Remembering Bond Degrees

[Natalie Phan 3G]

How do you guys remember/study the bond degrees in a shape? I understand how to use lewis structures/VSPER to find the shape, but I can't seem to keep the different angles associated with them straight. Any tips?

[Zach Richardson 2f]

Well a lot of the shapes do have "parents" so to speak. For example trigonal pyramidal and bent are based on the tetrahedral shape, and they have very similar bond angles. See saw is based on a trigonal bipyramidal shape and thus has very similar bond angles. So you really only have to remember (memorize) the bond angles of the "parents" and then remember that a lone pair has more repulsive force than a bonding pair, so the bond angle will be smaller on those. I hope that was not worded too confusingly.

[SophiaBarden 2E]

https://molview.org/?cid=962
I depend a lot on visualization and structures to understand molecules so I sometimes use this cool website. It lets you search any molecule and then displays the lewis structure and most importantly, the 3D model that you can interact with. This also helps with equatorial and axial questions and is just cool to play around with an expose yourself to 3D modeling of molecules!!

[Gwendolyn Hill 2F]

Visualization helps me a lot! If you can remember how many electron regions there are and the different types, then you're basically just doing variations on the same model. Fortunately, we are not expected to know exACTLY what the bond angles are for the weird ones which have lots of lone electron pairs, but if you can imagine the way the molecule should be shaped to be the most stable, you can just tweak it slightly from there.

[Natalie Phan 3G]

https://molview.org/?cid=962
I depend a lot on visualization and structures to understand molecules so I sometimes use this cool website. It lets you search any molecule and then displays the lewis structure and most importantly, the 3D model that you can interact with. This also helps with equatorial and axial questions and is just cool to play around with an expose yourself to 3D modeling of molecules!!

Thanks for linking the website! I learn visually as well so I think that's gonna help me a lot.

[Sydney Jensen 3L]

It may be helpful to draw out the lewis structure, and be sure to know by heart some of the common bond angles, so you can compare them to which shape you are trying to figure out. Once you know a key few, the rest will start to become easier, and usually the common angles you will begin to pick up on it from many practice problems.

[Gian Boco 2G]

I cement the visualization of the shape and then the associated bond angles using flashcards and I'd say it helped a lot

[Megan ODonnell 3F]

I made a Quizlet to remember all of the potential bond angles a specific molecular shape could have, however when determining each individual angle I try to draw out the lewis structure and visualize the angle in relation to all of the other ones.