I bombed my first attempt at first year chemistry whilst at uni. Being a compulsory core subject, I had to pass it second time around or I would have been prevented from doing any second year subjects.

I don't know if it's changed, but back in those days (1977) you had to be able to create the main part of the periodic table from scratch. You were given a blank table at the start of an exam which needed to be completed to help you answer some of the questions. (As I recall, there were no marks awarded for completing the table itself!!)

I now forget all the pnemonics I created (maybe they weren't so good after all!) to regenerate the table, but the one for the 5th row went:

Ruby.........(Rubidium - Rb)
Strong's..........(Strontium - Sr)
Indian..........(Indium - In)
Snake..........(Tin - Sn)
Sobs..........(Antimony - Sb)
Terribly..........(Tellurium - Te)
In..........(Iodine - I)
Exile..........(Xenon - Xe)

I was terribly proud of all the pnemonics because each word contained the letters for an element's symbol and, if there was a doubt as to which element it was, the pronunciation helped out (eg to differentiate between Indium and Iodine in the 5th row.)

I passed!

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