Comprehensive Review: Inorganic Chemistry, Communication Skills, and Developmental Psychology

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering key scientific, linguistic, study, and psychological terms from Introductory Inorganic Chemistry (CHM 101), Use of English and Communication Skills (GST 101), and Developmental Psychology (PED 221).

Inorganic Chemistry

The study of chemical elements and their compounds, excluding compounds of carbon, though compounds of carbon with oxygen, sulphur, and metals are generally included.

Dobereiner's Triads

Groups of three chemically similar elements identified by J. W. Dobereiner in $1829$, where the atomic weight of the middle element is approximately the arithmetic mean of the atomic weights of the other two elements.

Law of Octaves

A relationship proposed by John Newlands in $1864$ stating that when elements are arranged in order of increasing atomic weight, every eighth element exhibits physical and chemical properties similar to the first.

Lothar Meyer's Atomic Volume Curve

A periodic plot of atomic volume against atomic weight or atomic number, exhibiting cycles where reactive alkali metals occupy peaks and unreactive noble metals occupy troughs.

Modern Periodic Law

A chemical principle formulated following Henry Moseley's $1913$ discovery of atomic number, stating that the physical and chemical properties of elements are periodic functions of their atomic numbers.

Aufbau Principle

The conceptual building-up process in which electrons are successively added to the lowest energy unoccupied hydrogen-like atomic orbitals in a poly-electronic atom.

Pauli Exclusion Principle

A quantum mechanical principle stating that no two electrons in the same atom can possess identical values for all four quantum numbers ($n$, $l$, $m_l$, and $m_s$).

Hund's Rule of Maximum Multiplicity

The rule stating that within a given subshell, electrons will occupy degenerate orbitals singly with parallel spins before any pairing occurs.

Covalent Radius

One-half of the internuclear distance between two identical non-metallic atoms joined together by a single homonuclear covalent bond.

Van der Waals Radius

One-half of the distance between the nuclei of two adjacent, non-bonded atoms belonging to neighbouring molecules in a crystal lattice.

Metallic Radius

One-half of the internuclear distance between two adjacent metal atoms in a close-packed metallic crystal lattice.

Lanthanide Contraction

The steady decrease in atomic and ionic radii by a total of $13\,\text{pm}$ across the $14$ elements from $\text{Ce}\,(Z = 58)$ to $\text{Lu}\,(Z = 71)$, caused by the poor nuclear shielding of $(n-2)f$ electrons.

First Ionization Energy

The minimum energy required to remove the least strongly bound electron from an isolated gaseous atom in its ground state, expressed in $\text{kJ}\,\text{mol}^{-1}$.

Electron Affinity

The energy released or absorbed when an electron is added to an isolated neutral gaseous atom in its ground state to form a univalent gaseous anion.

Electronegativity

The relative tendency or power of an atom in a molecule to attract shared bonding electrons toward itself.

Heavy Water

Deuterium oxide ($\text{D}_2\text{O}$), an oxide of the hydrogen isotope deuterium obtained from ordinary water by fractional distillation or prolonged electrolysis, widely utilized as a neutron moderator in nuclear reactors.

Spin Isomerism

The existence of diatomic hydrogen in two distinct molecular states based on nuclear spin alignments: ortho hydrogen with parallel nuclear spins and para hydrogen with antiparallel nuclear spins.

Water Gas

A synthesis gas mixture consisting of $\text{CO}$ and $\text{H}_2$ produced industrially by reacting steam with red-hot coke at approximately $1250\,\text{K}$.

Hydrogen Bond

An electrostatic attractive force binding a hydrogen atom covalently linked to a highly electronegative atom ($\text{F}$, $\text{O}$, or $\text{N}$) to another electronegative atom in the same or an adjacent molecule.

Listening Enabling Skills

Core physiological and mental abilities required for active listening comprehension, including functioning ears, concentration, thinking along with the speaker, anticipating subsequent points, and tracking transitional signposts.

Note-Taking

The real-time receptive process of listening to lectures, talks, or speeches and recording summaries of the main points using points, abbreviations, and symbols.

Note-Making

The study-time activity of extracting, organising, and writing down important points while reading written texts such as textbooks, journals, or study units.

Skimming

A rapid silent reading technique operating at maximum speed ($800$ or more words per minute) to grasp the main ideas, general overview, or gist of a text without attending to fine details.

Scanning

A rapid reading technique where the eyes search through a text in multiple directions to locate specific isolated facts, words, dates, or figures.

Study Reading Speed

The slowest, most concentrated reading rate ($200$ to $300$ words per minute) designed to achieve high comprehension ($80\%$ to $90\%$) and long-term retention of detailed concepts.

Word Attack

A vocabulary deduction strategy wherein a reader deciphers the meaning of a complex word by dissecting it into structural components such as prefixes, roots, and suffixes.

Lexical Familiarisation

A contextual reading strategy where a writer deliberately embeds synonyms, associated terminology, or related explanations in proximity to a newly introduced word to clarify its meaning.

Narrative Text

A literary or informative text type that recounts a chronological sequence of events or a story, characterized by characters, setting, plot development, suspense, and a climax.

Expository Text

A formal, objective text type structured to explain, describe, or illustrate specific concepts, theories, or issues through logical organization, supporting evidence, and absence of storytelling.

Groupware

Collaborative software that enables two or more people in diverse physical locations to communicate and work together toward common goals via tools like e-mail, calendars, and shared databases.

Enterprise Portal

A unified, personalized digital interface through which an employee or user accesses and utilizes multiple internal and external applications and informational databases from a single workstation.

Developmental Psychology

The scientific, ontogenetic study of quantitative and qualitative developmental changes in human and animal behavior across the lifespan from conception until death.

Growth

Quantitative biological changes in an organism involving increases in physical body dimensions such as height, weight, volume, and anatomical organ size.

Development

A progressive, directional sequence of orderly and coherent qualitative changes in physical, cognitive, and affective functioning resulting from maturation and learning.

Developmental Task

A socially and culturally defined task defined by Robert Havighurst that arises at or about a specific period of life, the mastery of which leads to personal happiness and success with subsequent tasks.

Cephalocaudal Law

A biological principle of developmental direction stating that growth, structural differentiation, and motor control proceed longitudinally from the head downward to the feet.

Proximodistal Law

A biological principle of developmental direction stating that growth, structural differentiation, and muscular control proceed from the central axis or trunk outward toward the extremities.

Mitosis

A somatic cell division process during which a single cell duplicates its chromosomes and divides to generate two genetically identical diploid daughter cells.

Meiosis

The specialised germ cell division process in reproductive organs producing gametes (sperm or ova) that each contain half the original chromosomal complement ($23$ chromosomes in humans).

Down's Syndrome

A chromosomal disorder resulting from an extra $21\text{st}$ chromosome (trisomy $21$), leading to mental subnormality and distinct physical craniofacial anomalies.

Klinefelter's Syndrome

A genetic condition in males caused by an extra $\text{X}$ chromosome ($\text{XXY}$), resulting in failure to develop normal secondary sexual characteristics and deficits in verbal ability.

Turner's Syndrome

A genetic condition occurring in females who possess only a single $\text{X}$ chromosome ($\text{XO}$), characterized by short stature, failure to develop secondary sex characteristics, and cognitive deficits.

Super Male Syndrome

A chromosomal abnormality in males caused by the inheritance of an extra paternal $\text{Y}$ chromosome ($\text{XYY}$), associated with taller-than-average stature and below-average intelligence scores.

Fixation

A psychoanalytic concept describing the developmental stagnation or arrest of libido at an early psychosexual stage due to excessive gratification or severe frustration.

Oedipus Complex

A Freudian psychosexual conflict occurring during the phallic stage ($3$ to $6$ years) wherein a male child experiences unconscious incestuous desires for his mother and hostile rivalry toward his father.

Sublimation

An ego defense mechanism in which unacceptable instinctual id drives and aggressive impulses are transformed into socially commended, creative, and constructive actions.

Epigenetic Principle

Erik Erikson's developmental premise stating that human development follows a predetermined ground plan wherein specific components arise and achieve ascendancy at designated critical periods to form a functioning whole.

Identity Crisis

The central psychosocial conflict of Erikson's fifth stage (identity vs. role confusion) occurring during adolescence ($12$ to $20$ years), characterized by the struggle to integrate personal, sexual, vocational, and ideological identity.

Schema

A Piagetian cognitive concept defining an organised, internalised pattern of action or thought created to interpret, represent, and interact with environmental experiences.

Assimilation

The Piagetian cognitive process whereby an individual interprets, incorporates, and integrates new environmental information into existing cognitive schemas.

Accommodation

The complementary Piagetian cognitive process of modifying existing cognitive structures or constructing novel schemas in response to new environmental demands and discrepant experiences.

Equilibration

The self-regulatory mechanism in Piaget's theory that balances assimilation and accommodation, resolving cognitive disequilibrium to achieve higher states of intellectual stability.