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PART II Analysis of the examination syllabuses Sixth‐form school chemistry is closely tied to the syllabuses of the GCE at ‘A/S’ level and in consequence the most practical method of judging whether textbooks provide the requirements of sixth‐form work is to compare them with the examination syllabuses. Recently this has been made difficult because of rather revolutionary changes in some of the GCE Boards syllabuses. Oxford, Oxford and Cambridge, and the Joint Matriculation Board of the Northern Universities, introduced modifications for the 1964 examination, the Southern Universities for the 1965 examination, and recently Cambridge has introduced an alternative syllabus (T) for the 1966 examination. The other Cambridge examination, now known as ‘Alternative N’, was modified to its present form in 1954. London are in the process of revision.

Twenty‐one textbooks of physical chemistry are analysed in this part of the review. One other textbook in this category was received for review, but it had been heavily criticised in several scientific journals; the criticisms were deemed just, and so it seemed better to ignore it. Nine of these textbooks are only about physical chemistry, the others couple it with either inorganic alone, or with both inorganic and organic.

PART IV Inorganic chemistry textbooks. Seventeen textbooks of inorganic chemistry are considered in this part of the review, and the inorganic sections of the syllabuses of the three GCE Boards previously discussed are analysed.

PART V Organic chemistry textbooks. Twenty textbooks of organic chemistry are considered in this part of the review and the organic sections of the syllabuses of three GCE Boards are analysed.

For students of chemistry at the Advanced and Scholarship level of the General Certificate of Education, there are at least 23 books on sale for the physical chemistry part of their syllabus, 15 for the inorganic, 17 for the organic and 31 for various aspects of the practical. This field review, to be published in six parts, is an attempt at objective appraisal of these books.

PART VI Practical chemistry textbooks and miscellaneous books. Thirty‐nine practical chemistry textbooks were received from publishers for this part of the review and they have been briefly analyzed under the headings Physical, Inorganic, Organic, Quantitative analysis, and Other features, in Tables 1–4. It has not been possible to examine these in the same detail as the theory books previously considered. A number of other books which are used at ‘A/S’ level were also received and these have been tabulated: problem and calculation books in Table 5, and others in Table 6.