The previously published Anchoring Concepts Content Map (ACCM) from the ACS Examinations Institute is updated. Through the development process of the ACCM for other subdisciplines, changes have been made at the top two levels, and these changes need to be reflected in the previously published maps. In addition, a large-scale project to align test items from ACS Exams over the past 20 years revealed specific omissions in the initially published General Chemistry ACCM.

To provide tools for programmatic assessment related to the use of ACS Exams in undergraduate chemistry courses, the ACS Exams Institute has built a content map that applies to the entire undergraduate curriculum. At the top two levels, the grain size of the content classification is large and spans the entire undergraduate curriculum. At the bottom two levels, the grain size of the content is more fine and tuned to specific course levels of the curriculum. This paper presents all four levels of the map as identified for first-year general chemistry.

The ability to coherently assess content knowledge throughout an entire undergraduate career represents a significant advantage for programmatic assessment strategies. Chemistry, as a discipline, has an unusual tool in this regard because of the nationally standardized exams from the ACS Exams Institute. These exams are norm-referenced and allow chemistry departments to make comparisons between the performance of their own students relative to national samples; however, currently there appears to be no systematic means for noting students' content knowledge growth over a four-year degree. The Exams Institute is undertaking the task of organizing content along an anchoring concept or "big ideas" framework to facilitate this type of analysis.

As a way to assist chemistry departments with programmatic assessment of undergraduate chemistry curricula, the ACS Examinations Institute is devising a map of the content taught throughout the undergraduate curriculum. The structure of the map is hierarchal, with large grain size at the top and more content detail as one moves "down" the levels of the map, of which there are four levels total. This paper presents these four levels of the map with reference to second-year, organic chemistry.

The nature of the bonding interactions between aryl isocyanides and gold and palladium surfaces was investigated using attenuated total refection infrared (ATR-IR) spectroscopy. The experiments were conducted by evaporating a film of either palladium or gold onto a ZnSe internal reflection element (IRE). The studies reveal that aryl isocyanides form only σ-bonded species when coordinated to gold and that these species are bonded relatively weakly to the gold surface, evidenced by their ready removal when subjected to ultrasound (sonication). In contrast, aryl isocyanides form at least two distinct types of species when bonded to a palladium surface:  one effectively σ-bonded, as with gold, but much more tenaciously, and the other species bonded strongly to the surface by a σ/π synergistic interaction. The presence of π back-donation from the palladium surface into the isocyanide π system provides a rationale for the observation that barriers to conduction are lower when diisocyanides bridge palladium electrodes than when diisocyanides or dithiols bridge gold electrodes.