What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past CIE 0620 Chemistry papers and filtered to separation and purification. 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 separation and purification, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Swapping residue and filtrate.
- Saying filtration separates a dissolved solid from its solution. Dissolved particles pass straight through the paper.
- Evaporating a solution to dryness when crystals are wanted.
- Cooling a saturated solution quickly, which gives small, impure crystals.
- Washing crystals with warm water, which dissolves them.
- Placing the thermometer bulb in the boiling liquid instead of level with the side-arm.
- Sending the condenser water in at the top.
- Using simple distillation for two miscible liquids, which does not separate them properly.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: Separation and purification revision notes.