Edexcel A-Level Chemistry data sheet: A complete guide for 2026

The Pearson Edexcel A-Level Chemistry data booklet (specification 9CH0) is the reference insert provided with Paper 1, Paper 2, and Paper 3. Compared with the AQA booklet, it tends to be longer and denser, and gives you more printed information to lean on during the exam, in particular a Pauling electronegativity table and a full standard electrode potentials table that AQA students don't get.

Knowing the booklet inside out is one of the higher-leverage things you can do before walking into your Edexcel papers. Students who've never opened a copy lose time hunting for an IR band or an E° value that's right there on the page. The five minutes it takes to skim the booklet during revision pays back across every spectroscopy, electrochemistry, and indicator question.

This guide walks through every section of the official Pearson Edexcel 9CH0 booklet, in the order it actually appears, and flags what's printed for Edexcel students that isn't on the other boards' booklets.

The Pearson Edexcel 9CH0 booklet is organised into seven sections, in this order: Physical constants, infrared spectroscopy, nuclear magnetic resonance, Pauling electronegativities, indicators, standard electrode potentials, and the Periodic Table of the Elements.

Two of those, the electronegativity table and the standard electrode potentials table, are Edexcel-specific. AQA doesn't print either, and OCR doesn't print a full E° list either. If you've revised with AQA materials and switched to Edexcel papers, you'll find more printed information available than you're used to.

What's not on the booklet is worth flagging. There's no bond enthalpy table. There's no mathematical formulae section. And there's no IUPAC nomenclature reference. Any equation like q = mcΔT, pV = nRT, or the Arrhenius equation is expected to be known from memory, or it's given inside the question stem on the specific question that uses it.

Page 1 of the booklet lists the physical constants you'll need across the course. These are universal values and don't change between papers, so the booklet effectively means you never have to memorise them.

Section 2 is one of the more detailed IR tables on any A-Level Chemistry data booklet. Pearson groups the bands by vibration type (C-H stretches, C-H bends, N-H, O-H, C=C, C=O, and triple bond stretches), then breaks each group down by which kind of molecule the bond sits in.

This matters because Edexcel's IR questions are routinely more granular than AQA's. Where an AQA spectrum might just ask 'is this a carbonyl?', an Edexcel question can ask you to distinguish a saturated alkyl ketone (1720-1700 cm⁻¹) from an aryl ketone (1700-1680 cm⁻¹) or an ester (1750-1735 cm⁻¹). Reading the right row of the table is the whole skill.

Page 3 of the booklet shows the NMR chemical shift data as two horizontal bar charts rather than two tables, which is the main visual difference between the Edexcel booklet and the AQA one.

The top chart is ¹H NMR chemical shifts relative to tetramethylsilane (TMS), running from 0 to about 12 ppm. Boxes mark out the typical regions for different proton environments: A box for aromatic H-C=C (around 5 to 6 ppm) overlapping with arenes, a box for amide CON-H, a box for H-C-O in alcohols, ethers, and esters, a box for COO-H carboxylic acid protons at around 9 to 12 ppm, and so on. A few reference compounds are pinned on too: Benzene at 7.27, ethene at 5.28, methanol (CH₃OH) at 3.39, and propanone at 2.10.

The bottom chart is ¹³C NMR chemical shifts relative to TMS, running from about -40 to 220 ppm. The same idea: Boxes mark out the ranges for different carbon environments. C-C and C-N at the high end of the alkyl region, C=C and aromatic C-C in the middle, C-OH and C-Cl in the C-O / C-X region, and the three carbonyl boxes (esters and acids around 160-185, then ketones, then aldehydes at the far left).

In practice, you read the chart exactly the way you'd read a table. Find the peak's shift, look up which box(es) it sits in, and read the environment off the label.

Page 4 prints a small periodic-table-style grid of Pauling electronegativity values. Hydrogen sits at 2.1, fluorine tops out at 4.0, and the main-group and transition elements are filled in between. This is the table you'd use to predict polarity of a bond without having to remember individual values.

A rough rule of thumb: A difference of about 0.4 to 1.7 between two bonded atoms gives a polar covalent bond. A difference of more than around 1.7 tends toward ionic character. Edexcel often tests this in questions about bond polarity, dipole moments, and reactivity of haloalkanes, where the electronegativity difference between C and the halogen sets the strength of the C-X dipole.

This table is an Edexcel-only feature. AQA and OCR students have to recall or estimate electronegativity values from periodic trends instead.

Page 4 also prints a table of acid-base indicators with their pKin values at 298 K, their colour in acid, their pH transition range, and their colour in alkali.

The table covers ten indicators in order of pKin, from thymol blue (acid) at pKin 1.7, through methyl orange (3.7), bromophenol blue (4.0), bromocresol green (4.7), methyl red (5.1), litmus, bromothymol blue (7.0), phenol red (7.9), to phenolphthalein in ethanol at pKin 9.3.

In the exam, you'll use this table for titration questions, especially those involving weak acids or weak bases, where picking the right indicator depends on matching the equivalence point pH to an indicator whose transition range covers that pH. For a strong acid against a weak base, you'd pick something around methyl orange or bromocresol green. For a weak acid against a strong base, you'd pick phenolphthalein. The table means you don't have to remember the exact pH ranges; you just need to know how to pick an indicator whose range falls on the steep part of the titration curve.

Page 5 is the standard electrode potentials table. Edexcel prints E° values for aqueous systems at 298 K, written in the standard convention with the hydrogen half-cell as the left-hand electrode and the half-equations written as reduction processes. The table runs from strongly negative E° values at the top (Na⁺ + e⁻ ⇌ Na at -2.71 V) through the standard reference H⁺ + e⁻ ⇌ ½H₂ at 0.00 V, down to strongly positive values at the bottom (H₂O₂ + 2H⁺ + 2e⁻ ⇌ 2H₂O at +1.77 V).

This is the workhorse table for electrochemistry questions. You'll use it to calculate the EMF of a cell (E°(cathode) minus E°(anode)), to predict the feasibility of a redox reaction (a positive overall cell potential indicates a thermodynamically feasible reaction), and to rank species by their oxidising or reducing strength (a more positive E° value means a stronger oxidising agent on the left-hand side).

The final printed page of the booklet is the periodic table. Each element shows its symbol, name, atomic (proton) number, and relative atomic mass. The lanthanide and actinide series sit in pulled-out rows below the main body.

Use the printed Mr values for every mole calculation. Edexcel's mark scheme is calibrated to the booklet, so even if your textbook gives a value to one more decimal place, the booklet's value is the one that scores marks.

Like the AQA periodic table, the layout doubles as a prompt for electron configurations and trend questions. Block (s, p, d, f) tells you which subshell is being filled, period gives the principal energy level, and group sets the valence electron count. Reading across a period, atomic radius shrinks and ionisation energy generally rises. Reading down a group, the opposite.

Where AQA's data booklet is short (one periodic table, one IR table, two NMR tables, and a page of biological structures), Edexcel's is among the more comprehensive of the three major boards.

Edexcel prints a Pauling electronegativities table; AQA and OCR do not. Edexcel prints a full standard electrode potentials table running to around 30 half-equations; AQA prints no E° values at all, and OCR's data sheet doesn't include a comparable E° list either. Edexcel also prints the indicators table with pKin values and colour changes, which AQA and OCR omit.

In the other direction, Edexcel doesn't print the page of biological structures that AQA does (the amino acids, DNA bases, Haem B). For nomenclature and structure of organic biomolecules, Edexcel candidates work from memory.

The practical implication: If you switch from Edexcel revision to AQA past papers (or vice versa) you'll find different information at your fingertips. Always practise with your own board's booklet open.

Open the booklet the moment the exam starts. Glance at the section headings to remind yourself what's there. The booklet has more pages than AQA's, so a quick mental map of where each table lives saves seconds later.

For calculation questions, pull the constants you need from page 1 and write them at the top of your working. For spectroscopy, match peaks to the IR table on page 2 or the NMR charts on page 3. For electrochemistry, page 5 is your friend; for titration questions involving indicator choice, page 4 is.

Keep the booklet open beside your paper for the whole exam. Reaching for a value should be muscle memory, not a search. The more past papers you sit with the official booklet open, the faster that becomes.

The first mistake is reading the wrong IR row. Edexcel's table breaks C=O down into a long list (aldehydes, alkyl ketones, aryl ketones, alkyl acids, aryl acids, anhydrides, acyl halides, esters, amides) and a quick scan can land you on the wrong subtype. Read the row label, not just the wavenumber range.

The second mistake is using the wrong direction on the standard electrode potentials table. The values are written as reductions. To calculate the EMF of a cell, take E°(cathode) minus E°(anode), where the cathode is the more positive E° (so it's the one reduced) and the anode is the more negative E° (so it's the one oxidised, written in reverse).

The third is confusing pKin with pH on the indicators table. The pKin is roughly the centre of the indicator's colour-change range, not the pH at the equivalence point of any specific titration. The right indicator is one whose colour-change range falls on the steep part of the titration curve.

The fourth is using Mr values from memory rather than from the periodic table. Even small differences propagate through a mole calculation and can lose you the final mark. Always use the booklet.