This study examines differences in the ability of undergraduate students, taught in lecture-based or context-based general chemistry courses, to describe reaction kinetics. The subjects included 210 students from a residential science college at a large research university. Two open-ended questions were used to engage students' surface knowledge of reaction kinetics in three classes (two lecture-based chemistry, one context-based chemistry). The constant comparison method was used to generate common themes mentioned by students for a quantitative assessment. The results showed that students in the context-based course accurately discussed mathematics (59% v. 31%), energy (44% v. 7.8%), rate-changing factors (46% v. 22%), and the particulate level (27% v. 14%) significantly more than those in the lecture-based course. Despite a much lower emphasis on quantitative problems, the context-based students were more likely to include accurate equations than their lecture counterparts (51% v. 11%). Through a separate qualitative analysis, half of the context-based and one quarter of the lecture-based responses were judged as good or excellent. These findings provide evidence of the success of context-based learning in providing students with accurate and easily accessible knowledge of reaction kinetics.