vapour and a small amount of other gases.
3. a. carbon dioxide dissolved into the oceans (and later marine organisms incorporated the dissolved carbon dioxide to form carbonate rocks); b. early plats used up carbon dioxide and produced oxygen through photosynthesis.
4. Water condensed in the early atmosphere to form oceans.

Front 3

1. What are the percentages of the main gases in the atmosphere?
2. Describe how human activity can influence changes in the composition of the atmosphere.
3. Explain how carbon dioxide from the early atmosphere ended up in sedimentary rock.

Back 3

1. a. nitrogen: 78%; b. oxygen: 21%; c. argon: 0.9%; d. carbon dioxide: 0.04%
2. a. burning fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere; b. deforestation means that there are less trees to photosynthesise and many of the trees removed are burned which increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
3. After carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans, some marine organisms used dissolved carbon dioxide to make shells of calcium carbonate. As these creatures died, their shells fell and became sediment. Over millions of years, all these layers of sediment formed sedimentary rock.

Front 4

1. How are igneous rocks formed?

2. How are sedimentary rocks formed?

3. How are metamorphic rocks formed?

Back 4

1. Molten rock (magma) may erupt onto the surface as lava. When this molten rock cools down it solidifies and becomes solid rock. The rocks formed this way are igneous rocks.

2. Sedimentary rocks are formed from pieces of other rocks and sometimes from the hard parts of dead animals being compacted or squashed together.

3. Metamorphic rocks are formed by the action of heat or pressure changing rocks, causing new crystals to form. These changed rocks are metamorphic rocks.

Hint 4

Molten is hot

Sediment is old

Metamorphic is transformed by heat

Front 5

1. What are the products of calcium carbonate when it has undergone thermal decomposition? Use a word equation.
2. What is an atom's role during a chemical reaction?
3. How can calcium carbonate be used to remove harmful gases from coal-fired power stations?
4. What is the test for carbon dioxide?
5. Explain why farmers spray calcium oxide/calcium hydroxide/calcium carbonate on their fields.
6. Why is hydrochloric acid produced in the stomach?
7. What are the salts produced by: a. hydrochloric acid; b. nitric acid; c. sulfuric acid?

Back 5

1. Calcium carbonate → calcium oxide + carbon dioxide
2. An atom is the smallest particle in an element that can take part in chemical reactions. During a chemical reaction, atoms are rearranged to make new products.
3. Calcium carbonate is an alkali while the harmful gases are acidic, so it neutralises the gases.
4. Limewater turns cloudy in the presence of carbon dioxide.
5. They are used to reduce the acidity of their soil for crops that don't grow well in acidic soils.
6. a. to help digestion; b. to kill bacteria.
7. a. chloride salts; b. nitrate salts; c. sulphate salts.

Front 6

1. What is the test for chlorine?
2. How can chlorine be obtained from sea water?
3. When water is decomposed through electrolysis, what are the products?
4. What is the test for oxygen?

Back 6

1. You can test to see if a gas is hydrogen by holding a piece of damp blue litmus paper in the mouth of a test tube containing the gas. If the gas is chlorine the paper will turn red and then bleach white.
2. Chlorine can be obtained from sea water through electrolysis.
3. When water is decomposed through electrolysis, the products are hydrogen and oxygen.
4. You can test to see if a gas is oxygen by holding a blown out splint in the mouth of a test tube containing the gas. If the gas is oxygen then the splint will relight.

Front 7

1. What is extraction?
2. Give 2 common ways to extract metals from their ores.
3. What is oxidation?
4. What is reduction?

Back 7

1. Extraction is the process of getting a metal from a compound in a rock by a chemical reaction.
2. a. electrolysis; b. heating the ore with carbon.
3. Oxidation is the process of adding oxygen to a substance.
4. Reduction is the process of removing oxygen from a compound.

Front 8

1. Why is gold mainly used for jewellery?
2. Why is aluminium used to make aeroplanes?
3. Why is copper use for electrical cables?
4. Why is iron used more than any other metal?
5. Why is iron made into steel?

Back 8

1. Gold is mainly used for jewellery because it is very malleable and remains shiny because it does not tarnish from corrosion.
2. Aluminium is used to make aeroplanes because it has a low density meaning that it is lighter, so less fuel will need to be used for it to fly.
3. Copper is used for electrical cables because it is an extremely good electrical conductor.
4. Iron is used more than any other metal because it is fairly cheap to extract from iron ore by heating with carbon.
5. Iron is made into steel because it is too soft to be very useful.

Front 9

1. What is an alloy?
2. Why are alloys stronger than pure metals?
3. How many carats are there in pure gold?

Back 9

1. An alloy is a mixture of a metal with small amounts of other metals to improve its properties for a specific application.
2. Alloys are stronger than pure metals because the atoms are different sizes which prevents the atoms from sliding past each other easily, unlike in a pure metal where all the atoms are the same size and can slide over each other which makes them soft.
3. There are 24 carats in pure gold.

Front 10

1. How is crude oil formed?
2. What are hydrocarbons?

Back 10

1. Crude oil and natural gas are fossil fuels. They formed over millions of years from the remains of plants and animals that once lived in the sea. When these died, they fell to the sea bed and were then buried by sediments. The sediments kept oxygen away and stopped the remains decaying. As more sediments built up on top of the remains, the heat and pressure increased and they gradually turned into oil or gas.
2. Hydrocarbons are compounds containing only carbon and hydrogen atoms. Crude oil is a mixture of different hydrocarbon molecules.

Front 11

1. What is fractional distillation?
2. What are gases' main uses?
3. What is petrol's main use?
4. What is kerosene's main use?
5. What is diesel oil's main use?
6. What are fuel oil's main uses?
7. What is bitumen's main use?

Back 11

1. Fractional distillation is the process used to separate hydrocarbon molecules in crude oil into simpler mixtures.
2. Gases are mainly used as fuel for vehicles and for heating and cooking in homes.
3. Petrol is mainly used as fuel for cars.
4. Kerosene is mainly used as fuel for aircrafts.
5. Diesel oil is mainly used as fuel for lorries, trains and some cars.
6. Fuel oil is mainly used as fuel for large ships and some power stations, fuel for heating and as lubricating oil.
7. Bitumen is mainly used for making roads.

Front 12

1. What is complete combustion?
2. What is incomplete combustion?
3. Explain how carbon monoxide behaves as a toxic gas.

Back 12

1. Complete combustion is when you burn a hydrocarbon with lots of oxygen and all of the hydrocarbon is used up. The only products are carbon dioxide and water.
2. Incomplete combustion is when you burn a hydrocarbon without enough oxygen. The hydrogen atoms form water, but there isn't enough oxygen for all the carbon atoms to form carbon dioxide. Some of the carbon may form carbon monoxide, and some may just form solid particles of carbon (soot).
3. Carbon monoxide is toxic. It reduces the amount of oxygen that can be carried around the body in the blood and can cause death.

Front 13

1. What causes acid rain?
2. What are some problems associated with acid rain?

Back 13

1. When hydrocarbon fuels are burnt, they produce sulfur which reacts with oxygen from the air to form sulfur dioxide gas, which dissolves in rainwater, making it more acidic.
2. a. makes rivers, lakes and soils acidic, harming organisms living there; b. damages trees; c. speeds up the weathering of buildings made of limestone or marble and the corrosion of metal.

Front 14

1. What is the greenhouse effect?
2. Explain how human activity can influence the Earth's temperature.

Back 14

1. The greenhouse effect is when some gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and water pour trap heat energy and help to keep the Earth warm.
2. Human activities, such as burning fossil fuels, produce gases such as carbon dioxide which trap heat.

Front 15

1. What are biofuels?
2. Describe some advantages of using biofuels.
3. Describe some disadvantages of using biofuels.

Back 15

1. Biofuels are fuels obtained from living organisms or organisms that have recently died.
2. a. they are renewable; b. they may help to reduce the overall amount of carbon dioxide that human activity produces.
3. a. a lot of crops would be required to make biofuels, which means there would be less space to grow food; b. because there's less space to grow crops, food prices would rise; c. forests may have to be cleared to plant biofuel crops instead; d. because the processes needed to grow crops for biofuels and process them into biofuels use energy which would be obtained from fossil fuels, so biofuels may not be carbon neutral.

Front 16

1. What advantages are there of using hydrogen as fuel?
2. What disadvantages are there of using hydrogen as a fuel?

Back 16

1. a. it releases more energy than other fuels; b. it is a 'clean' fuel as it doesn't cause pollution.
2. Before cars with fuel cells can become widely used, hydrogen has to be easily and economically available. Filling stations would have to be converted to store and sell compressed hydrogen as well as petrol and diesel. This will cost a lot of money. People will not start to use fuel-cell powered cars until it is easy to buy hydrogen, and energy companies do not want to start converting all their filling stations until there are plenty of customers.

Front 17

1. What are alkanes?
2. What are alkenes?
3. What is the test used to find an alkane?
4. What is the test used to find an alkene?

Back 17

1. Alkanes are hydrocarbon molecules where each carbon atom is bonded to four other atom with no double bond. Alkanes are saturated hydrocarbons. Alkanes have twice as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms plus 2.
2. Alkenes are hydrocarbon molecules where there is a double bond between 2 carbon atoms. Alkenes are unsaturated hydrocarbons. Alkenes have twice as many hydrogen atoms as carbon atoms.
3. If bromine water is mixed with an alkane it stays as an orange liquid.
4. If bromine water is mixed with an alkene it turns into a colourless liquid.

Front 18

1. What is cracking?
2. Why is cracking needed?
3. What is polymerisation?

Back 18

1. Cracking is the process of heating long-chain alkanes to break them up into shorter chain alkanes + alkenes.
2. Sometimes there is too much of some fractions of crude oil compared to the demand and oil companies can crack these fractions to match demands in other fractions.
3. Polymerisation is when monomer molecules react together to form long-chain molecules.

Front 19

1. What is a polymer?
2. What is a monomer?
3. Why is poly(ethene) used for things such as plastic bags and insulation for electric wires?
4. How is the polymer poly(ethene) formed?

Back 19

1. Polymers are substances made up of thousands of relatively simple repeating units.
2. Monomers are substances whose molecules react together to form polymers.
3. Poly(ethene) is used for things such as plastic bags and insulation for electric wires because it is flexible, cheap and a good insulator.
4. Poly(ethene) is formed from many ethene molecules combining together through polymerisation. Other polymers can be made by combing together other monomer molecules (such as poly(propene) and poly(chloroethene).

Front 20

1. Why are most polymers bad environmentally?
2. Describe 2 solutions to this problem?

Back 20

1. Most polymers are not biodegradable, persist in landfill sites and produce toxic products when burnt.
2. a. recycling these products would reduce the amount going to landfill sites or being burnt; b. developing biodegradable polymers would mean that they wouldn't have to be thrown away or burnt as they would decompose.

Front 21

1. Explain how the size of crystals within an igneous rock can differ.
2. Which kind of rock may contain fossil remains?
3. What is electrolysis?
4. What is the test for hydrogen?

Back 21

1. The size of crystals within an igneous rock differ depending on the rate at which it cools; rocks that cool slower have bigger crystals and rocks that cool quicker have smaller crystals.
2. Sedimentary rocks may contain fossil remains.
3. Electrolysis is the process of decomposing compounds using electricity.
4. You can test to see if a gas is hydrogen by holding a lighted splint in the mouth of a test tube containing the gas. If the gas is hydrogen, it will make a 'squeaky pop'.

Front 22

1. Why is crude oil described as a non-renewable resource?
2. What is combustion?

Back 22

1. Crude oil is described as a non-renewable resource because it is a finite resource and will someday run out.
2. When hydrocarbon fuels burn they react with oxygen, release heat and light energy and produce carbon dioxide and water. This is an oxidation reaction called combustion.

Front 23

1. Describe 2 methods of reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere currently being investigated.

Back 23

3. a. adding iron compounds to the oceans. This is known as iron seeding. Doing this encourages marine plants to grow, they use carbon dioxide for photosynthesis and are then eaten by sea creatures. These sea creatures will then die and sink to the ocean floor, the carbonate in their shells being buried, removing the carbon from the atmosphere; b. capturing carbon dioxide from fossil-fuelled power stations and reacting it to make hydrocarbon compounds such as propane and butane. These hydrocarbons can be used as fuels.

Front 24

1. What makes a good fuel?
2. How do fuel cells produce energy?

Back 24

1. a. it burns easily; b. it doesn't produce much ash or smoke; c. it is easy to store and transport; d. it produces a good amount of heat energy.
2. Hydrogen and oxygen burn to release energy. The only waste product is water.