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NSW Curriculum
NSW Education Standards Authority

11–12Chemistry 11–12 Syllabus (2025)

Record of changes
Implementation from 2028
Expand for detailed implementation advice

Content

Year 11

Chemical reactions

Relevant Working scientifically outcomes and content must be integrated with each focus area. All the Working scientifically outcomes and content must be addressed by the end of Year 12.

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Classifying chemical reactions
  • Use balanced chemical equations to describe the features and predict the products of synthesis, decomposition, combustion, precipitation and neutralisation reactions

  • Conduct laboratory experiments to demonstrate synthesis, decomposition, combustion and neutralisation reactions

  • Explain how the removal of toxicity in the preparation of nardoo by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples is an example of a decomposition reaction

  • Describe the features of and construct full and net ionic equations for precipitation reactions

  • Conduct a laboratory experiment to predict the products of precipitation reactions using balanced equations and solubility rules

  • Conduct a practical investigation to demonstrate a metal displacement reaction

  • Explain oxidation and reduction in terms of electron transfer and change in oxidation state

  • Relate electron transfer and change in oxidation state to metal displacement reactions

  • Predict the products of a metal displacement reaction using half-equations

  • Conduct laboratory experiments to compare the reactivity of metals in oxygen, water, dilute acid and other metal ions in solutions

  • Construct a metal activity series using the data obtained from practical investigations and compare this series with secondary sources

  • Analyse the relationship between metal reactivity and ionisation energy, atomic radius and electronegativity

  • Conduct a secondary-source investigation to evaluate the impact of a chemical reaction in medicine or agriculture

Rates of reactions
  • Explain the roles of activation energy and molecular orientation, and the frequency of successful collisions of particles in collision theory

  • Analyse how concentration, temperature, surface area and catalysts affect reaction rate using collision theory

  • Conduct a laboratory experiment to measure the effect of concentration, temperature, surface area or catalysts on the rate of a chemical reaction

Energy changes
  • Describe the energy changes of endothermic and exothermic reactions

  • Conduct a practical investigation to measure the energy changes in endothermic and exothermic reactions

  • Relate heat energy changes to total bond energy changes and to the law of conservation of energy

  • Analyse endothermic and exothermic energy profile diagrams in terms of chemical potential energy, and bond breaking and formation

  • Conduct a laboratory experiment to measure and compare temperature changes in substances of different heat capacities

  • Solve problems using q = m c Δ T for heat energy, mass, specific heat capacity or temperature change, using the known values

  • Solve problems involving enthalpy changes by using Δ H = - q n

  • Conduct a laboratory experiment using calorimetry to calculate the Δ H value for endothermic and exothermic reactions and discuss accuracy using secondary-source data

  • Analyse the effect of catalysts on activation energy in endothermic and exothermic reactions and provide an alternative lower-energy pathway for a chemical reaction

  • Conduct a secondary-source investigation about the economic advantages of using a catalyst on an industrial process

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