The diploma exam
Sixty questions, every one worth the same single mark, and no written response at all. The exam is worth 30% of your final mark, and the blueprint has been published in advance every year.
- 1. The shape of the exam
- 2. What gets tested, and how much
- 3. Numerical response
- 4. The data booklet
- 5. Where marks are lost
- 6. Official material
The shape of the exam
The idea: 44 multiple-choice and 16 numerical-response questions, each worth one mark. A hard equilibrium calculation is worth exactly as much as recalling what an anode does.
| Part | Questions | Worth |
|---|---|---|
| Multiple choice | 44, four choices each | 1 mark each |
| Numerical response | 16, answers recorded in boxes | 1 mark each |
- Time: designed for 3 hours, with up to 6 available. Sixteen calculations in one paper is the reason the extra time exists.
- Calculator: one approved calculator, cleared of stored information.
- Data booklet: provided, and you should be using your own copy long before exam day — see below.
- No written response. Every mark comes from a machine-scored question, so a correct method with a slipped decimal earns nothing. Checking is worth more here than in a course with part marks.
- Context-dependent questions are common: a passage, a diagram or a data table followed by several questions, sometimes mixing the two question types.
What gets tested, and how much
The idea: electrochemistry and equilibrium are each worth roughly a third. Together they are about 60% of the exam.
| Program unit | Emphasis | Units on this site |
|---|---|---|
| Thermochemical changes | 20%–22% | Thermochemistry |
| Electrochemical changes | 29%–32% | Redox reactions, Electrochemical cells |
| Chemical changes of organic compounds | 20%–22% | Organic chemistry |
| Chemical equilibrium, focusing on acid-base systems | 29%–32% | Equilibrium, Acids and bases |
That weighting is the single most useful planning fact available. Thermochemistry and organic chemistry are each about one question in five; redox, cells, equilibrium and acid-base together are nearly two in three. If revision time is short, it belongs there.
Numerical response
The idea: sixteen marks — more than a quarter of the exam — are decided by what you write in the answer boxes, and they are not all calculations.
| Type | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Calculation | A numerical value, rounded as the question specifies — a molar enthalpy, a pH, a cell potential, a mass deposited. |
| Selection | Choose the numbered items from a list or diagram that fit. A number may sometimes be used more than once, and more than one answer can be correct. |
| Sequencing | Put steps, structures or events in order. The order is the answer. |
- First digit on the left, unused boxes blank.
- Keep the leading zero for an answer between 0 and 1.
- Round once, at the end, to the accuracy the question names.
- Check the units the question asked for before recording — kJ against kJ/mol is the difference between a mark and nothing.
The data booklet
The idea: the Chemistry Data Booklet comes with the exam and you may use a print copy. Knowing it well is worth several marks; meeting it for the first time on exam day costs them.
- Get a copy now. It is posted on Alberta's Writing diploma exams page, and schools can order print copies. Use it for every practice question you do, so finding a table becomes automatic.
- Know where things are: the tables you will reach for under time pressure are standard reduction potentials, acid ionization constants, indicators, solubility, and the constants and equations pages.
- What it does not contain is the reasoning: which table to use, which way round to read it, whether a reaction is spontaneous, or what to do when a half-reaction is not listed.
- Practise the awkward case. Examiners report that students handle half-reactions that appear in the table and struggle when one does not — which is a skill, not a lookup.
Where marks are lost
The idea: Alberta publishes what students did well and badly last year. The same items recur, and most of them are habits rather than gaps in knowledge.
Thermochemistry
- Using the specific heat capacity of water when the question involves something else.
- Using the enthalpy of the equation where the molar enthalpy was needed, after being given a mass or a number of moles.
- Connecting enthalpy changes to bonds broken and formed — comfortable reading the diagram, less comfortable explaining it.
- Deciding whether combustion produces liquid or gaseous water, which depends on whether the system is closed or open.
Electrochemistry
- Writing half-reactions for species that are not in the table of standard electrode potentials.
- Balancing in acidic solution from a skeleton equation, where H⁺ and H₂O are not already shown.
- Faraday's law when the mole ratio is not 1:1 — the ratio step is the one that gets skipped.
- Labelling electrolytic cells. Voltaic cells are well handled; the sign swap is not.
- Oxidation numbers are a strength, apart from oxygen in peroxides.
Organic
- Naming and classifying are strong; chemical properties are weaker than physical ones.
- Relating boiling point differences to intermolecular forces is a recurring weak spot.
Equilibrium and acid-base
- Recognizing a stress that is stated indirectly — adding hydroxide to remove hydronium, or silver ions to remove chloride.
- Using an ICE table backwards, to find an initial concentration from a pH and a Ka.
- Linking pH to concentration, Ka or Kb for a weak acid or base. Converting pH to pOH, or Ka to Kb, is fine; the link to concentration is not.
- Predicting the pH at the equivalence point for weak-strong titrations.
- Choosing a buffer is fine; explaining what the buffer then does is not.
Watch out: examiners also note that students confuse an observation with an inference. Hydrogen bubbling at an electrode is an observation; that hydrogen gas was produced by reduction is an inference.
Official material
The idea: use Alberta's own documents for the real thing — everything here is written to match the published format, not copied from an exam.
- Chemistry 30 Information Bulletin 2025–2026 — The blueprint, the instructions pages, examples of every numerical-response type, and a frank account of what students got wrong last year.
- Writing diploma exams — Where the Chemistry Data Booklet, the calculator rules and the digital practice tests live.
- Diploma exams — overview — Exam dates, rules, accommodations and how results are reported.
Then come back for the sample exam, the printable worksheets, and practice questions by unit, all with explanations.