AQA A Level Chemistry Data Sheet (Data Booklet)

What is the AQA A Level Chemistry Data Sheet (Data Booklet)?

AQA provides two versions of the data sheet; one for use in AS exams and the other in A Level exams.

You can find the two sheets here:

AQA AS Chemistry Data Sheet

AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet

What sort of information can be found in the AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet?

Aside from the AQA A Level Periodic Table, the Data Booklet contains:

• Infrared absorption data

• ¹H NMR chemical shift data

• ¹³C NMR chemical shift data

• Selected organic molecules

The last three items will only be found in the AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet, not the AQA AS Chemistry Data Sheet

Infrared Absorption Data

Source: AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet

An extract from AQA A Level Chemistry Data Sheet showing how infrared data values are expressed in wavenumbers

• The Data Booklet shows ranges of infrared absorptions for different types of covalent bonds. Whenever you have a question about infrared, be sure to quote the range associated with a specific bond, not just the type of bond. 

• The rather strange looking cm^-1 unit of 'Wavenumber' is derived from the more familiar wavelength, which is a measure of the length between two crests in an electromagnetic wave. Wavenumber is the reciprocal of wavelength and is a more practical unit to use in the operation of IR spectrometers.

You can find out more about infrared spectroscopy in our revision notes here:Infrared Spectroscopy

¹H NMR chemical shift data

Source: AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet

The AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet includes a table of ¹H NMR chemical shift values. The chemical shift can help to identify a specific type of proton in a molecule, providing evidence that allows a chemical structure to be deduced.

• You won't come across NMR spectroscopy unless you do the full A Level Chemistry course. Like IR data you should quote a range of NMR values from the data table, to support your answer.

• The curly d is the Greek delta and is a symbol for chemical shift in NMR. Chemical shift indicates how far along a particular peak is located with respect to a reference peak called TMS. TMS is an abbreviation for tetramethylsilane and provides a benchmark to compare peaks to.

• Further information about ¹H NMR spectroscopy can be found in these revision notes: ¹H NMR

¹³C NMR chemical shift data

Source: AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet

The AQA A Level Chemistry Data Booklet includes a table of ¹³C NMR chemical shift values. The chemical shift can help to identify a specific type of carbon atom in a molecule, providing evidence that allows a chemical structure to be deduced.

• ¹³C NMR is less useful to a chemist than ¹H NMR as it doesn't provide the fine detail needed to deduce complex structures, but it is another tool in the chemists' tooblbox.

• You can find out more about ¹³C in our revision notes here: ¹³C NMR 

Selected Organic Molecules

Selected molecules from the AQA A Level Chemistry Data

• The AQA Data Sheet also contains the structure of a number of organic molecules which you need to refer to when answering questions as you are not expected to memorise their structures

• These include phosphates and sugars, bases, amino acids and the structure of the heam group

Organic Question from AQA A Level Chemistry

An example of an organic chemistry question where students need to refer to the structures given in the Data Sheet