NEW June 2026 Chemistry Regents Review Official Exam Overview Practice Problems

Hello everyone, today we're going to be talking about the brand new chemistry Regents exam. So for those of you that don't know, the chemistry Regents exam has recently undergone massive transformation. So for all of you that are taking this exam on Tuesday, June 9th, 2026, you're going to be taking brand new exam with new questions and new reference table. So in this video, I'm going to spend the first half of it discussing what exactly has changed and I'm going to spend the other half of it going over some brand new practice problems. So if you're here just for practice problems, feel free to skip ahead. All right, so for everyone that's still watching, this is the educator's guide to the Regents examination. This is packet that the Regents board sends teachers and it pretty much outlines exactly what's going to be on the test. So over here, we literally get test blueprint. So let's go ahead and let's go over it. So in terms of test organization, it's organized into question clusters. Okay? So that means that we have clusters of questions that follow an assessment storyline. The group of question clusters follow theme or storyline grounded in some sort of phenomenon or some sort of topic. Okay? That means that instead of having stand-alone questions, our questions are going to be related to one another. Number one is going to build off of two, three, and four and they all have some sort of theme to it. Great. So question clusters include introduction, which informs students of how many questions are part of the cluster, and then multiple stimuli, which can be reading passages, data tables, graphs, diagrams, and photos, alongside questions that draw on one or more of the stimuli. And the questions in the cluster are going to include multiple choice and constructed response questions. So what that means is instead of having stand-alone questions with no stimuli, you're now going to be opening up test and the first thing you're going to see is an article. Then you're going to see photo. Then you're going to see graph. And then they're going to ask you to answer questions that relate to the photo, to the graph, and to the text. So let's see that in action. So on the right, have photo of the old exam. So notice how question one is asking us about the gold foil experiment. Number two is asking us for the number of electrons for this atom. Here we're asking us about the mass of an electron. Over here we have where electrons are located. None of these questions build on one another. They're not related. There's no paragraph or chart that they ask you about, okay? So everything here is stand-alone. Over here on the right, this is what the new exam looks like. It starts off with blurb that tells us, "Hey, this cluster is going to run through questions 1 through 5." Okay, so it's so it's five questions long and then it starts with an article. The article talks about smartphone chemistry. This is about phone screens, okay? Display screens. Right? And then number one is going to ask us about some sort of component in the aluminosilicate glass that makes up display screens. Does that mean that you have to come into the Regents exam knowing what aluminosilicate glass is? Absolutely not. The best part about this is all the information you need to solve this question is going to be located inside of this text right here. Don't worry, you don't know what aluminosilicate glass is? That's perfectly fine. The paragraph tells you what that is, okay? Then choice or number two, we go ahead and we answer short response again about this information. Then we're given small blurb, chemical equation, and then another paragraph. And so we're going to use this information to help us solve question three, okay? then we move on to question number four. It asks us about some sort of criterion about designing smartphones. Do you need to be an expert in how to design smartphones? No. All you need to know is how to read this paragraph and find where it says, "Hey, good criteria when designing smartphones is this." Okay? So then we answer number four, we're given table, we use the information from the table to answer number five, and that's the end of the cluster, okay? Then we move on to our second cluster. Here it's talking about profitable blueberry fields. We have some sort of pH table, and we're going to answer question for the pH. Then we move on to number two. Here we have cause and effect, and so we have to fill in what's causing it and the resulting effect. We move on here, we have two more equations and blurb, and we're going to use that to answer these questions before moving on to our third cluster, okay? Evaluating gas stoves. We're going to move on. So, notice here how the exam is now interconnected. Every single cluster has theme. Blueberry fields, gas stoves, phone screens, and each question is going to build off of the last one, and it's going to refer to the information that the test gives you, okay? So, now the exam is lot more connected. All right, so going back to our blueprint, it says that the stimuli can include reading passages, data tables, graphs, and photos. We already went over that. They contain all the information you need to solve the problem. In in terms of the question formats, we know that we have one credit multiple choice questions and one credit constructed response. So, there's short response, there's multiple choice. The good part about this is that it's all worth the same amount of points. If you mess up short response question, you're not going to get more points taken off of it. Nope. You're going to get the exact same amount of points taken off of it of your score if you got multiple choice question wrong, okay? So, the points are the same, which is really nice if you struggle with one or the other, you won't get penalized extra. Finally, the test design. Approximately 60% of the test is going to be multiple choice questions. The other 40% is going to be constructed response, okay? There's no multiple choice section only, there's no short response section, it's all mixed. And then finally, we have total number of questions. It's in all all in all, the exam is going to be 45 to 55 questions long. That's really big improvement because the old Regents exam for chemistry used to be 85 questions long. So, they've gotten rid of 30 to 40 questions for you guys. They've essentially halved the number of questions on the exam, which makes it lot more digestible. And so, you're going to have 45 to 55 questions, and they're going to be split between nine to 11 clusters, okay? So, instead of having like part part part part the entire exam is just one part, okay? It's just split into different clusters that are going to talk about different topics, okay? You're going to have nine to 11 different topics. Each one of those topics has like five or six questions stemming from them, and that's it. That's the entire exam. Now, the second important thing we need to talk about is the change in the reference table. Let's go over that. Before we go over this, if you're enjoying this video so far and you want to support the channel, please feel free to leave like and subscribe to the channel. Really helps me out. Thank you guys. All right. So, going over the two of the differences in the reference tables, on the right, I've included the old reference table, on the left is the new one. Okay? So, this old reference table used to be 12 pages long. The new reference table is only four pages. So, let's look at what's changed. So, the new reference table starts off with periodic table of elements. And so, over here, the biggest change that we see is now they've included the name of the element underneath the symbol. This name used to not be here. The next change that they did, they got rid of the oxidation states on the top right corner, and they got rid of the electron configuration on the bottom left corner. Those That information is gone. Wasn't entirely useful, so don't think it hurts you guys that it's no longer there. Now, the second page of this table has something entirely new. It now has the electromagnetic spectrum. This used to not be on the old reference table, which means that the regions can now ask you questions about certain wavelengths of light. What you need to know here is that this table is going to relate wavelength to frequency. And certain parts of light, certain wavelengths, or certain electromagnetic emissions, like radio waves, or microwaves, or infrared waves, or UV light rays, or X-rays, or gamma rays, they are going to exist on different wavelengths and different frequencies. So, one question could say, "Hey, this electron emits wavelength, or sorry, you know, light with wavelength of like 10 to the power of 1 What type of wave is that?" So, you'd look, "Okay, well, 10 to the power of 1 is here, and that falls into the band of radio waves." That's all. So, it emits this this type of wave. Great. So, just way of categorizing different types of wave waves based on certain physical properties. All right, moving on. Second, sorry, third page has the symbols used in nuclear chemistry. This is straight from the old reference table, and here we have aqueous, sorry, selected ions using or forming aqueous solutions. So, this is essentially giving you the solubility rules, okay? Finally, last page, mathematical relationships. This is coming from the old reference table. Nothing's changed. Metric reference Metric prefixes also haven't changed. Selected units also haven't changed. That's all located on your old reference table. And then finally, here we have some equations. lot of these are coming from the old reference table as well. Great. So, let's see what they got rid of looking at the old reference table. So again, the first page is largely the same. Nothing's really changed from here. This second page, essentially they took all the information here, the names of the polyatomic ions, and the solubility of water, if it dissolves in water. They've taken these two tables and they've combined them into this one table over here. Okay? Moving on, table is entirely eliminated. Table no longer exists. and no longer exist. and also no longer exist. Table the nuclear chemistry is still there. Okay? We just saw that it's on the second page of the new reference table. all of the organic chemistry stuff is gone. So, are all gone. the periodic table of elements we already said what's gone. The atomic mass is still there. It just moved here. There's also brand new name that's added. The atomic number is now on top of the on top of the symbol. The oxidation states are gone. The electron configurations are gone. These properties of selected elements are also fully gone now. And then finally, table has stayed. Okay? So, that's everything we need to know about the reference table. Now, just because the Regents have eliminated information off the reference table does not need or sorry, does not mean that you need to go over this. Doesn't mean that you need to memorize all the information here. The reality is that if they are going to test about, you know, hydrocarbons or organic prefixes or about, you know, common bases or common acid-base indicators, they're just going to include this table in the question itself. So, you don't have to scurry and go ahead and be like, need to memorize what methyl orange bromothymol blue indicates." Nope. If they ask you question about this, they're probably just going to include this table as part of the stimulus, as part of the article or as part of the graph that you have to read and get information from to answer the question. So, don't worry that the about the reference table is shorter, okay? You don't need to know more information. It'll just be presented to you in different way. It'll be presented to you through the actual test rather than on the paper. So, now let's go ahead and let's look at some of these brand new clusters. Let's see how to solve them. Just like we said before, each one of the clusters is going to start off with an introduction. It's going to tell us that, "Hey, this cluster covers questions 1 through 5." Now, my key or my goal to solving these types of problems, always read the stimulus material first because that's going to contain the answers. So, over here we're going to read this article or this paragraph about smartphone chemistry. It says that smartphones have become part of our everyday lives and that there's significant amount of chemistry involved in their production. Most smartphone display screens are made of aluminosilicate glass. This electrically conductive glass is composed of an oxide of silicon and aluminum with sodium ions dispersed throughout the surface. Some aluminosilicate glass is made stronger by immersing the glass in bath of molten potassium salt at 400° This causes some of the sodium ions to be replaced by potassium ions and the potassium ions are compressed in spaces between molecules in the glass and this makes the glass harder and more resistant to breakage, but less conductive. Since glass is an insulator, the glass screen is then coated with layer of transparent indium tin oxide and this layer is highly conductive and allows for the screen to act as conductive touchscreen. All right, so essentially this tells us how smartphone screens are made, okay? They're going to be made of aluminum silicate, which is aluminum, sorry, an oxide of silicon and aluminum, which is oxygen plus silicon plus aluminum, and then inside of this mixture of elements, we're going to have bunch of sodium and potassium ions, okay? And remember, an ion is charged particle. Great, so number one asks us, "Which statement describes why positive ions in the molten salt replace ions in the aluminosilicate glass resulting in the strengthening of the glass, okay?" So, what positive ions are replacing ions in the glass? Well, if we read this, we can see how highlighted it. The glass is made stronger by immersing it in bath of potassium salt. And this causes the sodium ions to be to be replaced by potassium ions. So, if sodium ions, right? Sodium is Na. Potassium is So, if sodium is being replaced by potassium, right? Wherever you see sodium, now there's potassium ion. That means that they have to have some sort of similar properties in order for the potassium to take the place of sodium. Okay? If the potass- If potassium and sodium were so different, then guess what? The chemical reaction wouldn't occur. They wouldn't be replacing each other. So, if Look at these answer choices, notice how choices one and two are relating similarity between sodium and potassium. It's saying sodium and potassium have similar patterns of blah blah blah. Sodium and potassium have similar patterns of blah blah blah. Then choices three and four, we can automatically eliminate eliminate those two because it's trying to relate aluminum and silicon. Is aluminum replacing sodium? No. Is aluminum charged particle? No. So, why are we talking about it? We shouldn't be talking about it, okay? If we want to explain why sodium is replacing potassium, we have to compare with we have to compare sodium with potassium. Also, in this question right here, nowhere did it say that aluminum and silicon are replacing sodium, okay? We know that potassium is replacing sodium, so that's where our comparison's going to be. So, now choice one says that sodium and potassium have similar patterns of electrons in the outermost energy level and the same number of occupied energy levels. So, if look at my periodic table of elements, know that any element in group one, remember the groups are going to be the columns. So, everything going up and down. So, all of these elements that are stacked upon one another, they're going to have the same number of valence electrons. So, they're going to have one valence electron, which means that they're going to have one electron in their outermost shell. So, yeah, choice one is correct. It says that sodium and potassium have similar patterns of electrons in the outermost energy level. Choice two says the same thing. They have the same number or same pattern of electrons in the outermost energy level. Now, choice one then goes on to say that they have the same number of occupied energy levels, and that's wrong because the number of energy levels increases as you go down the group. So, hydrogen would have one energy level. Lithium would have two energy levels. Sodium would have three energy levels. Potassium would have four energy levels. And so, the number of the group, the group number, relates to the number of energy levels, which is just the number of shells of electrons orbiting it, okay? So, sodium has three shells of electrons or three energy levels. Potassium has four, okay? So, choice one is wrong. Now, what happens as the number of shells increase? Well, we can see here as the number of shells increase or as the number of energy levels gets bigger, the actual atom gets bigger. This is much bigger circle. This black circle is much bigger than this orange circle, okay? So, we can say that potassium is bigger than sodium, which is why choice two is the right answer, right? Because it says that and potassium is larger than sodium. So, we have two true statements. That means that choice two has to be the right answer. Think about it different way. If we know that we're replacing sodium with potassium, we're replacing these tiny tiny bricks, these tiny tiny atoms, with large atoms. What's going to be more stable? screen made of big building blocks or screen made of many tiny building blocks? What's easier to break? Well, something made of smaller building blocks, which is why replacing sodium, the small thing, with potassium makes the screen stronger. Now, number two asked us to explain why the particulate level structure of glass prevents the potassium ions in the glass from functioning as conductor. So, we have to discuss the structure of the glass, okay? And specifically, why that structure is making it poor conductor. So, if look back at my at my paragraph here, notice how highlighted something about con- conductivity. So, let's read the the sentence before this. It says that the potassium ions are compressed into the spaces between the molecules in the glass, and this makes it more resistant to breakage, but also less conductive. So, the answer to this question has to deal with potassium ions being compressed in the spaces of the molecule. Now, or the spaces of the glass, right? Spaces in between the molecules of the glass. Now, why does that make sense? Why is that important? Well, in order for something to be conductor, to conduct electricity, charged particles have to be able to move. Remember that ions are charged particles. Now, if the potassium was free to move throughout the cell, or if free to move throughout the the screen, it would be good conductor, okay? Whenever you have the movement of charged particles, you're going to be able to move throughout the screen very nicely, okay? You're going to be good conductor. But notice here how the structure of the glass ensures that the potassium ions are compressed in the spaces between molecules, and because the potassium ions are compressed, if you're compressed, you can't move. If you can't move, you cannot conduct electricity. So we just have to write that as our answer. All right, so something along these lines, since the potassium ions are compressed into small spaces in the glass, they are unable to move, and they make for poor conductivity, or create poor conductivity. Again, we're connecting the actual structure of the glass, which is the information represented in this paragraph, of the potassium ions being compressed, with what we know about chemistry, and we know that in order for you to be conductive, you have to have the moving moving charged particles, okay? Or charged particles need to be able to move freely. Great, moving on to number three. Right, it says that popular smartphone has mass of 172 and it requires 10.32 of aluminum to manufacture. And so equation one represents model of the chemical process used to obtain aluminum from the purified aluminum oxide. And number three is asking us to construct the mathematical representation, and to calculate the number of grams of aluminum oxide required to produce the aluminum necessary to manufacture one smartphone. All right, so notice how in order for me to make an iPhone, or to make any type of phone, need 10.32 of aluminum. And aluminum has symbol Al. So my goal is to get 10.32 of Al. Now, in this equation, I'm converting aluminum oxide two moles of aluminum oxide into four moles of aluminum. So I'm getting my aluminum by converting this with carbon into the actual aluminum that I'm going to use. And so my question here is, how many grams of Al2 O3 do need to get 10.32 of this? And so, this equation relates them in moles. And so, moles and grams are two completely different things, but luckily, we can transfer or translate between moles and grams. We can convert between them. So, how are we going to do that? Well, we're going to do that by dimensional analysis. So, our first goal is to figure out how many moles of aluminum we need, and then we'll work from there, okay? So, if look at my reference table, know that aluminum has molar mass, right? Or average atomic mass of 26.98 That means that 26.98 of aluminum that's in 1 mol of aluminum, okay? So, we're going to take this conversion, we're going to pay attention to it. Because if have 10.32 of aluminum, guess what? If multiply this by this conversion factor, can get the moles of aluminum, okay? Now, notice how want to get the grams of aluminum to cancel out. So, remember that if you have unit in the numerator and the unit in the denominator, if they're the same unit, they cancel out. So, if have 10.32 of aluminum over 1, can multiply that by 1 mol of aluminum over 26.98 of aluminum. Notice here how this grams of aluminum cancels out, this cancels out, and the unit I'm left with is moles of aluminum. So, if go ahead and multiply that out on my calculator right now, if do 10.32 * or divided by divided by 26. 98, I'm going to get 0.3825. Now, that's going to be 0.3825 mol of aluminum. Now, look at our reference table, right? Or sorry, look at our our equation over here. It says that 2 mol of Al2O3 are equal to or produce 4 mol of aluminum. And so, we can look at this in one of two ways. way number one, want to produce 0.3825 moles of aluminum and that's moles of Al2O3. And so, notice here that if we just put two lines like this, can now cross multiply and solve for That's way number one, okay? And so, just by cross multiplying we can get the value of The second way that we can do this is simply by converting this into one big fraction, okay? So, you can make this into two different fractions. You can have two moles of Al2O3 over four moles of Al or you can convert this into four moles of aluminum go into two moles of Al2O3. Remember that we want to find the number of moles of Al2O3, okay? So, right now if have 0.3825 moles of aluminum, want to cancel out my aluminum and want to be left with moles of Al2O3. So, I'm going to go ahead and multiply it by this equation right here. Because notice how on the bottom have moles of aluminum, on the top have moles of aluminum, so they cancel out and I'm left with moles of Al2O3. So, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to multiply that by four or sorry, by two over four. And I'm going to get that this is equal to 0.1912 moles of Al 2O3. Now, is this my answer? No, but it's actually really close because the question is asking us how many grams of Al2O3 do we need? Okay, how many grams of aluminum oxide do we need? Now, again, the same way that we converted from grams to moles, we can do that in the reverse. We just need to find out how many grams one mole of Al2O3 weighs. And so, if you scroll up to our periodic table of elements, we know that Al2O3, that's aluminum plus aluminum plus oxygen plus oxygen plus oxygen. How do know to add three times or two times? Well, just look at the the subscript here. Al2 means there's two aluminum atoms, O3 means there's three oxygens. So, we can just add up all the masses here. We already know that aluminum is 26.98 We know that oxygen is 16 So, if we add all that together, we're going to get the total molar mass of Al2O3. So, essentially, we get that 1 mol of Al2O3 is equivalent to 101.96 So, again, if we just set it up as fraction and we cross multiply, moles cancel out with moles and I'm left with grams of Al2O3, which is exactly what wanted to solve for in the first place. And so, multiplying this out, I'm going to get that we need 19.49 of Al2O3, and that's going to be my answer. Okay? So, I'm going to go ahead and if was taking this test in paper, would go ahead and type or write out that answer over here. Okay? 19.49 Now, over here it asked us for mathematical representation. That just means give me formula with units. So, all you'd have to do is just write out or copy and paste all of your multiplication with units into the space. So, you can write down this multiplication, then you can write down this multiplication, this line that you used, and finally this line that you used. Okay? And you could set it equal to the numbers that you're calculating. You could have totally also written it out in one line like this, all of your multiplication in one line. Just make sure that your units cancel out. So, aluminum cancels out with the grams of aluminum, moles of aluminum cancels out with moles of aluminum. Here we have Al2 moles of Al2O3 cancels out with mole of Al2O3, and the only unit I'm left with is grams of Al2O3. All right, number four asks us criterion that should be considered when designing smartphones to be more easily recyclable recyclable is to reduce the blank. All right, so in this paragraph right here it says that some states are requiring or studying ways to require tech companies to build phones that follow clear repair and recycling standards. Recycling smartphones prevents contamination of land, water, air, which could occur when smartphones are disposed of in landfill. Recycling also reduces the amount of raw materials mined and the energy used to manufacture new phones. Recycling is not always cost-effective because there aren't enough valuable recyclable materials within single smartphone. Although although consumers prefer thinner smartphones, they're more challenging for recyclers to take apart, and larger phones tend to have longer battery lives. All right, so essentially what we understand here is that the reason why we want to recycle iPhones is because they're lot of phones are wasted, and essentially lot of phones go into landfills. Their batteries end up polluting the land that the landfill is on, and that causes bunch of health problems. So, question number four asks asks us criterion that should be considered when designing smartphones to be more more easily recyclable is to reduce the what, okay? So, in this case, why are we even This question is asking us, why do we even care about making phones more easily recyclable? And that's because the easier it is to recycle phone, the reduction or that causes reduction in the disposal of hazardous components into landfills. If we can recycle something better, that means that people waste it less, okay? And so, if we can continue to recycle phones, that means that it ends up in less landfills, and that means that it's better for our planet, okay? If we look at this passage, it literally said that recycling smartphones prevents the contamination of land, water, and air, which occur when smartphones are disposed in landfill. Recycling can also reduce the amount of raw materials that are mined, energy are used, yada yada yada. So, the criterion is the reason. So, the reason why we want to recycle them is to prevent pollution, right? It's to prevent from harmful things going into the landfill. Now, there are lot of trap answers here, okay? The biggest trap answer here is the size of the phone. lot of students are going to select the size of the phone because they read this highlighted in yellow. It says that although consumers prefer thinner smartphones, they are more challenging for recyclers to take apart. So, lot of students might think, well, if smartphones that are thinner are harder to recycle, then the criterion to make it easier to recycle is the size of the phone." But remember, the question says that it's to reduce. And so, if we are reducing the size of the phone, that means that it's harder for it to recycle. It says that thinner phones are more difficult to recycle. So, if we want to make it easier, or we want to allow for the better or easier recycling of the phones, we want to make them bigger. We want to increase the size of the phone, not reduce it, okay? So, that's very very tricky answer. Don't get confused about that. All right, over here it says that most smartphones are use rechargeable lithium-ion battery, and the anode contains lithium embedded into carbon matrix. And so, figure one shows the equations representing this chemical reaction. So, number five asks us to cite evidence from half reaction one to demonstrate that there's transfer of electrons. So, all we have to do here is we just have to describe what's happening in the correct reaction. So, in this case, we're only focusing on half reaction one. Now, transfer of electrons means that electrons are moving from one place to another. Now, in chemistry, we represent electrons with the symbol E-. And so, notice here how we start with our cobalt oxide, we add lithium lithium ion, and then we are also adding E-. And so, E- is another word for electron. And so, we have electrons on the left side of the equation, but not on the right side. And so, that's enough proof for the Regents to say, "Hey, because have electrons on the left side, but not the right side, that means those electrons were transferred into the product." And so, it's those electrons have been transferred inside of this lithium cobalt oxide. That's all we have to state to get full credit on number five. So, if you wrote that, you'd get full credit. Now, all right, so that's the end of this video, the end of this cluster. If you have any questions, feel free to let me know in the comments down below. If you like this video and you learned something, please feel free to leave like and subscribe to this channel. It really helps me out, it helps other students get this content. at the same time, if you want even more help with studying for this brand new chemistry Regents exam, feel free to check out the two videos that are in the description of this one. They go over even more practice problems and practice clusters, and there's also more videos going over the old format of the chemistry Regents exam. if you are studying for other Regents exams this June, feel free to check out my playlists for these topics. go over all of these Regents exams. have playlists for all of them, in-depth review for all of them. So, feel free to check those out. hope you guys learned something. Good luck studying. Hope you have nice day.