Chemistry?

[Coldblueberry]

On the NAQT distribution, I see
Chemistry_Non_Element 2 19 / 17 0.7 / 0.7
Chemistry_Misc 1 10 / 8 0.4 / 0.3

Can anyone explain what these categories are and point me to a place with Chemistry Canon? Reading acf and Pace packets, I see a lot of "identify this molecule/compound" type of question with its precipitates, and common uses, and other IDing stuff.

How to study for this?

[Stained Diviner]

The best way to study for quizbowl chemistry is to take AP Chemistry or read through a textbook used for such a course or a College Intro course.

As you may or may not already know, you can find old Chemistry questions (or questions specific to any category) at ACFDB. You probably want to start by focusing on recent Fall and Winter questions.

[Mechanical Beasts]

Note that topics that are common at Winter (and less so at Fall) in chemistry--like organic chemistry--aren't covered by the high school canon, and except for leadins (used sparingly) and third parts of bonuses (doubly so) you won't get very high value for your time learning them. (Winter also contains some statistical mechanics, which more and more frequently finds itself as the leadins to thermodynamics tossups.

[Important Bird Area]

On the NAQT distribution, I see
Chemistry_Non_Element 19 / 17
Chemistry_Misc 10 / 8

Can anyone explain what these categories are?

The subdivision of chemistry is there to make sure that element questions don't take over the entire chemistry distribution (eg, a tossup on "helium" can fill the "miscellaneous" section, but not the "not about elements" section). Here's the list of not-element tossup answers from IS #95:

indicators
Fritz Haber
sucrose
pH
metals
sigma bonds
common link tossup on "4"
Ernest Rutherford
free radicals

[DongDonger]

I have a decent background in chem, so I don't find that I have to study for it as much as I do for other categories. But, I took the AP Chem test this year, and I found that the review book I used (Barron's 5th ed.) covered nearly everything in the quiz bowl canon. It has its fair share of trivia and stock clues and describes in detail the basics of the chemistry canon, such as the ones bt_green_warbler listed. Learning the mathematics behind the chemistry is also helpful, as many tossups I've seen describe the mathematical relationships between certain quantities and qualities; also, there were some thermodynamic calculations on a set I read recently. So if you want to study for quiz bowl chem, those AP review books are actually incredibly helpful (not just for chem, but for bio, world history, and Euro history, as I've found).

As far as organic chemistry, I can't really help you there because I have yet to find easy-to-understand, comprehensive, and reliable study materials for it; and functional groups and structure are basically the extent of orgy chem in the AP Chem curriculum.