Student Study Materials

You can purchase Study Guides Online Now: Click Here

Students who are going to be taking an ACS Examinations Institute exam have study materials available in some areas. The Institute is always working to expand this array of study materials. Right now, there are four printed study guides. We also have a variety of practice tests for students.

Preparing for Your ACS Examination in General Chemistry: The Official Guide

(commonly called the General Chemistry Study Guide)

This guide includes 201 pages of information and over 600 problems separated into first-term and second-term general chemistry material.  Each section contains 8 chapters of material that also aligns to most general chemistry textbooks for a seamless addition to study materials for students.  Each chapter is designed with an introductory section of the material including common representations and where to find this material in a textbook.  The second section provides worked examples of typical, multiple choice questions including how the correct answer is determined as well as how the incorrect answers were determined.  Also included for each study problem is a listing of the corresponding practice questions that use that concept.  The final section is a series of practice problems to test the concepts collectively.  The key is provided on a separate page for all study and practice problems.

Chapters in the study guide are:

First-Term Material:

  • Atomic Structure
  • Electronic Structure
  • Formula Calculations and the Mole
  • Stoichiometry
  • Solutions and Aqueous Reactions, Part 1
  • Heat and Enthalpy
  • Structure and Bonding
  • States of Matter

Second-Term Material:

  • Solutions and Aqueous Reactions, Part 2
  • Kinetics
  • Equilibrium
  • Acids and Bases
  • Solubility Equilibria
  • Thermodynamics
  • Electrochemistry
  • Nuclear Chemistry

Preparing for Your ACS Examination in Organic Chemistry: The Official Guide

(commonly called the Organic Chemistry Study Guide)

A second edition was released in early 2020 with over 240 pages and over 600 unique problems.  The guide is organized similarly to the general chemistry guide with a clear separation of first-term and second-term material.  Each chapter is organized with study and practice questions where the study questions take you through the problem solving process of key problems explaining the correct process and also explaining the incorrect processes leading to incorrect answers.  These study questions are then linked to practice questions where you can work through multiple choice questions and check your answers.  Additionally, there are two culminating chapters linking all previous material: Multistep Synthesis and Applications of Organic Chemistry.

Chapters in the study guide are:

First-Term Material:

  • Structure: Shape and Stability
  • Structure: Nomenclature and Functional Groups
  • Structure: Isomers
  • Acids and Bases
  • Nucleophilic Substitutions Reactions
  • Elimination Reactions
  • Addition Reactions: Alkenes and Alkynes
  • Addition Reactions: Alcohols and Ethers
  • Spectrometry, Spectroscopy, and Spectrophotometry
  • Radical Reactions

Second-Term Material:

  • Conjugated Systems and Aromaticity
  • Aromatic Reactions
  • Carbonyl Chemistry
  • Enols and Enolates
  • Multistep Synthesis
  • Applications of Organic Chemistry

Preparing for Your ACS Examination in Biochemistry: The Official Guide

(commonly called the Biochemistry Study Guide)

This guide is the newest update to our suite of study materials, published for the first time in 2025.  This guide includes 164 pages of information with a core or foundational section and a more advanced section (separating between one- and two-semester course sequences). As with our other guides, there are example exam items where the question and answers are analyzed (so you can see not only why the correct answer is correct, but also how the other incorrect answers – called distractors – are devised for a multiple-choice item). There are also practice questions for each section.

Content is derived from all areas of Biochemistry and includes:

  • Core or Foundational Material:
    • Buffers, Amino Acids, and Oligopeptides
    • Polypeptide and Protein Structure
    • Enzyme Kinetics and Mechanisms
    • DNA Nucleic Acid Chemistry and Recombinant Technology
    • Lipids, Biological Membranes and Signal Transduction
    • Sugars and Carbohydrates
    • Carbohydrate Metabolism
    • Cellular Respiration
    • Bioenergetics and Fundamentals of Metabolism
  • Advanced Material:
    • Amino Acid and Lipid Metabolism
    • Lab Techniques and Methods

Preparing for Your ACS Examination in Physical Chemistry: The Official Guide

(commonly called the Physical Chemistry Study Guide)

This guide includes 126 pages of information in essentially three categories. First, there is a brief explanation of content in physical chemistry. Second, there are example exam items where the question and answers are analyzed (so you can see not only why the correct answer is correct, but also how the other incorrect answers – called distractors – are devised for a multiple-choice item). Finally, there are practice questions for each section.

Content is derived from all areas of Physical Chemistry (Thermodynamics, Quantum Mechanics and Dynamics) and includes:

  • Thermo – Equations of State
  • Thermo – Laws of Thermodynamics and State Functions
  • Thermo – Mathematical Relationships in Thermodynamics
  • Thermo – Chemical and Phase Equilibria
  • Dynamics – Kinetic Molecular Theory
  • Dynamics – Transport Properties
  • Dynamics – Phenomenological Kinetics
  • Dynamics – Mechanisms
  • Dynamics – Reaction Dynamics
  • Dynamics – Statistical Mechanics
  • Quantum – Quantum Chemistry: History and Concepts
  • Quantum – Simple Analytical Quantum Mechanical Systems
  • Quantum – Modern Quantum Mechanical Problems: Atomic System
  • Quantum – Symmetry
  • Quantum – Molecular Orbital Theory
  • Quantum – Spectral Properties
  • Quantum – Advanced Topics: Electronic Structure Theory and Spectroscopy

Practice Exams

The Examinations Institute online practice exams – click here for more information.  There are two major types of practice exams:

  • Tutorial exams providing feedback throughout the test-taking process.

Each exam has 50 items with feedback provided on each question. If you are correct, you will be told so, but you also will be provided with the process to solve the question correctly (so you can compare to how you solved the problem).  If you are incorrect, you will be told so and be provided with possible difficulties you may have had, giving you an opportunity to solve the problem again.

    • Available for:
      • Preparatory chemistry
      • General chemistry:
        • first term
        • second term
        • full year
      • Organic chemistry:
        • first term
        • second term
        • full year

 

  • Practice exams replicating taking an ACS Exam. 

Each exam has 50 items (analytical has 30 items) providing an opportunity to take a test similar to taking your ACS final exam.  While you work through the questions on the test, you are also asked to respond with your mental effort for each question.  Following the completion of the test, you will receive a report with your performance by content area, your average mental effort by content area and information on how to use this to target your studies.  There are four practice exams available:

    • Available for:
      • General chemistry:
        • first term
        • second term
        • full year
      • Organic chemistry:
        • first term
        • second term
        • full year
      • Analytical chemistry