Monday, October 18, 2010

Memorizing Organic Chem Reactions

Hey Alex,

I have a question about the orgo rxns at the end of chapter 5.  I know you said in your e-mail that we did not need to know them but to clarify again, does that mean most of chapter 5 except E1 and E2 we do not need to know like hyrogenations, electrophilic additions, hydroboration, etc? Thanks!
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Let me add some nuance to what I said in the email and in class:
It's not that you should just ignore those reactions and not know them at all, but I wouldn't sit there and memorize them.  Consider them examples of the same theme -- nucleophile attacks electrophile, and then what happens from there?  (It will depend on the reaction conditions and functional groups involved.)  I would definitely understand Sn1, Sn2, E1 and E2 pretty well since they're often used on the test, but I wouldn't know hydroboration by heart.

When you see reactions in the Orgo book, don't just look through the reaction and nod.  Make sure you understand why each step occurs -- when you truly understand the movement of electrons that occurs in Organic Chemsitry, then you can easily do the reactions on Test Day you may never have seen before.

I hope this helps clarify!

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