The only way of mastering any topic in Organic Chemistry is doing lots of practice problems. And I know, seeing my students, that starting to work on a practice problem may be the hardest part as you don’t know where to start. It is difficult to visualize what where the double bond would be moved if you follow the five curved arrows crammed in one step. Here is the trick:
We are always told to think before doing something. Fair enough. But let me tell you, it is also strangely enough, that in Organic Chemistry, it is often better to draw and then think about what you did (not in the lab though). It is much easier to have a structure in front of you and check for errors and improvements.
Do the first step, take the pencil and you will see that the ball gets rolling.
You have all these Organic Chemistry Practice Problems waiting to be solved!
Many addition reactions to alkenes are stereoselective since one (set) of stereoisomers is formed from a starting material that is not stereoisomeric. For example, the bromination of cyclohexene forms two enantiomers of trans-1,2-dibromocyclohexane. The cis-dibromo isomer is not formed, and … Read more
This is a summary practice problem of Alkyne reactions including the key reactions such as: Hydrohalogenation Halogenation Acid-Catalyzed hydration Hydroboration-Oxidation Ozonolysis Reduction to alkanes Reduction to cis and trans alkenes and others.
The benzylic position is quite reactive and presents a useful synthetic tool for preparing many aromatic compounds. The reason for this reactivity is the resonance stabilization of the benzylic carbon, regardless of whether the reaction goes through an ionic or … Read more
We have already talked about the ortho, para, and meta directions in electrophilic aromatic substitution and their combined effect for disubstituted benzene. This should allow us to synthesize different aromatic compounds starting from benzene. For example, how can we synthesize … Read more
In the previous post, we saw that a benzene ring with an activator undergoes electrophilic aromatic substitution at the ortho and para positions, while deactivated aromatic rings react at the meta position: Here is an interesting question: Where … Read more
The Diels-Alder reaction is very important in Organic Chemistry. In fact, Otto Diels and Kurt Alder received the 1950’s Chemistry Nobel Prize for the discovery of this reaction back in 1928. You will see it quite often in organic synthesis … Read more
The Stereochemistry of Alkene Addition Reactions In the previous post, we talked about the Markovnikov’s rule and learned that in the addition reaction of HX to an unsymmetrical alkene, the H adds to the carbon that already has the greater … Read more
Torsional and Steric Strain In the previous post, we talked about the Newman projections where we also covered the relative energies of anti, gauche, and syn conformations. The destabilization of certain conformations is due to Steric or Torsional strain. These two … Read more
In the previous post, we talked about drawing the two conformations of cyclohexane (ring-flip). Remember that conformations are different arrangements of atoms originating as a result of rotation(s) about a single bond(s). This means that the ring flip is a reversible process … Read more
Choosing Between SN1, SN2, E1, and E2 If you are reading this post, welcome to the world of SN1, SN2, E1, and E2 business! The good news is that you are not alone and that also, we are going to make … Read more
