What this practice covers
These questions are drawn from past CIE 9701 Chemistry papers and filtered to carboxylic acids and derivatives. 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 carboxylic acids and derivatives, taken from our own topic notes. Read them before you practise and you will recognise the traps in the questions.
- Distilling rather than refluxing when a carboxylic acid is wanted from a primary alcohol.
- Naming an ester backwards. The alkyl group on the single-bonded oxygen comes from the alcohol and is named first.
- Saying alkaline hydrolysis gives the carboxylic acid. It gives the salt, which must be acidified.
- Explaining acid strength by the number of oxygens. It is the delocalisation of the charge over two oxygens that matters.
- Forgetting that only carboxylic acids release carbon dioxide from carbonates, which is what distinguishes them from phenol.
- Treating the sulfuric acid in esterification as a reactant. It is a catalyst.
Revise it first
If any of the above is unfamiliar, work through the notes before practising: Carboxylic acids and derivatives revision notes.