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The article examines the mole concept in high school and introductory college chemistry textbooks in the U.S. All texts that present a definition in terms of C-12 introduce and define concepts about the atom prior to introducing the mole. The connection between the definition of the mole presented in the text and the concepts about atoms are introduced before the mole concept is developed. The major impediments to successful chemical problem solving are; insufficient understanding of the concepts involved, use of memorized algorithms or rules and inability to transfer understanding between the atomic of molecular and the macroscopic levels in solving problems.