What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past CIE 0620 Chemistry papers and filtered to alcohols. You answer, you find out immediately whether you were right, and you get the reasoning for the correct option and for each distractor. Wrong answers go to a mistakes locker so you can come back to exactly those.
Practice is free. You need an account only so your progress and your mistakes are still there next time.
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What examiners see students get wrong here
These are the errors that cost marks on alcohols, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Calling ethanol a hydrocarbon.
- Forgetting the oxygen atom in the alcohol when balancing a combustion equation.
- Giving the fermentation temperature as 60 °C or "warm". Above about 40 °C the yeast enzymes are denatured.
- Saying fermentation needs oxygen. It needs the absence of oxygen.
- Writing the fermentation equation without the carbon dioxide.
- Answering "suitable conditions" for the hydration of ethene instead of 300 °C, 60 atmospheres and phosphoric acid.
- Saying acidified potassium manganate(VII) goes from purple to clear. The change is purple to colourless.
- Claiming fermentation gives pure ethanol. It gives a dilute aqueous solution that must be distilled.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: Alcohols revision notes.