What is it
Students learn how concentration, temperature, surface area/particle size, pressure and catalysts affect the speed of a chemical reaction, and how to measure and calculate rate from graphs of experimental data.
Why it matters
Rate of reaction is a required-practical topic on every exam board and a common source of graph-based questions that test genuine scientific reasoning, not just recall.
Exam tip
Explain rate changes using collision theory every time — 'more frequent, more energetic collisions between particles' — rather than just saying 'it reacts faster', since mark schemes specifically reward this mechanism.
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