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!
This is a summary practice problem set on organic acids and bases. The questions cover: The definition of organic acids and bases, as well as conjugate acids and bases, drawing acid-base mechanism, acid and base strength based on pKa, factors … Read more
Although amines are considered weak bases, in general, their presence in neutral organic molecules makes the basic sites in those structures because they are stronger bases and nucleophiles than other neutral organic compounds. For example, in DNA, there are aromatic … Read more
Preparation of Thiols Thiols (RSH) are prepared by relying on the high nucleophilicity of sulfur. For example, the reaction of sodium hydrosulfide with unhindered alkyl halides is the most common approach for preparing thiols. Because of the high … Read more
Thiols are sulfur analogues of alcohols, containing an SH group in place of the OH group. When naming a thiol, we follow the same rules we discussed earlier for the IUPAC nomenclature rules for alcohols, with the focus on giving … Read more
In the previous post, we talked about the Hofmann reaction where amines are converted into quaternary ammonium salts and later to alkenes. Remember, amines, and especially the conjugate bases of amines, are strong bases and therefore, they are poor leaving … Read more
We have seen, in different reactions such as the aldol condensation, alkylation, and alpha halogenation, that enolates are very good nucleophiles capable of attacking electrophilic centers. Interestingly, the halogenation of aldehydes and ketones at the alpha position works with both acid … Read more
In the previous post, we talked about the aldol reaction, which occurs when an aldehyde is treated with a base. The role of the base here is to deprotonate the ɑ position of the aldehyde and thus convert it into … Read more
When 1,2-diols (vicinal diols) are treated with acid, a rearrangement takes place, and the diol is transformed to a ketone. This reaction is known as the pinacol rearrangement since pinacol is the simplest diol capable of undergoing such … Read more
Introduction and Nomenclature of Diols In an earlier article, we discussed the nomenclature of alcohols and mentioned that the presence of a hydroxyl group is identified by changing the parent suffix from “e” to “ol”: Now, compounds with … Read more
In the previous post, we talked about optical rotation which is caused by chiral compounds when plane-polarized light passes through their samples. An interesting feature about optical rotation was the discovery that enantiomers rotate the plane-polarized light to an equal … Read more
